New-York tribune., 1920-05-16

AM/ ana early IN the procession
V arrives the group which
performs under the name
OF "Others for 1018-an Anthology of
the New Verse" (Nicholas l.. Brown
When the first "Others" APPEARED there
was great stir about revolutionary
poetry and lyrical freedom, but the
current anthology indicates that Big
Brother Alfred Kreymborg's brethren
arc becoming occupied with work that
is less new and more verse.
The 1919 volume, like it's forebears
gives an impression that some writer's
are covering their inability to handle
verse forms by amorphous arrange.
ments Of lines and their lack of ideas
by opaque metaphors, but in tho col.
lection there are poems which are not
only interesting but even intelligiblc
without copy Of DR.. Brill's tract on
psychoanalysis..
Conrad Aiken, Witter Bynner, Robert
Frost, Vachel Lindsay, Haniel Long and
Lola Ridge--none of them basically
otherwise, are represented by chaiac-
terlstic snatches of their recent work
Carl Sandburg is included in the rep
ertory, but the four selections credited
to him would give the reader to whom
Mr.. Sandburg is stranger no notion
of his real powers. Emanuel Carnevali
has at least one fetching dltty, "Sere.
nade," an unconventionally humorous
bit, and Arturo Giovanitti contributes
grimly stirring prose poem, "The
Walker"
More Of the "Others"
Donald Evans, Wallace Gould, Orrick
Johns, Mr.. Krsymborg, Nina 10y, Eve
lyn Scott, Wallace Stevens and Will.
| lam Carlos Williams are some of the
more other Others, and Marianne
Moore makes series of excellent puz.
zles for the young with verses that
begin and end in the middle of sen.
tences.
Mr.. Kreymborg is neither as anus
Ing nor as exasperating as in the past
and promising young colored singer
Fenton Johnson, reveals himself as ar
aspirant for the honor of being the
black Edgar Lee Masters in a set OF
prose sketches which are neither orig.
inal nor edifyng. Mr.. Johnson was
more worth while when he sang merely
for the music that was in him.
Evelyn Scott cpitomizes the "Others'
movement in her Monochrome:
Gray sails,
Gray sky drifting down 10 the sea
DID, ugly and stern,
The night lies upon the water,
And 1t quivers in the twilight
Like tortured belly.
Here is quaint attempt to turr
more or less pretty little verses into
something frightfully significant by in
terpreting nature in terms of dyspepsia
And here are "Others." The genuine
"Other" cannot leave we'll enough
alone. He (more often, she) insists or
! making it worse.
blue Undershirts"
One of the "Others," Orrick Johns
has published volume of plays anc
, verses, BLACK Branches" (Pagan)
which contains his immortal "Blue Un.
dershirts":
Blue undershirts
Upon a line,
1t Is not necessary to say to you
Anything about it
What they DO,
What They might DO blue under
shirts.
Yet, with all the obscure nonsense ir
BLACK Branches" Mr.. Johns is, on oc.
casion, poet of no mean order Some
times when he is lucid he is only banal
as is the way of the genuine "Other,'
but here and there he achieves verses
Of distinction, as in his Return"
Come, then, all my Dreams
Come back and be at homo
See, like the fame between the logs
You will take life again.
You will creep higher and higher,
o wounded ono.
q you of bitter love,
. you who were too great and angular
For courts,
o YOU who could not ever speak
So full your desire
Come. then, undminished all MY dreams
Come back and be al home.
Speaking of "Others" leads to "Some
thing Else Again" Doubleday, Pape)