New-York tribune., 1921-10-23
The New Poets Of the Day
Interpreted by One of Them
Marguerite Wilkinson Throws Light Of
Criticism Verse by Young
Singers
BY Willis Fletcher johnson

NEW VOICES. BY Marguerite Wilkinson
The Macmillan Company. s225-
N RUDENCE admonishes us to adapt
for current guidance the familiar
rule concerning tastes and say,
dc poematis non disputandum est. Yet
the new school of poetry, as we may
call 1t, must be rec}coned with as one
of the salient features of twentieth
century authorship; and since this is
go we must gratefully hail this most
authoritative work Of Miss Wilkin-
sons in It's new and enlarged edition.
II 1t were nothing but an explication
or 'championing of free verse" and
cognate forms Of poesy it would be wei
come. But 1t is far more than that.
1t is the most comprehensive and
scholarly treatise on that special
theme of which we have knowledge,
and it is, in addition, one of the best
discussions, from the point of view of
gifted poet, of the whole subject Of
modern poetry. 1t is especially valua-
bic because OF its breadth Of view. its
tolerant catholicity and it's absence
| Of clique propaganda. We are made
to feel. FOR example, that while the
author justly admires the genius Of Amy
Lowell and Constance Lindsay Skinner
and their compeers, she is not blind to
the splendor of the great victorians.7
Her work Is in general so thoroughly
sound piece of interpretative criti-
! ri GO1 ard In vi az
attained SO wide recognition az a high
authority, in England as well as in
America, that 1t will not be tnvidious
to call attention to two or three ap-
parent infelicities--not errdrs 40 much
as expressions which are in danger of
being misunderstood. Thus she speaks
OF the time few years ago when "the
conventions of poetic language were
held to be as unchanging as the laws
OF the Medes and Persians" and when
azure" and "beauteous" were consid-
cred poetic words, and "blue" and
beautiful prosaic words. AS it
stands her reference would seem 70
some to mean that such was the gen
eral estimate Of those-and other
words in all time before the present,
when "the modern poet favors the
words that used TO be considered
prosaic, for he finds that they are
part Of our speech and therefore a part
of our life" The fact is, of course,
that the usage Of which Miss Wilkin-
son complains was confined to COM
paratively short period and to a small
number Cd. minor poets. With the
great poets of the nineteenth century
blue" and "beautiful' were favorite
words. Note, for example:
And, drowned in yonder living blue,
The lark becomes a sightless song:
and in poem of an earlier age:
Sweet harmonisti and beautiful as
sweet!
And young as beautiful
with, little later in the same great
poem, an illuminating use of the other
word, suggesting the different shade
of meaning,
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay.
Miss Wilkinsons reference to the
growth of democracy and its influence
upon the poets choice of themes should
not be misunderstood, yet we fear that
there are those who will catch upon
1t and not go on to read her perfectly
true declaration that English poetry
from the beginning has kept on grow
ing stronger and stronger in the
spirit of democracy" To realize that,
and to realize how strnrr uas tha4