The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-11-06
BY scHAcHNo EPSTEIN.

TIHn creative activity Of Alexander Biloxi enters
L a new nhase IN the poems ~The Twelve" and
',sovthsans." This sudden endorsement meets
a response ranging from surprise to mystinca-
ton. "Hoa did it happen" asks the "popuhst
Tvanov Rasunnik. chat Block, the decadent the
high priest of individualism, the prophet OF art
for arts sake, for whom poetry is a matter OF
form and not OF content, how did Block come TO
dascend from HIS heavenly Damascus TO this
simply. bloody earth OF Ours?" For Ivanov Ras-
umnIk this is a riddle. He sees in it the great
miracle of the November revolution, when the
ideas Of the ~populists" spread like wildfire and
even took possession Of so extreme an indlVld-
11alist as Alexander Blok who had always mrs
trusted the collective viii Of the people and e1-
alted fhe personal will Of the individual lVanoI
Rasumnik claims Biloxi as an adherent OF the Lett
Social Revolutionsts, who saw in the OCTOBER
revolution the fulfillment Of that special mission
Of the Russian people, which Herzen and the
revolutionary "Slavophiles" had predicted.
Other Russian critics offer a similar interpreta-
ton Of the new manner Of Biloxi, tho their sx-
PLANTATION of his point of view Is somewhat an
fereut. For most of them, 1.-The Twelve and
"Scythians" mark turning point not only IN
the creative work of Biloxi, but in the whole OF
n -
the MARKHAM, Lvov-Rogatshevsky, who pointed out
the new horizons which the November revolu-
ton opened to Russian poetry, which now tends
to become the expressions of the people, the col
lective creation of the masses, and not OF the
individual intellectual the offspring Of the we'll
educated aristocracy. But the change in Blocks
own creative activity, Lvov-Rogatshevsky, offers
no more satisfactory explanation than IvanoV
of
the source of Blocks earlier work. They have
failed to find the routes thru which Blocks impul-
sive spirit was nourished during the entire per-
Tod of his creative activity. There is in the
developnent of Alexander Biloxi great similarity
to tbat1of the Belgian, Emile Verhaeren, who had
also passed thru the evolution from individual
ism to collectivism, from the expressions of per
.onal axnerience to that of the masses. The two
Doets differ in fact only in their atmosphere,
their national surroundings Verhaeren was a
4vuical son of Flanders, where the remnants OF
feudalism intermingled with the rising capital
ism. II was to the cominglng of these two
euHures that Basalget, the best biographer OF
Verhaersen attributed the "poetical chaos OF the
Arst period of Verhaerens creative activity,
chaos which gradually disappeared as the feudal
rulture was absorbed by capitalism. Verhaersens
the Fleming. became true son of Brussels. He
departed from nature, which he had sung SO
beautifully. and which had expressed so well his
individual mood and he came to the great city
with its tall factory chimneys and its eternal roar
There he mingled with the crowds in the noise OF
machinery and the pulsation of locomotives, he
heard the music of the future. And this music
was interviewer with the tones OF the decaHng
villages Of Flanders, their sorrow and despair.
Thus Verhaerens creative work became the ex-
preston of TWO conflicting cultures. The deeper
the despair of the vanishing culture, the more
CAV and jubilant the notes of the strong young
civilization which was replacing it. The city had
conquered the village and out of the victorious
city rose the Dawn" OF verhaeren. This natural
evolution of Verhaeren as the true son Of Bel
gium and time, explains the divergence between
the creative activity of. Verhaerens first period,
and his last, between his individualism and col
lectivism. The latter evolves naturally from the
former, because such was the evolution of the
whole Belgium culture.
A LEXANDER biloxi Is the son of St. Peters
"A burg, where EAST" meets West" and Asia
becomes Europe. These two cultures Biloxi i'm
bibed with his mothers milk, and he became the
greatest follower Of Dostoeysky, for whom st.
H.