696 THE SATURDAY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, FEBRUARY i, 1930 "Resurgence" or anything that can possibly Round about Parnassus be twisted to bear some relation to it, and presto! there's a page out of his new book By WILLIAM ROSE BEN:&T which will appear in the Spring from a small press which will bind and print it very PDWIN VALENTINE MITCHELL of a mild wit, and his parody of a typical badly and add one more atrocity to the ar­ •^ Hartford, Connecticut, has been pub­ Robinsonian sonnet is not so bad. We pre­ ray of mediocrity. There are plenty of lishing lately several attractive books of fer his book, at least, to "Refractions," by poets of the type of which we speak in this poems. Thoug'h of no supreme value, Nancy Leon Fleischman, a hasty handful of verse country, there are phalanxes of them! Byrd Turner's "A Riband on My Rein" and and prose poems from Horace Liveright, Down in Greenwich Village there is Mr. Eleanor O'Rourke Koenig's "Two on An which reveal to us no slightest reason for Henry Harrison, who, to do him justice, is Old Pathway" are pleasant to read. Miss publication. This kind of thing, for in­ not that sort of a poet. Neither has he Turner is the more seasoned poet, and there stance, is supremely not worth doing, as any achieved anything remarkable. His newest by Karel Capek is somewhat more tang to her work than to ordinarily literate person can turn out dozens book (of his own, for he has been very gen­ Miss Koenig's. Still, the latter has some of such observations within a quarter of an erous about publishing the work of a host author of "R.U.R." original ideas. Juxtaposed to these two hour. of Village confreres) is brought out by him­ ladies we next discover two new volumes in self, entitled "Myself Limited," and its Foreword by The Yale Series of Younger Poets, Henri DESIRE jacket bears opinions from Joseph Auslan- JOHN GALSWORTHY Faust and Francis Claiborne Mason. The Your lips der, William Griffith, Shaemas O'Sheel, and former's "Half-Light and Overtones" is Run red across your face; Benjamin Musser, but they do not say any­ "They are penetrating, slightly better than what one would expect Glutinous and soft, they flow thing very definite, save Musser. In such from the title, but only slightly. The latter's Into your eyes poems as "Nonchalantly" (wholly grace­ they are unusual, they "This Unchanging Mask" is even less strik­ And stain the white nuall ful) and "Charitable Lady" (stingingly have power, and they ing. Of your forehead. ironic) Harrison appears at his best, al­ have flavor.''—Galsworthy ' And this bringfs us to a dozen or so books though elsewhere he is not without his in­ which we really have very little to say about And yet writing such as the above finds eptitudes. But he takes pains more often $2.50 at all bookstores. one way or the other. Such books inevitably encouragement. It is not even particularly than is usual with minor poets. When he crowd every poetry shelf. They are capably clever as an impression; it slightly nauseates has reached the point of taking even more BREIVXAIVO'lS^ enough written, displaying talent; but there but is not even a real "shocker." And oceans he will probably produce something valu­ Publishers New York are so many of them and they are, after all, and oceans of such verse billows about the able, for he is rather more sharply observant quite a bit alike. Caroline Giltinan's brief lintels of magazines and publishing offices of life than his fellows. lyrics in "The Veiled Door," brought out each year, composed by writers who simply Jessie B. Rittenhouse brought out "The by the Macmillan Company; Mary Coles will not take any pains. Rollins Book of Verse" at the Angel Alley Roget^s International Carrington's "Pilgrim Paths," done by The Which leads us to an old inquiry. Why Press, Winter Park, Florida, because she be­ Bookfellows; Isabel Fiske Conant's "Dream won't they take the pains.? Everyone knows lieves that "the creative urged comes with Again" (Fowler Wright Ltd., London) ; that in the best poetry, in great poetry, an youth, and if it is thwarted, or stifled by too THESAURUS Gertrude Huntington McGiffert's "Cast in element appears which defies analysis; but many other concerns, it is likely not to reassert "Words grouped by Ideas" Bronze," The Mosher Press; Caroline Ha­ we are not speaking of great poetry; we are itself." In her association with Rollins Col­ zard's "The Homing," The Harbor Press, speaking of the improvement of the general lege she has constantly kindled an interest in Complete Hat of synonyms, an­ tonyms, phrases, slang, etc., in and Lillie HoUiday Kellam's "Old Love" run of versification appearing in all these poetry among the undergraduates, and it fact everything to help find the from Dorrance—all present to us the medi­ little books. It is obvious that the writers these examples of their work that she has right word. The one mdispensa- ble book for all writers. A tations of sensitive temperaments. Mrs. Co- know nothing really of mental discipline, collected in her book do not impress us ex­ necessary complement of the dic­ nant is, perhaps, the most original, and Miss and without mental discipline nothing really traordinarily there is still plenty of evidence tionary. Hazard and Mrs. McGiffert are very culti­ good is ever written. of sound training and of genuine enthusiasm Now $3 Copy vated, but in none of these books is real fire What is the process, one wonders. The for a fine craft on the part of the writers. struck from flint. It is much the same with poet withdraws into his own room in the THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO. Charles Norman, whose "Poems" were 893 Fourth Ave., New York Lilian White Spencer's "Arrowheads," house and sits letting his wits wander. Final­ brought out by Knopf last April, has never brought out in a limited edition by the Pa­ ly into his brain flutters a fairly good simile received proper attention in The Saturday rade Publishing Company, though she writes or metaphor or fragment of an idea. There Review. Neither, we feel, has Alexander of the Indians from special knowledge and is so little to it, by itself, that a seventeenth- Laing, whose "Fool's Errand" was a 1928 genuinely, and her short poems on mythol­ century poet, for instance, would never have book from Doubleday, Doran. These are ogical animals, at the end of the book, are dreamed of considering it by itself. Never­ two of the younger men who may really most entertaining. George Meason Whicher's theless, that is just what our modern poet amount to a good deal in the future. Nor­ "Sonnet Singing" from the Book Mart, does. He turns it into six lines of free verse man is more beguiled by mere cleverness To Amherst, is a genial old-fashioned book. —he may even turn it into a sonnet—entitles than Laing, but each has an original ap­ Mr. Whicher is at his best in the display of it "Requiem" or "Window Washing" or proach to a definite idea and the making of individual idiom. Laing is less the dilet­ tante, but Norman's phrase can flash out brilliantly on occasion. It is difficult, of THE SATURDAY REVIEW course, to say how far either may go, but when we consider Mr. Norman's "Dedica­ reports on books in tory Poem" to his book, it shocks us to the every field. It brings to WE NOMINATE FOR THE hope that he may eventually do more work as startlingly good as this. For "Dedicatory the attention of your pa­ Poem" has the touch of finality about it that is usually associated with greatness. Its ac­ trons many books which cent is unerring: they might otherwise miss. The weekly re­ Since whosoever builds ivith speech Fashions fragility fro?n nought, views influence them to Mary \gms These songs must be beyond men's reach To rend what I have wrought. add more rapidly to YLaiirvXton their libraries. In other The few, the scattered seeds of fame In the barbed ivoods of cahimny. words, THE SATURDAY Will throw their light upon my name, REVIEW is a distinct Their shctdow) on my memory. selling help to every As for Mr. Laing, his outburst concern­ bookshop. ing "A Female Poetaster in Her Dotage" is as refreshing in its heartiness as his poem "Introspection," though involving no very Make it convenient for new or difficult idea, is well expressed. And, finally, we can recommend to you your customers to get John Allan Wyeth's fifty-odd sonnets of this weekly information the World War, "This Man's Army," which appeared last year through Longmans, about the new books by Green & Company. They are quite strik­ having copies of THE Because she is the author of THREE ingly descriptive; though whether or not AGAINST FATE, a tense and power­ Mr. Wyeth has more than his war memories SATURDAY REVIEW on to write about in future must remain to be ful story of a woman whose husband sale in your shop. This IS on trial for the murder of the man will not only bring you $2.50 Recommended: additional business, it he thought her lover. POEMS. By CHARLES NORMAN. Alfred A. Knopf. will increase the de­ F O O L' S ERRAND. By ALEXANDER mand for the sort of Because she is a Member of the House LAING.