THE ALARMING SPREAD OF POETRY
To the thinking man there are few things more disturbing than therealization that we are becoming a nation of minor poets. In the goodold days poets were for the most part confined to garrets, which theyleft only for the purpose of being ejected from the offices ofmagazines and papers to which they attempted to sell their wares.Nobody ever thought of reading a book of poems unless accompanied by aguarantee from the publisher that the author had been dead at least ahundred years. Poetry, like wine, certain brands of cheese, and publicbuildings, was rightly considered to improve with age; and noconnoisseur could have dreamed of filling himself with raw,indigestible verse, warm from the maker.
Today, however, editors are paying real money for poetry; publishersare making a profit on books of verse; and many a young man who, hadhe been born earlier, would have sustained life on a crust of bread,is now sending for the manager to find out how the restaurant darestry to sell a fellow champagne like this as genuine Pommery Brut.Naturally this is having a marked effect on the life of the community.Our children grow to adolescence with the feeling that they can becomepoets instead of working. Many an embryo bill clerk has been ruined bythe heady knowledge that poems are paid for at the rate of a dollar aline. All over the country promising young plasterers and rising youngmotormen are throwing up steady jobs in order to devote themselves tothe new profession. On a sunny afternoon down in Washington Squareone's progress is positively impeded by the swarms of young poetsbrought out by the warm weather. It is a horrible sight to see thoseunfortunate youths, who ought to be sitting happily at desks writing"Dear Sir, Your favor of the tenth inst. duly received and contentsnoted. In reply we beg to state...." wandering about with theirfingers in their hair and their features distorted with the agony ofcomposition, as they try to find rhymes to "cosmic" and "symbolism."
And, as if matters were not bad enough already, along comes Mr. EdgarLee Masters and invents _vers libre_. It is too early yet tojudge the full effects of this man's horrid discovery, but there is nodoubt that he has taken the lid off and unleashed forces over whichnone can have any control. All those decent restrictions which used tocheck poets have vanished, and who shall say what will be the outcome?
Until Mr. Masters came on the scene there was just one thing which,like a salient fortress in the midst of an enemy's advancing army,acted as a barrier to the youth of the country. When one's son came toone and said, "Father, I shall not be able to fulfill your dearestwish and start work in the fertilizer department. I have decided tobecome a poet," although one could no longer frighten him from hispurpose by talking of garrets and starvation, there was still oneweapon left. "What about the rhymes, Willie?" you replied, and theeager light died out of the boy's face, as he perceived the catch inwhat he had taken for a good thing. You pressed your advantage. "Thinkof having to spend your life making one line rhyme with another! Thinkof the bleak future, when you have used up 'moon' and 'June,' 'love'and 'dove,' 'May' and 'gay'! Think of the moment when you have endedthe last line but one of your poem with 'windows' or 'warmth' and haveto buckle to, trying to make the thing couple up in accordance withthe rules! What then, Willie?"
Next day a new hand had signed on in the fertilizer department.
But now all that has changed. Not only are rhymes no longer necessary,but editors positively prefer them left out. If Longfellow had beenwriting today he would have had to revise "The Village Blacksmith" ifhe wanted to pull in that dollar a line. No editor would print stufflike:
Under the spreading chestnut tree The village smithy stands. The smith a brawny man is he With large and sinewy hands.
If Longfellow were living in these hyphenated, free and versy days, hewould find himself compelled to take his pen in hand and dictate asfollows:
In life I was the village smith, I worked all day But I retained the delicacy of my complexion Because I worked in the shade of the chestnut tree Instead of in the sun Like Nicholas Blodgett, the expressman. I was large and strong Because I went in for physical culture And deep breathing And all those stunts. I had the biggest biceps in Spoon River.
Who can say where this thing will end? _Vers libre_ is within thereach of all. A sleeping nation has wakened to the realization thatthere is money to be made out of chopping its prose into bits.Something must be done shortly if the nation is to be saved from thismenace. But what? It is no good shooting Edgar Lee Masters, for themischief has been done, and even making an example of him could notundo it. Probably the only hope lies in the fact that poets never buyother poets' stuff. When once we have all become poets, the sale ofverse will cease or be limited to the few copies which individualpoets will buy to give to their friends.