Modern American Poetry: A Critical Anthology

THE DIAL PRESS (Lincoln MacVeagh)—for selections from Observations by Marianne Moore.

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY-for selections from Lyrics of Lowly Life and from Lyrics of Love and Laughter by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY-for selections from Moons of Grandeur by William Rose Benet, The Roadside Fire by Amelia J. Burr, Banners by Babette Deutsch, Trees and Other Poems by Joyce Kilmer, Vigils and Candles that Burn by Aline Kilmer, and Hide and Seek by Christopher Morley.

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY-for selections from In Other Words and Tobogganing on Parnassus by Franklin P. Adams, The Man with the Hoe and Lincoln and Other Poems by Edwin Markham.

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY-for selections from The Vale of Tempe by Madison Cawein and Lanterns in Gethsemane by Willard Wattles.

FOUR SEAS COMPANY-for selections from The Charnel Rose, The Jig of Forslin, and The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken, and Poems by Edwin Curran, and Sour Grapes by William Carlos Williams. HARPER & BROTHERS-for selections from Earth Moods and Other Poems by Hervey Allen, Sunrise Trumpets by Joseph Auslander, Color by Countée Cullen, Fables for the Frivolous by Guy Wetmore Carryl, Renascence, Copyright 1917, by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Second April, Copyright 1921, by Edna St. Vincent Millay, A Few Figs from Thistles, Copyright 1922, by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and The Harp Weaver, Copyright 1921, 1922, 1923, by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY-for selections from A Miscellany of American Poetry-1920; American Poetry-A Miscellany, 1922; American Poetry-A Miscellany, 1925; The Book of the American Negro; Canzoni and Carmina by T. A. Daly, Less Lonely by Alfred Kreymborg, Piping and Panning by Edwin Meade Robinson, Smoke and Steel and Slabs of the Sunburnt West by Carl Sandburg, Harlem Shadows by Claude McKay, Once in a Blue Moon by Marion Strobel, Challenge, The New Adam, and Roast Leviathan by Louis Untermeyer, Cross Currents by Margaret Widdemer, The Roamer and Other Poems by George Edward Woodberry, and Nets to Catch the Wind by Elinor Wylie.

HARR WAGNER PUBLISHING COMPANY-for selections from The Complete Poetical Works of Joaquin Miller.

HILLACRE BOOKHOUSE-for the selection from Arrows in the Gale by Arturo Giovannitti.

magazines devoted exclusively to the publishing of verse. Though the death-rate among these gallant ephemera has been rather high, there are, as I write, no less than fourteen poetry magazines still appearing, among which any critic of the recent renaissance will have to consider the veteran Poetry: A Magazine of Verse (the first in the field), The Measure, which is to New York what Miss Monroe's monthly is to Chicago, The Fugitive, that sharper, more individualized organ of a group of young Southerners. Nor is this all. There is scarcely a general magazine published today that does not allot a generous portion of its pages to the poems of a surprisingly lyrical generation. The reader will realize, therefore, that were this volume to be expanded into a set twice the size of Mr. Braithwaite's hardy annual Anthologies of Magazine Verse, there would still be many a county outraged to find its own sweet singer among the missing. In the end every editor is driven back upon that mixture of prejudice, preference and intuition known as personal taste-and there seems no way of escaping the limitations imposed by one's temperament.

Fortunately, one can be more definite in regard to the other features of the volume. To begin with, there is the matter of arrangement. It might have been entertaining to divide the contents into distinct groups and schools. Unfortunately, such a scheme would have given impressions as false as they would have been contradictory. One should not attempt to ticket contemporary writers with conclusive labels, especially since so many of them are still developing. One cannot give a true picture of a period in the state of flux except by showing its fluid character. It has been the editor's aim to reflect this very flux and diversity. Since the chronological order is then, in spite of certain disadvantages, the most satisfactory one, an arbitrary boundary had to be fixed. The word "modern" as I have said elsewhere, is the most misleading adjective in the language. But there must be an arbitrary date-and, if possible, a reason for one. In the case of the companion volume,

Modern British Poetry, the year 1840 was made the dividing line partly because it represented the end of the Victorian epoch and partly because Thomas Hardy was born. in that year. In the present volume the boundary has been moved back ten years; partly to give a wider background to the poetry of our own times, but chiefly to begin with the poetry of Emily Dickinson, whose pungent epithets and profound condensations, unprinted during her lifetime and unnoticed as late as 1890, have been enthusiastically revived by the most fervid apostles of modernity. This collection, therefore, takes up the poetry of "these states" since Whitman; for, between Whitman (born 1819) and Emily Dickinson (1830) there were no bards more important than the Cary sisters, Bayard Taylor and the finicking Richard Henry Stoddard.

Something has already been said concerning the inclusions, as well as the omissions. There are one or two amplifications to be added. Firstly, the fact that a poem has appeared in anthologies previous (or subsequent) to the first edition of this one has not prejudiced me against it. A good poem remains a good poem, no matter how often it is reprinted. On the other hand, it should be admitted that where the choice has been between a much quoted poem and one which has not been handed on from one anthologist to the other, I have where both poems were equally worthy-favored the less familiar example. Secondly, since this is a collection which attempts to chart a period, I have included various examples of those who have been dismissed as "mere experimenters," believing that experimentation is as vital a process of creation-and surely as significant a part of this age as the unvarying acceptance of tradition. This same spirit has also impelled me to go to the other extreme-to reprint a small portion of that species which lies between light verse and authentic poetry, believing again that no survey of the period, no matter how casual, would be complete without the negro dialect of Irwin Russell and Paul Laurence Dunbar, the Hoosier accents of James Whitcomb

Riley, the light patter of Eugene Field, the ironic chuckles
of Franklin P. Adams, the Italian-American patois of T. A.
Daly. In this welter of broken syllables, we have fresh
evidence that America has become a melting-pot in the poetic
as well as the ethnic use of the term.

One thing remains to be added. Although the notes as
well as the number of poems selected make the editor's pref-
erences obvious, it must be made plain that he has attempted
to make each poet's group representative. To accomplish
this, not only the early but the most recent writing of the
contemporaries appears here some of it for the first time
between covers. Wherever possible, the selections as well
as the authors have been chronologically arranged; that is,
the earlier work is placed at the beginning of each group,
the later work following in approximately the order in which
it was published. I (to discard the impersonal pronoun
with relief) am greatly indebted to most of the living
poets, not only for invaluable data, but for their collabora-
tive assistance: many of the following pages embody their
choice of their own poems as well as my preferences.

Finally, I am grateful to the many publishers who have, in
every instance, displayed a spirit of generosity without which
the successive editions of this volume would not have been
possible. This indebtedness is alphabetically acknowledged
to the following firms, as holders of the copyrights:

RICHARD G. BADGER-for selections from Sun and Saddle Leather
and Grass-Grown Trails by Badger Clark.

BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY-for two selections from The Complete
Works of James Whitcomb Riley.

BONI AND LIVERIGHT-for selections from Collected Poems of H. D.
BRENTANO'S for selections from Chanteys and Ballads and The
Passing God by Harry Kemp.

NICHOLAS L. BROWN-for selections from Blood of Things by Al-
fred Kreymborg, Sonnets from the Patagonian by Donald Evans,
and Nine Poems from a Valetudinarium by Donald Evans.
THE CENTURY COMPANY-for selections from Merchants from
Cathay by William Rose Benet and War and Laughter by James
Oppenheim.

THE DIAL PRESS (Lincoln MacVeagh)—for selections from Obser-

vations by Marianne Moore.

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY-for selections from Lyrics of Lowly Life

and from Lyrics of Love and Laughter by Paul Laurence Dun-

bar.

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY-for selections from Moons of
Grandeur by William Rose Benet, The Roadside Fire by Amelia
J. Burr, Banners by Babette Deutsch, Trees and Other Poems by
Joyce Kilmer, Vigils and Candles that Burn by Aline Kilmer,
and Hide and Seek by Christopher Morley.

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY-for selections from In Other Words

and Tobogganing on Parnassus by Franklin P. Adams, The Man

with the Hoe and Lincoln and Other Poems by Edwin Mark-

ham.

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY-for selections from The Vale of Tempe
by Madison Cawein and Lanterns in Gethsemane by Willard
Wattles.

FOUR SEAS COMPANY-for selections from The Charnel Rose, The
Jig of Forslin, and The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken, and
Poems by Edwin Curran, and Sour Grapes by William Carlos
Williams.

HARPER & BROTHERS-for selections from Earth Moods and Other

Poems by Hervey Allen, Sunrise Trumpets by Joseph Auslander,

Color by Countée Cullen, Fables for the Frivolous by Guy Wet-

by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY-for selections from A Miscellany

of American Poetry-1920; American Poetry-A Miscellany,

1922; American Poetry-A Miscellany, 1925; The Book of the

American Negro; Canzoni and Carmina by T. A. Daly, Less

Lonely by Alfred Kreymborg, Piping and Panning by Edwin

Meade Robinson, Smoke and Steel and Slabs of the Sunburnt

West by Carl Sandburg, Harlem Shadows by Claude McKay,

Once in a Blue Moon by Marion Strobel, Challenge, The New