Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/769

Modern American Poetry: An Introduction, edited by Louis Untermeyer (12mo, 170 pages; Harcourt, Brace & Howe), follows through broken country the contemporary reaches of that strong troubled stream of poetry which flows from Whitman. Though it too often misses the authentic current, is too often led away into stagnant marshes, it is perhaps as good a map as we yet possess. The editor is a better conversationalist than guide.

Macedonian Measures, and Others, by John Macleod (12mo, 41 pages; Cambridge University Press, England), is the work of a young poet who strives not so much to measure himself with life as with other rhymesters. He comes out pretty well in the encounter: he has a powerful rhythmic sense and the knack of handling intricate verse forms. Yet evidently his serious work still lies in front of him. As a war poet he ranks somewhere between Alan Seeger and Lurana Sheldon, the bard of Bath, Me.

The Tempering, by Howard Buck (12mo, 77 pages; Yale University Press), is a first book of verse wherein jubilant youthfulness, unwearied even in the poems of war experience, marches to gay pipes with a sweeping stride and an idealism unappalled.

War Daubs, by R. Watson Kerr (12mo, 56 pages; John Lane), is aptly named. Imperfect assimilation might be diagnosed as the chief malady of these sketches from dugout and camp. The author has completely digested neither his war experiences nor the aesthetic of the new poetry. Despite his force and sincerity, he is treading a little too closely in the footsteps of a more famous contemporary: "The Wedding Guest he beat his breast, For he heard the loud Sassoon."

The Genius of the Marne, a play by John Lloyd Balderston (12mo, 86 pages; Nicholas L. Brown, New York), has an introduction on the theory of inspiration. "Mr. Balderston," it says, "seems to think a man of genius is but the mouthpiece of a voice speaking from beyond." Very good as applied to Napoleon and Joffre at the Marne. But no indication is given as to the author's own inspiration; and no necessity to assume its existence is created by reading the play.