The Authentic Note Appears to Be Lost in a Lack of Sincerity

To the Editor of the New York Times:

Your editorial, “The Poetry Game,” in this morning’s paper is quite of a piece with articles which have recently appeared in your publication and elsewhere, the purpose of which seems to be to ridicule and belittle the contemporary poetry movement in this country, simply because some of the conspicuous figures are writers to whom the capricious gods have tendered every qualification necessary to the making of poetry except sincerity.

It is true that one may fail to catch the authentic note of poetry when Miss Lowell announces that “My heart is laughing like a fish that is ready to spawn,” or when Mr. Sandburg so far forgets the injunction “De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” as to conclude a poem about a man recently dead with the charitable words, “God damn Becker.” But why should such ebullitions be allowed to cast discredit upon a movement that can boast the profound and masterful poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson, the haunting music of Miss Edna St. Vincent Millay’s lyrics, and the exquisitely spiritualized Hellenism of William Alexander Percy?

It is not vers libre that is to blame. We need not be afraid of any verse-form whatever when it is in the hands of true poets. The trouble lies in the lack of whole-hearted artistic sincerity, the grotesque exaggeration of phrase, the deliberate vagueness of expression; all employed to reveal the absence of clear thinking and that simplicity which is the hand-maiden of beautiful language in all idioms and in all times.

Let us anticipate the example of posterity and forget these sensation-mongers. For what should a nation be proud, if not of its poets?

Lindley Williams Hubbell
Springfield, Mass., Oct. 29, 1922.

Thanks to Yoko Danno for sending sharing this with me! Now I share it with you. Jesse