[* Certain volumes of new poetry and collected editions are
drawn to the individual reader’s notice by an asterisk employed to
indicate special poetic distinction.]
* _The East I Know. By Paul Claudel. Translated from the French by
Teresa Frances and William Rose Benét._ (Yale University Press: $1.25
net.) A volume of prose poems by one of the greatest poets living in the
world to-day. Although Paul Claudel is unknown to English readers, his
influence is the strongest shaping force there is on the young poetry of
most European countries. This volume is as much of a literary event as
the publication of John Synge’s first volume in this country. I know of
no living writer of whom we may more confidently predict immortality for
his work. The present volume reveals the soul of China in wonderful
strophes, and though perhaps the slightest of Claudel’s books, is the
volume by which Claudel may be most fittingly introduced to the American
public. If any reader can set down this volume without realizing that a
great new force in literature and life has been born into the world, he
is incapable of imaginative appreciation.
* _The Single Hound: Poems of a Lifetime. By Emily Dickinson._ (Little,
Brown, & Co.: $1.25 net.) A new volume by one of the world’s great
spiritual artists, which contains much poetry that is imperishable as an
integral part of American literature. With Blake’s naked uncompromising
vision, and his absorption in the eternal shadows of mortality, she has
a personal and fragrant beauty of feeling and expression which is unique
and incomparable. Her verses are like flashes of lightning illumining
the chaos of our material existence. _The Single Hound_ is the rich
legacy of a great spiritual imagination. There are few books in American
poetry of which we can more confidently predict immortality.
* _Collected Poems. By Norman Gale._ (Macmillan: $1.50 net.) The poet’s
choice of the lyrics and longer poems by which he wishes to be
definitely remembered. Indispensable to every library. No poet since the
Elizabethans has managed to convey such an infectious joy into pastoral
poetry, and the best of these poems are permanent treasure trove for
the anthologist. Such a volume as this would alone dignify a season.
* _Georgian Poetry. Edited by E. M._ (Putnam: $1.50 net.) A superb
collection of representative poems by the younger English writers who
have won their reputation in the last four or five years. This book,
which has gone through nine English editions already, should meet with
as great success in this country. Here, and here only, will you find the
authentic younger singers adequately represented by hitherto unpublished
work. If this volume introduces Rupert Brooke and Lascelles Abercrombie
to America, it will have done our literature a service great enough to
justify its publication.
* _The Congo and Other Poems. By Vachel Lindsay._ (Macmillan: $1.25
net.) A new volume of verse by Mr. Lindsay, whose first book was the
most significant publication in American poetry last year. While this
book does not mark an advance, many of the poems written to be chanted
aloud fully sustain the poet’s reputation, and the volume is graced with
a selection of the best and less strident of the _Rhymes to be Traded
for Bread._ As the poetic interpreter of the Middle West, Mr. Lindsay is
performing a great social service, as well as a great service to poetry
by bringing it into the homes and hearts of the people. _The Firemen’s
Ball_ and _I Heard Immanuel Singing_ have qualities of permanence, and
in the former Mr. Lindsay has perfected a new medium of poetic
expression. But we are in danger of losing sight of Mr. Lindsay’s more
delicate talent by virtue of which he is preëminently a poet
* _The Present Hour: A Book of Poems. By Percy MacKaye._ (Macmillan:
$1.25 net.) The poems dealing with the present war reaffirm Mr. MacKay’s
authority of utterance, and the best of the sonnets surpass William
Watson’s “The Purple East.” But it is in “Fight” and “School” that the
poet has at last found himself and invented a medium admirably fitted to
express what he desires. These two poems have all the distinction of
Masefield with the originality and shrewdness of New England feeling,
and a homeliness which is unique in contemporary poetry. The volume
includes many poems of occasion, all adequate, and in the case of
“Goethals” and one or two others, noble. So far, Mr. MacKaye’s best
volume of poems.
* _The Complete Poems of S. Weir Mitchell._ (Century Co.: $2.00 net.)
The definitive edition of Dr. Mitchell’s poetry revised according to his
final wishes. It should serve to make known to the present generation
the graceful contemplative poetry of that rival to America’s other
distinguished physician-poet, Dr. Holmes. Dr. Mitchell’s poems of
occasion at their best are equal to the best of Dr. Holmes, while his
“Ode to a Lycian Tomb” surpasses “The Chambered Nautilus.” It is one of
the anomalies of literature that Dr. Mitchell’s novels have so long
overshadowed his poetry. In this volume the best of his dramatic work is
included, and “Drake” is a play of poetic distinction in its way. The
volume may rest pleasantly with its peers on the same library shelf with
the poems of Longfellow and Holmes. It is the harvest of sixty years
devoted to poetry.
* _Songs for the New Age. By James Oppenheim._ (Century Co.: $1.25
net.) The most significant volume of new poetry of the year 1914, as
Vachel Lindsay’s _General William Booth Enters Into Heaven_ was the most
significant volume of 1913. With more self-conscious art than Whitman,
in the verse form which Whitman was once thought to have perfected, Mr.
Oppenheim sings the joys and sorrows of the race now and to come. The
vision of these poems is swift and sure: their philosophy, mature and
American. If there is one volume of verse this year which we might
safely recommend to every American man and woman who has not read poetry
before, it is this book, where they will find their dreams and strivings
sung and interpreted in a book which has qualities of greatness. The
form of these poems is so difficult to shape perfectly that Mr.
Oppenheim’s technical achievement can only be characterized as masterly.
The volume is the only one in which the use of “polyrhythmic verse” can
claim complete justification since _Leaves of Grass_, and its art is as
individual as its matter. _Songs for the New Age_ may reaffirm much of
Whitman, but they do not echo him. The volume will prove more and more
satisfying with each rereading. And its message to the American people
may not pass unheeded.
* _The Grand Canyon, and Other Poems. By Henry Van Dyke._ (Scribner:
$1.25 net.) Poetry of the quality familiar to Dr. Van Dyke’s readers,
and fully equal to the poetry in his earlier volumes. To the more
serious poems are added several delightfully humorous poems of
occasion, among which _Ars Agricolaris_ is a classic of its kind.
* _The Flight, and Other Poems. By George Edward Woodberry._ (Macmillan
$1.25 net.) Mr. Woodberry’s finest volume of verse, in which he gives
expression to many moods of intellectual beauty and a philosophy of the
ideal akin to Shelley. It contains one lyric, _Comrades_, absolutely
peerless and worthy to be set beside Browning’s _The Guardian Angel_, if
it does not surpass it. These poems are the fruit of a ripe culture and
a passionate idealism thoroughly American in its voicing of its message.
One of the most completely satisfying volumes of the year.