President, I did give considerable time to the League over a period
of years, and wrote quite a few--though far from all--of the longer
articles in _Pinnacle_. Other contributors included Robert Avrett,
a Professor of Romance Languages at the University of Tennessee,
and later, for a time, acting editor of _The Lyric_; Cullen Jones,
Ruth Crary Clough, Anna T. Harding, Donald Parson, and other writers
of excellent verse. A number of regional directors were appointed
throughout the country, and for several years a real organization
existed. But that organization, as happens in many cases, did in
time break down, less because of waning enthusiasm than for lack of
the considerable funds necessary to print and distribute _Pinnacle_
and other releases, and to carry on the various campaigns; many
small contributions continued to come in, but they were inadequate
to meet expenses on the original scale. Eventually, therefore,
_Pinnacle_ was embodied as a department in Lilith Lorraine’s magazine,
_Different_--and with the ultimate discontinuance of _Different_, this
whole phase of our activities came to an end. Yet I am sure that all
persons associated with the League felt that, during its several years
of life, the organization did do something to combat the tides of
chaos. And if it did not do enough--after all, what other force _has_
done enough?
* * * * *
As these pages draw toward their end, I think it fitting to pay tribute
to the many fine men and women whom I have known personally or by
correspondence, and who have worked in various ways in the interests of
poets and of poetry. Some of these have served the League for Sanity
in Poetry, some have lent the aid of their advice, their suggestions,
their contributions, and their encouragement in my sometimes arduous
duties on _Wings_; some have edited other poetry journals or poetry
columns, or served as poetry editors for newspapers or magazines, or
written books or compiled anthologies, or conducted poetry programs
over the radio, or sponsored prize contests, or merely stood by in the
much-needed capacity of lovers and readers of poetry. These persons
have been far too numerous to mention by name; indeed, for fear of
discriminating unconsciously, I should not care to cite most of them
by name. I shall, therefore, refer personally only to a few who are no
longer living.
The first who occurs to me is the celebrated Irish author, Lord
Dunsany, whose poems, stories, and plays I have enjoyed for many years.
My first contact with him occurred some years ago, when I sent him
a copy of _The Pageant of Man_. This gift he might have received in
silence, or with a polite and meaningless note of thanks, while filing
the book away in the great library of the unread. On the contrary,
however, he did read my lengthy poem, and wrote me in enthusiastic
terms. The correspondence between us continued, and subsequently he
did me the favor of contributing a preface to my series of rhymed
narratives, _Time’s Travelers_.
Meanwhile he was waging a valiant fight against the inanities and the
insanities of “modernism” in verse. And this fight he took to America,
during several lecture tours that brought him before large audiences on
both coasts. His point of view is reported by an interviewer for the
California magazine _Fortnight_ for April 13, 1953:
These people who write so-called modern verse don’t have anything
approaching the rhythm of moderate prose; they have no meter, no
rhyme and not always decency that would be permitted in any drawing
room....
The Irish writer is angry with people who instead of saying “I don’t
make head or tail of it” which according to his lordship would be the
truth, say: “I see it’s very clever but I’m not quite clever enough
to see all of it.”
“Take a dirty roll of paper,” Lord Dunsany said, “roll it up, hand
it over the counter and ask for a hundred dollars. The paper ‘might’
be a $100-bill, but the cashier won’t give anything for it. Why then
should a dirty meaningless line be accepted as thought which is more
valuable than money?... If writers of so-called modern verse are
sincere, they’re insane.”
From the above, the reader will judge that I was heartily glad to cry
“Amen!” to all that Lord Dunsany said. I was, in fact, delighted that
so wise and witty a fighter in the cause of poetry had come to America;
and I was naturally eager to meet this man whom I had known for so many
years through his work, and more recently, by correspondence.
To my joy, a meeting was arranged for one memorable evening at the Alta
Mira Hotel in Sausalito, where Flora and I had dinner with Dunsany
along with his hostess Mrs. Hazel Littlefield Smith and her secretary,
who, despite his distaste for long motor trips, had driven him up from
the South. In the old-world atmosphere of this hotel, overlooking the
wide glittering waters of San Francisco Bay, we chatted for several
hours. I shall never forget my first glimpse of the man whom I had come
to consider my friend, as well as a friend of poetry: the dominating
tall figure, with the frame still lithe and active despite his
seventy-four years, and the impression he gave as if some redoubtable
old warrior chief had stalked upon the scene; the Shavian face, with
the keen and resolute features, the hair gray with traces of reddish
brown, the mustache and the pointed small beard, and the live twinkling
greenish eyes that shone with the vivacity of his energetic personality.
But perhaps even the word “energetic” does not fully express the verve
and vigor, the scintillating and bubbling enthusiasm of his speech and
manner. He seemed ageless to me as his words rushed on with a vivid
flow in sparkling tales or in more sober discussion. I thought, as I
heard him, that it was unfortunate that he had been born a “Lord”;
for the title, extraneous and artificial as it is, may have tended to
divert people’s minds from the rare and genuine qualities of the man
himself and from the accomplishment of his prose and poetry. Of the
things he said, one remark stands out particularly in my mind; he was
speaking of the discovery of unknown genius, and paused to say, “Would
it not be a dreadful thing if there were one among us, a Milton or a
Keats, and he should pass unknown?” I have often thought the same thing.
But let me pass on to other persons. I think that I should call
at least brief attention to two or three, who likewise should be
remembered for their devotion to poetry and their services to poets.
One of these was Alice Hunt Bartlett, for years American Editor of
the _Poetry Review_ of London, a supporter of that excellent journal,
compiler of several anthologies, and author of a bimonthly column,
_The Dynamics of American Poetry_. I remember her clearly as she
received me on several occasions in the drawing room of her Park Avenue
apartment--a gracious, distinguished lady, her hair streaked with gray,
her eyes bright and animated as she discussed her favorite subject.
Like Mrs. Bartlett, in her appreciation of poetry and her efforts
to encourage it, was another lady, whom, however, I knew only by
correspondence: Virginia Kent Cummins, also of New York, who at an
advanced age established the Lyric Foundation for Traditional Poetry,
which took over and supported one of the best of our verse magazines,
_The Lyric_, and made an annual award of one thousand dollars to a
chosen poet: a provision in her will has made it possible for _The
Lyric_ not only to continue as an organ of traditional poetry, but to
offer substantial prizes to contributors.
Finally, let me refer again to Albert Ralph Korn. Although, as in
the case of Mrs. Cumming we never met, he and I did have a long
correspondence; and I know that, during the ten or twelve years of
our contact, he was making constant benefactions for poetic causes;
offered innumerable prizes through magazines and organizations both
here and in England; wrote articles, put forth pamphlets, and sponsored
campaigns in favor of what he aptly called “clarity in poetry.” It was
he who suggested the departments, _This Is Poetry_ and _This Is Not
Poetry_, which for several years attracted attention in Wings; it was
he who voluntarily, at his own expense, distributed more than twelve
hundred copies of the pamphlet, _Poetry Today, Fire or Fog?_ containing
reprints of the first two years of _This Is Poetry_ and _This Is Not
Poetry_. Unlike many poets--for in his modest way he did write verse,
though he never obtruded his work upon others--he was less concerned
with the fate of his own offerings than with the welfare of poetry in
general; and it was for this reason, more than any other, that his
death in 1956 caused widespread regret.
It may be that, amid the great panorama of coming events and the
multitudes of humanity, benefactors such as Mr. Korn, Mrs. Bartlett,
and Mrs. Cummins will be obscured or forgotten. But to them, as to many
another, we can apply Vachel Lindsay’s words on John Peter Altgeld:
To live in mankind is far more than to live in a name,
To live in mankind, far, far more ... than to live in a name.
Whatever the flares of personal publicity along our paths, this in the
long run must be the consolation of those of us who dream and suffer,
toil and sing and interpret and aspire, beat at blank walls and float
among splendid vistas, and conceive visions of doom and of magnificence
in the glorious, unworldly, or otherworldly kingdom of poetry.
THE END
Transcriber’s Note
Missing punctuation has been silently added.
The following alterations have been made:
In chapter one: hundred _to_ hundreds
In chapter eleven: three _to_ these
In chapter fourteen: expansive _to_ expensive
In chapter fifteen: martydom _to_ martyrdom