Fears have been expressed by a number of friendly critics that POETRY
may become a house of refuge for minor poets.
The phrase is somewhat worn. Paragraphers have done their worst for the
minor poet, while they have allowed the minor painter, sculptor,
actor--worst of all, architect--to go scot-free. The world which laughs
at the experimenter in verse, walks negligently through our streets, and
goes seriously, even reverently, to the annual exhibitions in our
cities, examining hundreds of pictures and statues without expecting
even the prize-winners to be masterpieces.
During the past year a score or more of cash prizes, ranging from one
hundred to fifteen hundred dollars, were awarded in Pittsburgh, Chicago,
Washington, New York and Boston for minor works of modern art. No word
of superlative praise has been uttered for one of them: the first
prize-winner in Pittsburgh was a delicately pretty picture by a
second-rate Englishman; in Chicago it was a clever landscape by a
promising young American. If a single prize-winner in the entire list,
many of which were bought at high prices by public museums, was a
masterpiece, no critic has yet dared to say so.
In fact, such a word would be presumptuous, since no contemporary can
utter the final verdict. Our solicitous critics should remember that
Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Burns, were minor poets to the subjects of
King George the Fourth, Poe and Whitman to the subjects of King
Longfellow. Moreover, we might remind them that Drayton, Lovelace,
Herrick, and many another delicate lyrist of the anthologies, whose
perfect songs show singular tenacity of life, remain minor poets through
the slightness of their motive; they created little masterpieces, not
great ones.
The Open Door will be the policy of this magazine--may the great poet we
are looking for never find it shut, or half-shut, against his ample
genius! To this end the editors hope to keep free of entangling
alliances with any single class or school. They desire to print the best
English verse which is being written today, regardless of where, by
whom, or under what theory of art it is written. Nor will the magazine
promise to limit its editorial comments to one set of opinions. Without
muzzles and braces this is manifestly impossible unless all the critical
articles are written by one person.