Our poets this month play divers instruments. The audience may listen to
H. D.'s flute, the 'cello of Mr. Rhys, the big bass drum of Mr. Lindsay,
and so on through the orchestra, fitting each poet to his special
strain. Some of these performers are well known, others perhaps will be.
Mr. Ernest Rhys is of Welsh descent. In 1888-9 he lectured in America,
and afterward returned to London, where he has published _A London
Rose_, Arthurian plays and poems, and Welsh ballads, and edited
_Everyman's Library_.
Mr. Madison Cawein, the well-known Kentucky poet resident in Louisville,
scarcely needs an introductory word. His is landscape poetry chiefly,
but sometimes, as in Wordsworth, figures blend with the scene and
become a part of nature. A volume of his own selections from his
various books has recently been published by The MacMillan Company.
Mr. Nicholas Vachel Lindsay is the vagabond poet who loves to tramp
through untravelled country districts without a cent in his pocket,
exchanging "rhymes for bread" at farmers' hearths. The magazines have
published engaging articles by him, but in verse he has been usually his
own publisher as yet.
"H. D., _Imagiste_," is an American lady resident abroad, whose identity
is unknown to the editor. Her sketches from the Greek are not offered as
exact translations, or as in any sense finalities, but as experiments in
delicate and elusive cadences, which attain sometimes a haunting beauty.
Mr. Kendall Banning is an editor and writer of songs. "The Love Songs of
the Open Road," with music by Lena Branscord, will soon be published by
Arthur Schmidt of Boston.
Mrs. Anita Fitch of New York has contributed poems to various magazines.
The February number of POETRY will be devoted to the work of two poets,
Messrs. Arthur Davison Ficke and Witter Bynner.