1921
EDITED BY
ALAN PORTER, RICHARD HUGHES,
ROBERT GRAVES
OXFORD BASIL BLACKWELL
MCMXXI
PRINTED AT THE
SHAKESPEARE HEAD PRESS
STRATFORD-UPON-AVON
The Editors of this year’s Oxford Poetry, the work of undergraduates
who have been in residence since the date of the last collection, have
attempted to make the volume more representative of Poetry and less
representative merely of Oxford than its predecessors. There is always
at Oxford a fashion in verse as much as in dress, and, to judge from
the bulk of contributions submitted, this fashion has not changed
materially since last noted and recorded in print. Mr Jones-Smith, of
Balliol, still writes musically of brimming chalices, vermilion lips,
chrysoprase, lotuses, arabesques and darkling spires against glimmering
skies; Miss Smith-Jones, of Somerville, is equally faithful to her
scarlet sins, beloved hearts, little clutching hands, little pattering
feet, rosaries, eternity, roundabouts, and glimmering spires against
darkling skies. Exclusion of these worn properties has given the fewer
writers than usual represented here, extended elbow room, and a chance
of showing some individual capacity for better or worse.
Most of the pieces have already appeared serially in _The London
Mercury_, _The Spectator_, _The Westminster Gazette_, _The New
Statesman_, _The Nation and Athenæum_, _The Observer_, and the other
leading literary reviews.
For permission to use copyright poems, our thanks are due to Messrs
Christophers, publishers of Mr Golding’s ‘Shepherd Singing Ragtime,’
and to Messrs Sidgwick and Jackson, publishers of Mr Rickword’s new
volume ‘Behind the Eyes.’