the hands of these realists they become strangely self-conscious and artificial.
Nor can the criticism of these realists, each of whom writes up the other's work from some point of vantage in various newspapers or magazines, prove less deleterious. For one of the troubles with poetry in America is that it is too often reviewed by poets—who cannot in one case out of a hundred be trusted with that task.
Neither this excessive realism nor the exploitation of it will suffice to relieve our situation. Our difficulties are deeper. We must have a truer and greater freedom than can be given by any change of verse form. We must exact a profounder grasp of life than any rude externalism permits. We must ask a finer sincerity than that to fact. In truth the solution for us lies in a thorough absorption of all great art values, and in a maturer and less restless living of our poetic life generally.
Louisville, Ky.
