carried on by such racy interpreters as Harry Herbert Knibbs, Badger Clark and Edwin Ford Piper. But, of all contemporaries who approximate the spirit of folkpoetry, none has made more striking or more indubitably American contributions than Vachel Lindsay of Springfield, Illinois.

LINDSAY AND OPPENHEIM

Lindsay is essentially a people's poet. He does not hesitate to express himself in terms of the lowest common denominator; his fingers are alternately on his pen and the public pulse. Living near enough the South to appreciate the negro, Lindsay has been tremendously influenced by the colorful suggestions, the fantastic superstitions, the revivalistic gusto and, above all, by the curiously syncopated music that characterize the black man in America. In "The Congo" the words roll with the solemnity of an exhortation, dance with a grotesque fervor or snap, wink, crackle and leap with all the humorous rhythms of a piece of "ragtime." Lindsay catches the burly color and boisterous music of campmeetings, minstrel shows, revival jubilees.

And Lindsay does more. He carries his democratic determinations further than any of his compatriots. His dream is of the great communal Art; he preaches the gospel that all villages should be centers of beauty, all its citizens, artists. At heart a missionary even more than a minstrel, Lindsay often loses himself in his own evangelism; worse, he frequently cheapens himself and caricatures his own gift by pandering to the vaudeville instinct that insists on putting a noisy "punch" into everything, regardless of taste, artistry or a sense of proportion. He is most impressive when he is least frenzied, when he is purely fantastic or when a greater theme and

a finer restraint (as in "The Eagle That Is Forgotten") unite to create a preaching that does not cease to be poetry.

Something of the same blend of prophet and poet is found in the work of James Oppenheim. Oppenheim is a throwback to the ancient Hebrew singers; the music of the Psalms rolls through his lines, the fire of Isaiah kindles his spirit. This poetry, with its obvious reminders of Whitman, is biblical in its inflection, Oriental in its heat. It runs through forgotten centuries and brings buried Asia to busy America; it carries to the Western world the color of the East. In books like War and Laughter and Songs for the New Age, the race of god-breakers and god-makers speaks with a new voice; here, with analytic intensity, the old iconoclasm and still older worship are again united.

SUMMARY THE NEW SPIRIT

Most of the poets represented in these pages have found a fresh and vigorous material in a world of honest and often harsh reality. They respond to the spirit of their times; not only have their views changed, their vision has been widened to include things unknown to the poet of yesterday. They have learned to distinguish real beauty from mere prettiness; to wring loveliness out of squalor; to find wonder in neglected places.

And with the use of the material of everyday life, there has come a further simplification: the use of the language of everyday speech. The stilted and mouthfilling phrases have been practically discarded in favor of words that are part of our daily vocabulary. It would be hard at present to find a representative poet employing such awkward and outworn contractions as 'twixt, 'mongst, ope'; such evidences of poor padding as adown,

did go, doth smile; such dull rubber-stamps (clichés is the French term) as heavenly blue, roseate glow, golden hope, girlish grace, gentle breeze, etc. The peradventures, forsooths and mayhaps have disappeared. And, as the speech of the modern poet has grown less elaborate, so have the patterns that embody it. Not necessarily discarding rhyme, regular rhythm or any of the musical assets of the older poets, the forms have grown more flexible; the intricate versification has given way to simpler diction, direct vision and lines that reflect and suggest the tones of animated or exalted speech. The result of this has been a great gain both in sincerity and intensity; it has enabled the poet of today to put greater emphasis on his emotion rather than on the cloak that covers it.

One could go into minute particulars concerning the growth of an American spirit in our literature and point out how many of the latter-day poets have responded to native forces larger than their backgrounds. Such a course would be endless and unprofitable. It is pertinent, however, to observe that, young as this nation is, it is already being supplied with the stuff of legends, ballads and even epics. The modern singer has turned to celebrate his own folk-tales. It is particularly interesting to observe how the figure of Lincoln has been treated by the best of our living poets. I have, accordingly, included six poems by six writers, each differing in manner, technique and point of view.

To those who still complain that this modern poetry lacks the clear, simple beauty found in the ripe literature of the past, it may be answered that this is a complex, unripe and experimental age. It is only when we understand our "new" American writing to be part of a literature of protest-protest against ugliness, machine

made progress, standardized "success"-that we can understand and appreciate its quality. As The Literary Review (N. Y. Post) said, in an editorial in January, 1922: "We could not go on with sentimental novels and spineless lyrics forever. The artists had to refocus the instrument and look at reality again. And what the honest. saw was not beautiful as Tennyson knew beauty, not grand, not even very pleasant. It is their task to make beauty out of it, beauty of a new kind probably, because it will accompany new truth; but they must have time. The 'new' literature deserves criticism, but it also deserves respect."

For the rest, I leave the casual reader, as well as the student, to discover the awakened vigor and energy in this, one of the few great poetic periods in native literature.