Doggerel or Vers A Modernist's Point of View To the Editor of the "Norri-Cutwa Dany News"
Sm,—Your contributor J. M. T. in yesterday's correspondence columns on "Doggerel or Verse" dilates at some length on this, one of the most controversial of all subjects, and in view of the fact that his letter might be considered a strong, though possibly friendly, attack on poor E.G.A. and his effort to instil some humour into the lines of verse appearing at intervals in your "In, Parenthesis Column," your humble "servant now craves permission to reply in part te IMT.
In view of the fact that some verse bearing similar initials—and therefore having, in all probability, come from the same source—appeared on the front cover of the Magazine Supplement about a fortnight ago, one should perhaps listen to J.M.T. as being a likely person to know something about poetry. Unfortunately, neither his "poem" then, nor his letter now, show more than that he has a bare rudimentary knowledge of ihe mechanics of Georgian verse. I myself at one time had pretensions to being a minor poet—like J.M.T. I eveh had a bit of verse printed on the front page of the Magazine Supplement (although this was a "command performance"), but today (T realise that my metier would be more inthe line of verse, with a striving ie the funny side; I suggest he take up knitting.
In'his letter, J.M.T. quotes on no less than two occasions from "Bliss Perry, a Professor of English literati ure." I take it that Mr. Perry is not a poet of much repute; at all events, his name does not appear in any of four or five anthologies now lying on.my desk. That does not, of course, rule out his opinions as unworthy of countenance or hearing, but in all fairness to, the great field of modern poetry it should be pointed cut that the Perrys are definitely in the minority. Allow me to' quote briefly from Philip Henderson, a modern poet and editor of the "Golden Book of English Poetry":—
None were asked to say in a few words what were the def characteristics of the best poetry being written today, one might answer that, in. the. first place, it is more. direct and realistic and' far "more acutely aware of its social environment thi was the poetry of the last century I is, perhaps. more classical in ihe veal sense, Secondly, it is no longer traditional, in so far as it is mot content io perpetuate a conventional technique suited to the tempo. of another age,..,. like the age we live in, poetry today' is above all eagerly experimental, self-conscious and di: Satishied and often—extremely. complex....... f poetry is to be a living Jorcé, im the "world today, and not merely an escape into a' world of dreams, it must deal in the terms of the present, rather "than ul its readers into the contemplation of remote golden or seek repose in the flight to metaphysical abstraction.
With regard to J.M.T.'s point concerning metre and other mathematics pertaining to the Georgian and mediaeval poets, may I ask if he has ever heard—and if he has heard, read—anything by Walt Whitman, C. Day Lewis, Stephen Spender, T. S. Eliot, Herbert Read, Wilfred Owen, J, C. Squire, D. H. Lawrence or Gerald Manley Hopkins, to name but a few? It he has, I think he would -realize that his gulf between classic poetry and "that species of free verse which refuses to.conform to the principles poetics or subdue its flights to a of law and harmony* is poppycock when applied tó the works ar poets such as these, His own verse is obviously not poetry—for it shows no signs of being ahead of its time, but is quite apparently derived from the works of the poets he read as a young m About a year or so ago, a, iriend of mine in England, who has published at least two extremely poignant novels as well as some of the finest verse showed me a fault then apparent i my poems:—
If you would, not resent perla man hint, T think it is bert "SUIV Ty" of any of those vations of a dificutty which an apostrophe so easily-supplies, It was a frequent device among Victorian Poets and for that very reason sug-Hests that your work. (s "derived and not among the moderns. I thin might help you a good deal if yo Could get hold of and study some good examples of really modern poetry, T pass her advice on to J.M.T. and hope that he will do what I have done since—made a study of poetry up to and including "today.
In conclusion, may I point out fô J.M.T. that the "sound value" of poetry does not depend on rigid adference to archaic forms and modes ai thought, and certainly not on what one might call its "tumty-tum-tum tumty-tum-tum" qualities, and suggest that the sound value of the works of the modern poets I have just enumerated is as great as the sound value of the works of Swinburne and sugary Tennyson, "Mere ideas and words" are, not poetry, I agree, but no more is poetry a matter of iambic pentameters, couplets, sonnets and quatrains, To.end my letter in similar vein, let me quote Sir Quiller Couch:
Poets of different nations and different "periods have chosen ' to express themselves in various ways; and it is only because. we are so Used to exact form. and metre and rhyme, that we are predisposed. to think "that verse that discards them is not poetry at all, Yet this poetry—new to some of us though not Teally'neW—does depend on a certain mode of expression, and this mode iS called Cadence. The "base" or "unit" of this, free verse is not a line consisting "of a number Of "eet" or "heat?" but a whole "strophe." Tt like running around a track ina iven time...It would be fairer, too, 'oF those who cannot feel the grea hess and beauty of Walt Whitman' "Out of the cradle endlessly rock-be a want in themselves rather than in the poets.
Eca.
Shanghai, May 2.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.