* The Cry of Youth. By Harry Kemp. (Kennerley: $1.25 net.) Terse ringing ballads of modern life with much of Buchanan’s quality and keen technique. Despite the propagandist note, which is less insistent than in most poetry of a socialistic tendency, Mr. Kemp has succeeded with some quiet reserve in making the reader feel the pity of lonely outcast life, and in expressing his philosophy in genuine poetry. The sincerity of his work is unquestionable, and the volume merits a critical attention on its merits which we should be anxious to assist. The Cry of Youth is not written solely for an audience of poets and critics. It is genuine poetry of cruelly naked emotion borne unflinchingly.
* Songs of the Dead End. By Patrick MacGill. (Kennerley: $1.25 net.) Poetry of labor and poetry without a brief in about equal measure. Though the former is fine, Mr. MacGill’s best work is to be found in the latter. The poet has been a navvy, a miner, a switchman, a car-coupler, a tramp, and a plate-layer, and out of grinding poverty and toil his poetry has emerged. There is danger of a wrong emphasis on his social poetry. It is good, but not better than that of several others. The less premeditated lyrics will give the greatest pleasure to the reader, and to many of them one will turn again and again.
* Philip the King, and Other Poems. By John Masefield. (Macmillan: $1.25 net.) A one-act play in verse which is competent but would not be distinctive were it not for a superb ballad of the Armada, which challenges comparison with Drayton. Four other poems of strong beauty which redeem the rest of the volume, and make it necessary to poetry lovers. The notable war-poem entitled August, 1914, is included.
* The Wine-Press: A Tale of War. By Alfred Noyes. (Stokes: $.60 net.) A tale of the horror of war and its blind futility, whose scene is laid in the Balkans. It is told with all of Mr. Noyes’s art and its awful lesson should be particularly timely in the midst of the present struggle. The poem is a hymn to liberty passionately voiced, and brings death and suffering home in relentless poetry.
* Songs of Labor, and Other Poems. By Morris Rosenfeld. Translated from the Yiddish by Rose Pastor Stokes and Helena Frank. (Badger: $.75 net.) An excellent translation of the poems of an American Yiddish poet of poignant beauty, whose work has hitherto not been accessible to English readers except in an incomplete prose version. The present translation includes many poems now published for the first time, and is adorned with two remarkable illustrations in black and white which reveal new possibilities in line. A volume which deserves to go through many editions.
* Poems. By Clinton Scollard. (Houghton-Mifflin: $1.25 net.) A selection of Mr. Scollard’s best poems from his numerous volumes. It should serve to define his place in American poetry, which is beside Mr. Cawein. Delicate fancy and a love of nature which is not vague are united to an opulence of expression which has not always done Mr. Scollard service, but which in almost every poem in this volume results in giving the pleasure of fine poetic sensation to the discriminating reader.
Songs and Sonnets for England in War Time. (Lane: $.75 net.) A collection of the best poems by English poets inspired by the war, issued for the benefit of the Prince of Wales Fund. The total profits of the volume are turned over to this fund for relief work, and the purchaser will not only procure a volume whose significance will be more and more realised as time passes, but will be contributing in small measure to this charitable work.
* Challenge. By Louis Untermeyer. (Century Co.: $1.00 net) One of the most significant new volumes of the year. With much of Shelley’s social enthusiasm and a genuine inspiration, he sings the strength and weakness of our democracy with the eagerness of youth. This is a volume whose significance will grow as the years go by, and it should be associated with Mr. Oppenheim’s new volume on which comment will be found elsewhere. Although democracy is the substance of his song, yet the feeling for beauty’s essence which here finds lyrical expression is the most substantially satisfying quality of his work.
III. SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF SIGNIFICANT BOOKS OF POETRY FOR A LARGE LIBRARY
* Earth Triumphant, and Other Tales in Verse. By Conrad Aiken. (Macmillan: $1.25 net.) Three narrative poems of distinction, followed by shorter poems interpreting the philosophy of youth. They suggest comparison with the longer poems of John Masefield, but have a firm independent technique of their own. With genuine beauty they relate tales which reveal the heart of modern life in various phases of youth, and contain a reading of earth which differs in essentials from that of Meredith. The volume deserves a wider audience than the usual public which cares for poetry. It has a message which every American will appreciate, and if it helps to spread an interest in poetry among new circles of readers, it will only be fulfilling its mission. It is a distinguished first book of verse.