This volume by one of the young soldier-poets of Great Britain opens with a preface poem “How shall we rise to greet the dawn?” written in November, 1918. The four parts of the volume are entitled: The Phœnix-feasters; Green-fly; Promenades; and War poems. In the war poems satire predominates.
“Poems by one of the more notable exponents of the modern manner, who seems as yet to be uncertain both of his aim and method.”
+ − Ath p1208 N 14 ’19 80w
“Some will applaud Mr Sitwell’s political sentiments; others, when they read such things as ‘Sheep song,’ will be profoundly irritated. The intensity of their irritation will be the measure of Mr Sitwell’s success as a writer of satire. When we turn from Mr Sitwell’s satirical to what we may be permitted to call his ‘poetical’ poems, we are less certain in our appreciation and enjoyment.”
+ − Ath p1255 N 28 ’19 600w
“Mr Sitwell is thought by many, and doubtless considers himself, to be extremely wild and daring, when in reality he is merely a bad rider of his hobby. The only pieces in this volume in which he betrays genuine feeling are some of the vers libre efforts written in protest against the attitude of society towards the war.” J: G. Fletcher
− + Freeman 2:189 N 3 ’20 360w
“As a satirist, and he is nothing if not a satirist, he never is vivid; he nowhere bites or breaks. His abuse is oratorical in its plenitude, oratorical and round and blunt. He by no means has mastered the indirectness, the cut, the slant, the side-sweep, the poetry of satire.” M. V. D.
− Nation 110:855 Je 26 ’20 160w