Chapter XVII: A Place to End 172 (3)

Of all whom I interviewed, only two were poets: the huge, bluff Gilbert Chesterton; and Rabindranath Tagore, who struck me as no other human being has ever done. I am at a loss, even after many years, to explain my awesome feeling upon being ushered into the presence of the saintly-looking, white-bearded figure--the sense of having come into contact with a superior being. But it is not enough to say that he was saintly-looking, and might have been mistaken for one of the patriarchs of Biblical times; nor would it help to try to repeat any of the wise things he said. It was simply that, from the man himself, from his very surroundings, there seemed to emanate spiritual greatness. Even in memory, it is not hard for me to recapture something of the peculiar, fascinating spell of his presence, although, among all the people I have subsequently met, this feeling has never been duplicated, nor even approached.

In view of the amount of time which I gave to the miscellaneous jobs necessary to meet room and restaurant bills, it is hard for me now to see how I could have found much leisure for poetry. My principal work, in the course of time, came to be book reviewing; regularly I brought home piles of the latest fiction and non-fiction; I remember a friend telling with a chuckle how he once met me on a downtown street, my arms so full of brand-new volumes that I looked like a book salesman. Until the _Herald_ was merged with the _Tribune_ in 1924, I was one of its most frequent reviewers, most of the time under Mr. Cole’s successor, the severe-looking but friendly Arthur Bartlett Maurice; I also was permitted to do feature reviews and smaller items for the _Times_, first under Dr. Clifford Smyth and then under Brooks Atkinson, a thin, wiry, whimsically smiling man later to be better known as dramatic critic. At the same time, I reviewed for the _Literary Review_ of the _Post_ under Dr. Henry Seidel Canby; for the _Tribune_ under Burton Rascoe, the _Bookman_ under John Farrar, the _Sun_, the _Dial_, and subsequently the _International Book Review_, which was published for some years by the ill-fated _Literary Digest_. Never let it be said that the great, callous city of New York is cold and unreceptive to the unknown newcomer. I, at least, did not find this to be the case.

Among the multitudes of books which passed through my hands--sometimes as many as twenty-five or thirty unreviewed works stood simultaneously on my shelves--there was everything from a cookbook for cafeterias to a monograph on the intelligence of insects. Books of poetry and books about poetry were much in the minority, though they did come to me occasionally. But I continued to write poems, and not only short ones but long, including seventeen hundred lines of blank verse, _The Light Beyond the Sunset_, which I completed sometime during my first two years in New York, and which, whatever else you may say about it, did not exactly pick a tried and familiar theme; it dealt with the imagined experiences of one who had survived death. This lengthy composition, so far as I can remember, was not permitted to bore many publishers, though I recall one who told me he could not publish it because it was too short for a saleable volume--ah, if only I had spun out another thousand lines! But from later experience, I now suspect that, if it had had the extra thousand lines, he would have found it too long for publication.

I also remember submitting the poem to a Boston publisher, who had himself written many poems, as well as a number of translations in verse. Since his publishing house (now long out of existence) issued occasional books of poetry, I hopefully mailed him _The Light Beyond the Sunset_. And, a short time afterwards, my hope expanded from a flicker to a blaze, upon the receipt of a letter: “Dear Mr. Coblentz: I will be in New York on Thursday the eighteenth. If you can meet me at 2:30 that afternoon in the lobby of the Bryant Hotel, I should like to talk over your poem with you.”

Truly, a case of the mountain coming to Mahomet! So the great publisher Mr. Bruce (to give him a name which was not his) was to be in New York! Not that I flattered myself that his visit was for the sole or even the principal purpose of seeing a nobody like myself. But how could I help being elated that so important a man would take up time with my poem? What could this mean? Naturally, that he wanted to publish the poem. Nothing less, surely, could prompt a personal interview.

Precisely at two-thirty on Thursday the eighteenth, I entered the lobby of the Bryant, so excited that it never even occurred to me to remove my topcoat in the overheated room. I found Mr. Bruce as good as his word: he seemed to recognize me by something in my looks or manner as I stared about the lobby with an anxious, appraising glance. There he was, dressed in dull brown, a spindly man, in his sixties, with a thin goat-like face and a wispy gray beard. He greeted me enthusiastically; and trembling just a little now that the great occasion was upon me, I dropped into a seat beside him.

His opinion of _The Light Beyond the Sunset_ was not long in coming out. He regarded it as “almost a great poem”--a view which I can report without a blush, since I consider it about as flattering as if he had credited me with being “almost intelligent” or “almost honest.” He would be proud to publish the work, but there were, unfortunately, some little difficulties--he coughed, and hesitated--some little difficulties, mostly of a financial nature, which should not even be mentioned in connection with so fine a poem. But if I could manage a mere few hundred dollars--

Alas, I could not manage a mere few hundred dollars! All at once my rainbowed cloud castles collapsed. I had to console myself with the thought that my “almost great poem” had been almost published. Mr. Bruce and I, after a long talk about poets and poems generally, said our goodbyes with mutual cordiality, though nothing more was mentioned as to _The Light Beyond the Sunset_. This was not to be my last contact with the man, for sometime later, when he learned that I was compiling the anthology _Modern American Lyrics_, he sent me an enormous tome of his sumptuously printed _Collected Poems_ from which to make selections; and when I could find only one short piece that seemed to deserve admission, he was sorely disappointed, not to say aggrieved at my lack of critical discrimination, and probably never forgave me.

Mention of _Modern American Lyrics_ brings me back to the subject of contemporary poetry in general, which I was following insofar as my reviewing jobs permitted. I still felt that America was witnessing a poetic revival, just as I felt this when I wrote my college thesis; and I wished to do whatever I could to proclaim that great fact, and to make the poets of the new age known to a public to whom poets still did not seem important. At the same time, I wanted to warn of dangers that seemed ever-present and ever-increasing. One method was by means of articles, and in this I was fortunate: the _New York Times Book Review_ under Brooks Atkinson on several occasions allowed me a full page. Referring again to the old clippings, at which I have not glanced for dozens of years--not, in fact, since they were first culled from the paper--I see that on February 25, 1923, under the heading of _Oases and Mirages of the Poetic Desert_, I declared that “It is stimulating to observe how much good poetry is being written in America today, and depressing to witness how much poor poetry is being applauded.” As an example of the “poor poetry,” I quoted from a contribution to Professor Howard Willard Cook’s critical anthology, _Our Poets of Today_:

I grasped the greasy subway strap
And read the lurid advertisements,
I chewed my gum voraciously,
Inhaled strange fumes pugnaciously,
I heard the grating of the wheels
And felt that the chords
Of my city soul
Were in perfect tune.

Worse than this, far worse, has since been perpetrated, but back in the innocent early twenties, this was bad enough to be noted as an example of misbranded poetry, and an indication of the perils ahead--perils recently all too fully realized. By way of contrast to such barren prose, however, I devoted the greater part of the article to more capable poems, including _Fog_, by John Reed, the exquisite early sonnets of David Morton, several offerings by Hermann Hagedorn and Arthur Davison Ficke, and the now unfortunately forgotten lyricist Kendall Banning. Alas, it required far more than any mere article of mine to keep these things of beauty before the eyes of a world that concentrated furiously on the things of utility, the things of luxury, and the things of finance. It is a strange and not a heartening thought that my very article has no doubt long been lost to the mind of every being on earth except myself, probably even to the memory of the editor who accepted the material.

But realizing the fugitive quality of all periodical publication, I early gave my chief thought to books, a medium that might preserve--at least, a little longer than the fluttering pages of papers--such things as I could offer in poetry or prose.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

The Magic World between Covers

One day late in 1923 or early in 1924, I walked into the offices of a newly established publishing firm, and spoke with Earle H. Balch, later to be editor-in-chief of Putnams--a handsome young man of about thirty, with one of the most ingratiating smiles I can remember. Also, I met Melville Minton, the future President of Putnams, whose death not long ago caused widespread regret in publishing circles; at the time of our meeting, he was a debonaire book salesman in early middle life, and had joined forces with Balch to form the firm of Minton, Balch and Company.

My object in seeing Balch was to present an idea for an anthology of poetry. In the course of my reviewing and miscellaneous reading, I had come across many poets, some of them unknown or virtually unknown, whose work seemed worthy of preservation; these, published along with examples from the writings of more celebrated authors, would provide a valuable cross-section of contemporary American poetry. At the same time, I hoped to avoid a confusion already becoming common: the confusion of bracketing indisputable poetry together with work not recognizable as poetry by any standard known before the second decade of this century.

Balch was sufficiently interested to ask me to draw up a prospectus and a list of tentative inclusions, which, needless to say, I did very gladly. And there came a happy day, not many weeks later, when I was told that my prospectus had been approved, and that I would be commissioned to compile an anthology, for which Balch proposed the title, _Modern American Lyrics_.

Alas, on that bright day, I was still to be educated in the trials, heartaches, and problems of an anthologist.

Those trials, heartaches, and problems were by no means to be exclusively literary. On the contrary, they were primarily as non-literary as a contract to buy wheat or potatoes. And this was because you could not simply dig into the bin of contemporary poetry, and pick whatever you wished without reference to copyright holders. None, of course, will question that this is as it should be; the author and the publisher must be protected in the use of their product. On the other hand, this makes the compilation of an anthology something like the running of a hurdle race; and the roadblock it establishes may be less damaging to the anthologist than to the poets he hopes to represent. Back in the twenties, however, the situation was less discouraging than it has since become. Permissions to reprint were easier to obtain, and the requested fees were fewer and more moderate; in later years the very making of anthologies--one of the chief means by which less known poets may gain an audience and a chance for survival--has been all but prohibited except to compilers and publishers with wide resources.

As a verse-writer, I endorse the principle that poets should be paid for the use of their material in compilations; but as an anthologist, I can testify that this is not always possible. My publishers did agree to allow a certain sum to be deducted from royalties and applied to fees for permissions; I cannot recall whether the amount was one hundred dollars, or two hundred; in any event, it was small enough. When I asked permission, for example, to reprint a poem by Robert Frost--not then, nor at any time, one of my favorite poets--the requested price of twenty-five dollars gave me such a budgetary headache that I saw no choice except to do without Frost. And when I wrote to a certain writer, whose poem in a current magazine was one of those borderline cases that had caused me much hesitation, the author solved all my doubts when he wrote in from Europe, asking the compensation of twenty dollars--his poem, so far as I know, remains unanthologized until this day.

This occurrence, however, was wholly exceptional; every other poet I consulted was willing, even eager to have his work appear regardless of remuneration; it was the publishers who gave the trouble, when there was trouble (though many of them were most cooperative). Thus, there was the case of the poet who wrote me, “I’d be delighted to have you use my poems, without charge. But the copyright, unfortunately, is owned by the publishers; and they are certain to ask fees, maybe more than you are prepared to pay.” It occurred to me, therefore, that it would be poor strategy to consult the publishers; and so I wrote back to the author: “I notice that your book was published years ago. If it is no longer selling, the publishers probably have no further use for the copyright, and will release it to you upon request. After that, I can apply directly to you for reprint permission.” Sometime later, I had a letter from the author, stating that he had followed my suggestion, that the copyright was now his, and that he granted me permission to reprint his work.

In another instance, in which I wished to use several poems by one writer, I applied to the publishers who had issued his books years before; and was asked a fee that would have made my budget totter. Being in communication with the author, I notified him of the request, and he wrote back hotly: “The publishers you mention no longer have any rights in my work. The rights were taken over by K, my present publisher, who has stipulated that I have absolute disposition of the reprint privileges. I therefore grant you the permission you ask--and don’t be foolish enough to pay the first publishers a fee.”

Still another writer granted permission with this peculiar warning: “Don’t under any circumstances write to my publishers to confirm this consent, though you should, of course, print the usual acknowledgment to them. This letter is sufficient and final.” It was indeed sufficient and final; neither in this case, nor in any other connected with any of the four anthologies I have compiled, has any person challenged my right of inclusion.

An anthologist, I found, has to be nothing so much as a letter-writer; my correspondence was voluminous, far more so than I could have foreseen, and seemed never-ending. Letters began coming in from all variety of sources, along with manuscripts, magazines, and books of poems with suggestions for inclusion. But how did this happen? Did I advertise for material? Naturally not. Nevertheless, a sort of underground publicity campaign was at work, and one not of my deliberate making. When I wrote, for example, to poet Phil Brown asking permission to reprint his sonnet _Midsummer_, Phil might be so elated that--with no thought at all of advertising my forthcoming compilation--he would mention my letter to his verse-writing friends Joe Thompson and Ed Williams; and Joe and Ed, seeing no reason to go unrepresented when Phil was to be included, would write me nominating themselves as candidates for anthologizing, and would send quantities of their work in support of the nomination, in some cases whole floods of volumes. The result was not, I am sorry to say, a vast increase in acceptable material; the result was an immense addition to my own labors, since most of the volunteered material was of poor quality, some of it atrociously bad. Already, I fear, though I had set out with the best of intentions, I was making enemies among poets--the editor’s inevitable lot, since no way yet has been invented of making every submitted manuscript acceptable.

Errors of judgment in selection do, of course, occur, and must occur, though no two persons may agree as to what the particular mistakes have been. Other errors, too, as I learned with deep pain, may creep in, though there was nothing to parallel the case of one of my own subsequent printed poems, in which “flashing reel” became converted into “fishing reel.” But things seemed bad enough when an author wrote me with a justifiable sense of injury that her sonnet had appeared in thirteen lines. This, indeed, was true, as I confirmed upon consulting the book; and it hardly helped matters that, so far as the sequence of ideas was concerned, the poem seemed not to have lost by the omission of the line. I did not know, and do not know to this day, whether the fault lay in an inexcusable error in proofreading, or in the careless last-minute dropping out of a bar of type by the printer, who was unaware that sonnets should come in fourteen lines; in any event, that error, though corrected in later editions, probably tormented me as much as it did the author.

There were actually two subsequent printings of _Modern American Lyrics_ as such, in addition to a joint printing with _Modern British Lyrics_, which first appeared in 1925. In connection with the combined volume--whose year of publication I cannot readily determine, since I lent my only copy to a friend, who never returned it--an incident occurs to me, doubtless a little irrelevant to the present discussion, but perhaps worth telling. One summer several years after the birth of the two anthologies, I was browsing in a bookstore in San Francisco; and my eyes fell upon a volume entitled _Modern Lyrics_. Automatically I picked it up, and lo and behold! I saw my own name as compiler! What was that? Did I suffer from acute amnesia, causing forgetfulness of my own actions? How could I be the editor of an anthology that I did not even know I had compiled?

A hasty examination, however, showed that the book was nothing more nor less than _Modern American Lyrics_ and _Modern British Lyrics_ united under a single cover. But what was this firm of Loring and Mussey, whose name I read on the title page? A combine of pirates?

Considerably confused, I wrote to Earle Balch, and in the normal course received the explanation. His firm had sold the reprint rights to Loring and Mussey, as it was entitled to do by contract, but had forgotten to notify me of the deal. In due time, I would receive my share of the returns, as provided by our agreement.

As I look back over the preface of _Modern American Lyrics_, I find that same effort to distinguish poetry from pseudo-poetry which, rightly or wrongly, has remained one of my preoccupations throughout the years. In referring to pseudo-poetry, I was chiefly concerned, then as now, with certain innovators who, it seemed to me, were abandoning poetry for the sake of novelty, were turning out transparently disguised prose, and so were spreading confusion over the poetic world, and tending to make all poetry look ridiculous. Referring to certain modern compilations then recommended as good, I remarked:

Page after page ... is devoted to formless effusions whose music is
less than the music of dignified prose; page after page is filled
with the sordid things of everyday, with kitchen sinks and bathtubs
and cobblestones and loveless adulteries. And if in the interlude--as
frequently occurs--one comes across a glowing sentiment or memorable
melody or flash of imagination that reveals wide vistas of the
sun-tinged storm-clouds or of the starry night-skies, then one is
likely to be plunged in the next page into the monologue of a real
estate agent if not into an epic of the hog-pens.

If I were to write this in regard to the anthologies of today, there would not be a word I would have to reconsider, except that the phrase “as frequently occurs” might now seem an overstatement.

Even before the appearance of _Modern American Lyrics_, I had made my bid for recognition in a collection, _The Thinker and Other Poems_. Doubtless I was as proud of this as most writers are of their first published masterpieces; but let me hasten to add that I am proud of it no longer, nor have I been for many a year. I would perhaps not go so far as one poet I once heard of, who offered a handsome price for copies of his first book; and having retrieved quite a few at considerable cost and trouble, disposed of them all in one great bonfire, in the hope of thus extirpating all trace of his youthful folly. But if I would not seek to emulate this holocaust, the reason is that I see no need for the poet himself to weed out what time is certain to obliterate. I will not say that _The Thinker_ does not truthfully embody much of the thought, feeling, and imagination of my youth. But in glancing back over the poems (a form of self-chastisement I rarely submit myself to), I find few if any that I would not present in different garments were I writing them today. Then why do I not revise them? Because life goes on to new impulses and expressions, and it would be as difficult to return to the mood and outlook of yesterday as to go back to the haunts of one’s childhood.

I must not give the impression that any publisher was waiting with outstretched hands for this early darling of my heart. Then, as now, no publisher was enthusiastic about the chance to lose money; then, as now, it was difficult to find a market for poetry, though markedly less so than it has since become. Even while in California, I had been in contact with the firm of James T. White and Company, which issued occasional books of verse, though its chief publication, if I remember rightly, was an encyclopedia of American biography (which, I believe, it still issues). One day sometime after my arrival in New York, I stepped into the offices of the firm at 70 Fifth Avenue, and saw Mr. White, a thin, aged, learned-looking man, whose hair matched his name; and also met his amiable editor, James B. Kenyon, probably then in his late sixties--the author of no less than nine books of verse and three of prose not unfamiliar to an earlier day, though I suspect that few nowadays remember him. The tone of his poems, which were not without quality even though lacking that supreme element which makes one poet soar above a thousand and surmount the generations, is indicated by these lines from _Reed Voices_ (James T. White, 1917):

’Mid the dusk reeds that fledge the twilight streams,
Nature’s wild troubadours, the breezes, make
Such strange sweet songs as echo through our dreams,
And haunt our baffled memories when we wake.

To Mr. Kenyon, who received me in a friendly way, I showed some of my own poems; and his approval, while perhaps over-generous, naturally led to a discussion of the possible publication of a collection. It was some time before a way could be worked out; but finally it was decided that, if I could dispose of a certain number of copies, the firm would undertake the publication. Do not suppose that there was anything unusual or degrading about such an arrangement; it was then and has since become even more decisively the rule among first books of verse, most of which would otherwise never see the light--and if the first book does not see the light, what of the second, and the third? As a matter of fact, I did not stand to lose much (nor was I financially able to lose much), for I knew where I could dispose of numbers of copies, even though I did not yet realize that many acquaintances who will buy a first book out of good will or curiosity would no sooner purchase a second than they would subscribe for shares in a company dedicated to raising white elephants. I did not, of course, personally solicit sales; but the company circularized a list of names provided by me. Bookstore sales counted for little if anything; but there was one store that did sell quite a few copies--a store such as, I would hazard a guess, has rarely if ever, before or since, dealt in books of verse. A cousin of mine, a bright and literate woman who was always especially kind to me, ran a sort of emporium of ladies’ goods on Washington Heights; and what should be added to the stock in trade but _The Thinker and Other Poems_! Recommended by the sagacious proprietor, this book went off into more than one home where poems were ordinarily in no great demand.

But already I was learning some of the trials of the young author. In my inexperience, I had given no thought to so important a matter as the size of the type to be used; and when I saw the proofs, I observed with a shock that the print was minute (actually, eight point, whereas nowadays I would approve nothing less than eleven or twelve point). So hard was the book to peruse that its author, after it came out, could never read more than a poem or two at a time, and rarely subjected his eyes to this much strain. You may say that this had the advantage of keeping down the number of readers, but I am sure no such precaution was necessary. It may have been the small type, or it may have been mere ineptitude that caused me to miss a number of errors; one of them, in particular, seems considerably more amusing to me now than when I originally discovered it: my poem of tender sentiment, _On My Mother’s Photograph_, had come out, “On My Mother’s Phonograph.”

Despite the small print, despite the typographical errors, despite the amateurishness of many of the poems, _The Thinker_ was extensively and on the whole favorably reviewed; I received a gratifying wealth of clippings from papers ranging from New York to Puget Sound. I mention this, however, not with any sense of personal triumph, but because similar good luck does not befall books of verse by unknown writers today; a traditional collection such as mine, issued without advertising and under the imprint of a relatively obscure publisher, could now be certain to be ignored altogether outside the author’s home town, or at most would be honored by one or two three- or four-line notices from secondary organs. In this difference one can measure the extent to which poetry, in the course of several decades, has fallen in critical and general esteem.

CHAPTER
NINE

Blood Brother to the Epic

Certain writers, such as Poe and Baudelaire, have contended that there is no such thing as a long poem. And these writers, consistently, have never written any long poems--that is to say, compositions running to many hundreds or thousands of lines; the cynical critic might, indeed, accuse them of sharing the common blindness of men to accomplishments beyond the scope of their own aptitudes. In any event, the case for the long poem need not be argued, for it has been proved in action by not a few writers, including Homer, Virgil, Dante, Ariosto, Camoëns, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Goethe, and many others. An extended theme, after all, requires extended expression; and it is hard to see why a long poem may not bear the same relationship to a short one, as a novel does to the short story or a full-length play to a skit or a sketch.

That long poems are unpopular nowadays is another matter; (what else can be expected in a day when all poetry is unpopular?). But the question of popularity never entered my head when I launched into more than one composition whose lines could be numbered in four figures. Truly, I wrote what I wanted to write, and naturally hoped for the best, but never gave much thought to the possible reception of the work (which might show the impractical nature of poets, if their impracticality were not already proved by the fact that they write verse at all). Nevertheless, what joy to pick a theme on which you might sail away into gorgeous cloud-lands, filling page after page with the ever-expanding story, setting down in succinct rhymed lines your views on life and on man, and creating something which (to you, at least) is vivid and living where previously nothing at all has been! Characters that arise out of the mist to take on flesh and blood! Scenes and places that assume visible outlines, though to be found nowhere on earth except in one poet’s imagination! And the rhymes themselves--they were a challenge and a delight: the challenge of problems to master, and a delight when they seemed deftly to say just what you wanted, even if sometimes you had not known you wished to say precisely this until the words formed themselves in your mind!

Day after day, I learned, one can invoke the necessary mood of detachment. Indeed, this mood comes the more easily for being sought regularly, and sought at about the same time each day, seven days a week; an interruption of even a day or two will make it more difficult to regain. I found this to be the case when engaged, all one carefree summer, in putting together the first of my long poems ever to see print. This composition, _The Lone Adventurer_, was written mostly in California, where Flora and I had gone in July and August of 1926 to visit my father in the hot but delightfully green and spacious city of Stockton. The preceding months had been among the most painful and wearing in my experience: Flora’s father had died; she herself had undergone a major operation; and I had been subjected to long-drawn torments of dental surgery. And so the writing of the poem, “For him who would forget awhile the noise / Of careworn cities, drenched in sweat and steam,” constituted an inexpressible relief, though I would not use the word “escape,” since to be in a quiet California town, with its long elm-shaded streets, its unfenced gardens, and its walnut, fig, and oleander trees, was to enjoy all the escape the city-wounded wanderer needed.

Morning after morning, while I lay stretched out with pen and paper on the lawn of the unfrequented block-square city park at Eldorado and Acacia Streets, looking up at the palm trees or down at the robins and sparrows hopping inquisitively about the grass, I spun out the seven-line stanzas of the poem, which told of the search of Prince Lodalga for the magical pool:

High on the highest peak of all the range,
In a chill fastness far from human sight,
Walled from the ruinous touch of Time and Change,
There is a pool that sparkles mirror-bright.
And he who peers in it, and sees aright,
May catch a phantom gleam, a flash of wings,
And read the hidden meaning of all things.

While I lay on the lawn in a far-off mood, letting the lines of the poem tumble into my mind, Flora sat near me with a book. But her presence caused no distraction; though not a poet herself, she had an understanding of the needs of creation and never broke in with an unnecessary remark. Ah, patient wife of a poet, who could restrain herself and contentedly walk the ways of silence, when others less sensitive would have burst out in irrelevant and destructive speech!

It was a rare morning when I did not put out seven, eight, nine, or ten stanzas, which would be revised at my leisure later in the day (and then revised again and again before their final typing). Hence it is not surprising that the end of the summer saw the completion of the poem, well over two thousand lines in all.

Having written _Finis_, I naturally thought of finding a publisher. This might seem impossible in these later days, when many publishers frankly proclaim that they are not interested in poetry of any type, while others, apparently on the theory that if poetry must be endured at all it had better be taken in small doses, throw up their hands hopelessly at the very thought of a _long_ poem.--Even if _Paradise Lost_ were to be submitted, or _Prometheus Unbound_, or _The Eve of St. Agnes and Other Poems_, the verdict would be the same, without benefit of one stray glance at the unpromising manuscript. But back in the pristine days of 1926, the situation was different--at least, if I may judge by the results. _The Lone Adventurer_ was not ready for submission before my return to New York in September; and I do not recall, nor do any records inform me, what publishers, if any, during the next month or two, declined with thanks the privilege of adding it to their responsibilities. But what I do know is that, as early as December, publishing arrangements had been made.

One day I invaded the offices of the newly founded Unicorn Press, on West Forty-Second Street (not to be confused with the entirely unrelated more recent establishment of the same name). There I had the opportunity of interviewing the young proprietors, Messrs. Kline and Blum; and having entrusted them with the precious manuscript, I was delighted--what poet would not have been?--to learn of the eventual acceptance of my _magnum opus_. My joy, I should add, sprang largely from the fact that the Unicorn Press was not--at least, not so far as my own experience taught me--one of the so-called vanity publishers, which act as purveyors of books financed by their authors. It was a legitimate royalty house--too bad, therefore, that I did not foresee the knots and tangles into which such a house can entrap an author!

Obviously, one reason for the acceptance of _The Lone Adventurer_ was that the new and unknown Unicorn Press needed writers--prose writers much more than poets. The following may seem a little apart from our main theme, though there is a connection: within three or four months, Kline and Blum offered me a contract for a long book dealing with the history of warlike methods, of which at that time I had written only about fifty pages. The title was to be _Marching Men, The Story of War_, and I had to face a deadline only a few months ahead--a deadline which I met after a concentrated seven-day-a-week effort that need not be described here. Alas for an author’s hopes! the book was indeed issued, in a handsome format, nearly five hundred pages of it, embellished with copious illustrations by Arthur Zaidenberg; and it was a book which, I was informed by persons in a position to know, should have had a wide sale. But even before it was in print, events of which I was then unaware were casting the shadow of disaster.

The owners of the Unicorn Press, as I was subsequently told, were mired in deep financial straits. So desperately did they need immediate cash that they committed the unpardonable, the ruinous act of selling over a thousand copies of my book at reduced rates to used-book dealers even before it had been placed on the regular market or reviewers had had a chance to see a copy (they could afford to do this, since they had omitted the formality of paying the printers). No book could survive such a calamity; the least of my losses was that I received none of the expected royalties. No other publisher would handle a book whose market had been so undermined, though more than one told me that he would have published it had it been submitted to him originally (actually, one small publisher did offer me a contract for the book several years later, but financial difficulties prevented him from carrying out the agreement); while long afterwards, in 1946, an offer to reissue the work came to me out of the void from a New York reprint publisher; but the plates having been destroyed, the deal was never consummated.

All of this may seem like a digression, but it will indicate what sort of a publisher I had found for _The Lone Adventurer_. Blithely unaware of anything less than perfect in my new connection, I saw the book appear, appropriately green-covered, with an appealing red and black jacket, and large type; and if a poet’s chief aim is a published volume, I had at least one satisfaction. The months went by; there were reviews, comments from friends, and letters from readers (though not many letters); but as in the later case of _Marching Men_, never a penny in royalties. I am not suggesting that the sales were great enough to pay for a steam yacht or a mansion on Fifth Avenue; but large or small, I was treated to no definite report. The most that I could obtain, after some unhappy sessions with Kline and Blum, was a document signing all rights to the poem back to me. But sometime later, I had reason to be glad even for this concession; chancing to observe the books on the bargain counter of a large New York drug store, I was astonished to see a familiar face: _The Lone Adventurer_, in a new edition, with the original type and paper, but a reduced page-size and a reduced price!

On inquiry, I was able to unravel the mystery. The cheap edition had been put forth by the binders, who, being in possession of 500 or 1000 unbound copies which they had seized in partial satisfaction of the debts owed by the Unicorn Press, had bound these at their own expense and thrown them on the market. The last person to be considered, of course, was the author; but as the author happened also to be the copyright owner, he wrote to the binders, pointing out that they had committed a copyright violation by an unauthorized act of publication; and the binders, conceding the point, agreed to pay a royalty on the books they had sold. Thus I came into possession of a small sum, no more than fifty or a hundred dollars--the only case I have ever known in which a poet, after going unpaid by his publisher, received royalties from the publisher’s binders.

But perhaps all the above will further explain why I sought my living by other forms of writing than poetry.

_The Lone Adventurer_, I will acknowledge, is a much less accomplished work than I could wish; its theme and style, besides, would have harmonized better with the age of Tennyson than with the staccato pace of the day of jet planes and atomic power. Yet most themes and styles are adjudged by the tastes of individuals rather than by absolute standards; and this poem, with its basis in the quest for truth, has always had a place in the affections of that highly prejudiced person, its author. He has sometimes thought that he might someday revise it; in fact, in _Garnered Sheaves_ (1949), he did present new versions of a few short passages. Just in order to note the difference, whether for better or for worse, it may be interesting to compare some of the original stanzas with their later incarnations. Here, to begin with, is an excerpt as printed in 1927:

Among the ice-crowned mountains to the west
Of Helmud’s empire, where the peaks of snow
Surmount the cloud-peaks, battered crest on crest,
And crookèd canyons ramble miles below,
Sometimes a sleety wind would snarl and blow
Round a slim figure that pursued alone
The snake-meanderings of a trail of stone.

* * * * *

And forlorn forests knew him, where the boughs
Made a dim twilight roof; and he would toil
Up rock-strewn summits, with a cave for house,
Where spitting geysers would erupt and boil
Amid scrub pines that sucked a beggared soil;
And in green bouldery gorges he would wander,
Where twisted streams poured with the roar of thunder.

And here are the same stanzas in the edition of 1949:

Among the ice-beaked mountains to the west
Of Helmud’s kingdom, where the spires of snow
Surmount the cloud-spires, pendent crest on crest,
And crab-armed canyons ramble worlds below,
Sometimes the sleet-wind and the rain would blow
Round a slim traveler who traced alone
The snaky wanderings of a trail of stone.

* * * * *

Wolf-threaded forests knew him, where the boughs
Gave noon a roof of twilight; he would toil
Up to the summits, with a cave for house,
Where spitting geysers bubble and fountains boil
Beneath scrub-pines that suck a beggared soil;
And in green gorges eagle-spaces under
Cascading streams that pour with the drone of thunder.

Another stanza may show the difference even more clearly:

And had he headed some rapacious band
To save the kingdom from its smaller foes,
And driven happy peoples from their land,
Slain babes and women with victorious bows
And left but ruins where had bloomed the rose--
Then fond disciples would have reared a shrine
Inscribed to “King Lodalga, the Divine.”

In the later form, this became:

And had he headed some fire-hurling band
To save the kingdom from its smaller foes,
Whipped screaming peoples from a smoking land,
Slain babes, felled women with bowel-ripping bows,
And left but ash-heaps where he found the rose,
Then fond disciples might have reared a shrine
Sacred to “King Lodalga, Lord Divine.”

There may be readers who would prefer the first versions, but these examples will give some idea of the effect of revisions after more than twenty years.

CHAPTER
TEN

Poets I Have Known

Inevitably, in the course of my adventures in poetry, I met other poets, some of whom come back to mind with particular vividness--not necessarily those I knew best or longest, but those whose individuality makes them stand out most sharply.

To begin with, I think of a man whom I shall call Morris, and who has, unhappily, made himself notorious. I first met him back in the fall of 1920, shortly after my arrival in New York. He was then the owner of a small bookshop, near where the Sixth Avenue “L” trains thundered to a halt at the station at Eighth Street in Greenwich Village. A proud, handsome, insolent-looking, big-browed intellectual, he impressed me with his announcement that a novel of his was to appear in the spring, and that he was writing a book on current poetry (in what spring the novel was published I do not know, but I am sure that the book on poetry never made its bow). In the loneliness of my first months in New York, I paid several visits to his shop, where I saw (but was not introduced to) a number of literary celebrities, including Edna St. Vincent Millay. I then lost track of Morris, until several years later, when compiling _Modern American Lyrics_ I met him again in the office of Earle Balch, who mentioned that he had some poems which might be worth considering for my contemplated anthology.

Indeed they were worth considering! a series of well-wrought and feeling sonnets dealing with remembrances of his native village in Russia. These, I knew, were an acquisition for the anthology; and here, I also knew, was a poet of unusual promise--promise, unhappily, not to be fulfilled. For Morris chose to follow other roads than those of poetry--roads leading toward ruin and disgrace. What was the flaw, the weak link, the fatal trap within the personality of this intelligent and capable man? That his thoughts should turn toward publishing was not unnatural, in view of his bookish interests--but why, of all fields of publishing, should he choose pornography as his particular area? In his appearance, and in his conversations, he gave no suggestion of any perverse tendencies--was it then that he was looking for an especially lucrative source of income? I only know that he underwent successive trials, convictions, and prison sentences, while perhaps the force of circumstances or his own fierce and defiant nature forbade him to turn to other channels--a good life and an able intellect largely lost, and one more poet cast into the abyss.

Another memorable verse-writer, whom I never knew well but cannot forget, was Anton Romatka--a man whose death some years ago was the subject of wide newspaper publicity, not because his poetry was notable, but because the facts of his life were extraordinary.

He was a man certain to impress you on sight: like a picture straight out of a Victorian album, with his small figure, his round ruddy face, his gold-rimmed spectacles over watery eyes, his blond side-whiskers and long, drooping blond mustache, his small bow-tie, and high stiff celluloid collar that gave a sort of European rigidity and formality to his appearance. Romatka was a man who took poetry seriously--would that there were more of his kind! Though his own offerings may have been nothing to boast of, he did a real service for poets by the forum which he provided for them in a hall on Fourteenth Street, somewhere near Third Avenue. I can still see him, as he gravely, even ponderously officiated, introducing the various poets in an English that perhaps left something to be desired, but with a zeal in which nothing was lacking: he was that rare poet who was less interested in reading his own work than in providing means for others to read theirs. I can recall various meetings, perhaps not greatly attended, but pervaded by that spirit, that enthusiasm which is more important than numbers; he made it possible for many different groups to be represented, as on the occasion when Henry Hazlitt (then literary editor of the _Sun_, but later known as a writer on economics) appeared in order to introduce some of the _Sun’s_ local poets.

Alas, I fear that Romatka, though a good saint of poetry, was not always appreciated. I know that he was a bit discouraged, as I was, on that Sunday afternoon when he had asked me to appear at a Third Avenue location to address a poetry group, and I found an audience of three in addition to Romatka and myself. That was the last I ever saw of him; but I know that he, with little or no means and handicapped by his foreign appearance, speech, and mannerisms, did more in his humble way for poetry than could be claimed by most of those who laughed slyly at his oddities.

A man whom I knew far better, over a longer term of years, is likewise a definite and memorable individual. In this case, for fear of embarrassing him, I will not give the actual name, but will christen him Jim Maynor. I first met him in the early twenties, and I knew from the beginning that he was a real poet--though one whose production was exceedingly scanty, and who would give more time to polishing a phrase than other poets will take in completing a sonnet. At the time of our first meeting, he had published a brochure of poems, one copy of which he proudly presented to me--only to request its return sometime later when, being engaged, he found that he had no copy to inscribe to his fair one. His engagement, incidentally, had come about in true romantic fashion: he had met the young lady in the lamp factory in which they were both employed (he for a period of weeks only); and being treated to a harrowing tale of how she was about to be locked out of the house by a cruel stepfather named (believe it or not!) Proudfit, he rushed to the rescue of her imperilled innocence, and promptly wooed and married her, though neither of them had a penny put aside for bread or rent.

Jim Maynor, as you will divine from the above, was not one who cared too much for the ways of this grubbing, mundane world. Not that he had not tried often enough to conform with the dull laws of society, but that something in his own nature forbade him to continue in any of a long succession of jobs as librarian, postal carrier, book salesman, department store clerk, caretaker in a city park, choir singer in a church, and other occupations more numerous than I can recall. Finally, during the depression days of the thirties, he found his vocation. At least, he will swear to you that it _is_ his vocation; and, certainly, it has given him greater contentment than any conventional job. More than once, walking on the streets of New York, I have heard a strong tenor voice wafted across a distance; and drawn toward the source of the sound, I have seen Jim on a street or in the court of an apartment house, an unsought minstrel bowing as he collected the pennies, dimes, or quarters thrown him by passers-by or from windows above. On one occasion, in a subway train, I heard that same voice; listened to the strains of a sentimental song strangely competing with the crashing tumult of the cars; and saw Jim approaching, raggedly dressed, and smiling at me out of his thin, slightly worn, not unintelligent face. In the eyes of the unappreciative world, this may seem like begging, but not to Jim, who insists that he repays the people in pleasure for every cent they throw to him--he is like one of the roving troubadours of old, though born, unfortunately, a few hundred years too late.

The ways of the modern world, to be sure, are hard; the returns of itinerant singing have not sufficed to cover the expenses of an apartment in the Bronx, plus a wife and two children; and Jim has had to supplement his income by occasional night-club singing and by his wife’s wages from a downtown department store. But somehow he has managed to exist. When I last saw him, a year or two ago, he was browned from his outdoor activities; and looked well and happy. Meanwhile he continues to write a rare poem, and never one without quality.

A poet of a more volatile disposition, whom I knew even before my first acquaintance with Maynor, became my friend owing to a letter of introduction given me by a man I was never to see again, to a woman I was to see but once. During my lonely first autumn in New York, I did not refuse any chances for possible human contacts; one Sunday afternoon found me in Brooklyn, at the home of the middle-aged Sophie, whom a certain Jackson in California had insisted that I must know. At Sophie’s apartment I met her much younger sister Bertha, a quick-witted, dark-eyed, vivacious girl who might have passed for an Italian, though she was actually a Russian Jewess; and there also I met the tall, straight-limbed, flaming-eyed youth who, two or three years later, was to become Bertha’s husband: Ignace M. Ingianni--the “Ignace” being a mere decoration so far as I was concerned, for, like all our mutual acquaintances, I never called him by any other name than “Johnnie.” The son of an immigrant family, he had come to New York in early childhood; and he showed all the volcanic fire of his Sicilian origin. Despite our common poetic interests, he met me with prejudice, I should almost say passionate antagonism; he had recently read one of my poems in a Sunday paper, and had (doubtless justifiably) conceived an intense dislike of it. Having disapproved of the poem, he likewise disapproved of its author, even before seeing him; and his hostility found expression in a roof-shaking argument, though not on poetry--no, on warfare, whose advantages Johnnie defended in a tumult of words that was almost like private warfare; while I, who have never been able to see the militaristic point of view, answered him blow for blow during a long, overheated debate. And what was the result? That we went our way in mutual disgust, and saw no more of each other? Or that we became lifelong enemies? On the contrary, the result was that we went our way in mutual pleasure, and became lifelong friends.