Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Involuntary Witness, Poems by Joseph Warren Beach (Macmillan, New York, $1.50.)
Trial of the Masks, by Gene Magner (Bern Porter, California, 1950.)
Private Speech, poetry by Philip Freund (XV. H. Allen, ios. Gd.)

It is characteristic of modern pretentiousness, in Europe no less than America, to use titles which convey no clear meaning, and two of the three here fall into this preciosity. One of the more consternating tricks of the game is to use as a title the name of a single poem. Involuntary Witness occurs on page eighty-six of the volume so named, and it may be that its last verse is meant to represent the author’s warm if unpoetical interest in human beings:

One mercy is the darkness here
Making it doubtful if the ignominy
Is being witness to their suffering
Or to their nakedness accessory.

But it seems doubtful if this justifies the title for the book. Even Doctor Warren Beach’s spelling keeps slipping, “sterterously” he breathes in anxiety over Phyllis late, and “through wards of kenelled misery” in the title poem.

Here too is Culture almost with a capital K, “O draw Thick curtains, open the Misanthrope, or take A stiff shot of Aurelius, and be still !" I decline to judge of U.S. Poetry by this; it is interesting rapportage.

In Trial of the Masks by Gene Magner, I can find no poetry; no “images” even save in baldest, unwigged, unfrocked, prose; and would say no more than that it is very beautifully printed on lovely paper.

It is sheer joy to turn from this in which (rightly) I find nothing, however hard I search, to the friendly pages of Mr. Philip Freund, in whom I find everything, all the way, all his three-hundred and sixty-odd pages, without having to search at all. I turn everywhere and find poetry, vivid, imaginative, colourful; I select what suits my mood but see nothing which I reject. How different with most of the works I find amid dust-covers and blurb. Mr. Freund appears to be well known as a prolific young novelist and critic, but has kept poetry as his “private language” until now. How lucky are we, now!

I thought the beginning of “To a Boy” typical of what I found in him:

Allow me, dreamer, I have words that must be spoken—
A prophetic moment comes to every man...
O words most wonderful, the bidden visitants
Of silence broken; Some are like red hawks soaring, some like the rattling kingfisher
Chase their prey in the quick rivers—
Hawks and silver-winged gulls in the mind!
Poets, the men of vision,
Sharp voices crying, an assigned
Unearthly token:
Dreamer, allow me—I have words.

Theocritus, on the blue hills, wandered aimless
Singing his great love of streams and valleys,
His sweet love of love;
Blake, an eagle...

and so on; unpredictable, and poetry.