First Poems

Poets Keep on Publishing Books HARMONIUM -- Wallace Stevens -- Knopf ($2.00) matches its odd, bright cover. The titles of the poems show the mood, Peter Quince at the Clavier, The Comedian as the Letter C, Hymn from a Watermelon Pavilion, Colloquy with a Polish Aunt, "princox, citherns, toucans, gasconade." Intellectual gymnastics, the tight-lipped playfulness of a strange imagination, sonatas for the piccolo--much that is merely sterile grotesquery -- occasionally individual beauty, unfashionably arrayed but genuine--half-a-dozen or a dozen poems, firm-fibred, original, distinguished, ensuring for Mr. Stevens a small but positive niche in the imaginary Valhalla of American poetry. A minor poet of uncompromising intelligence who may outlast many would-be majors.

MASQUERADE--Ben Ray Redman-- Me Bride ($1.50). An interesting young critic who is one of the best translators we have collects his verse. Influence of T. S. Eliot, influence of sonnets, classic and modern, some satire, pleasingly keen, capability, technique, promise, no great originality, a mind that has not quite found itself, a voice a little too fond of the accent of other poetic voices. But still, capability, technique, promise--no more unusual promise than in the case of several others, but indubitably present nevertheless.

BODY OF THIS DEATH--Louise Began --McBride ($1.50). A little too much technique--a careful straining for over-simplicity that defeats its own end. Enormous polish employed unimportantly--rigid, neat little effigies frozen in their tight molds. There are some lovely and successful lyrics among the 28 poems that compose the traditionally slender and beautifully printed volume, but they are rare. Perfect control in the rest, excellence of diction, frequent excellence of image and epithet, but nothing more. All the promise in the world, but Body of This Death has not been judged as promise but as performance. So far Miss Bogan merely shows great aptitude and considerable technical skill.

Three first books of poems--all well worth possessing by anyone interested in modern American verse, in spite of any reviewer's criticisms. Poets do keep on publishing books of poems.