Page:Poetry, a magazine of verse, Volume 7 (October 1915-March 1916).djvu/201

Our Contemporaies the work it has done for the art, except by listing our poems, for the first time, among the other lists at the end of the article, and selecting a large number for his next anthology. All the same 's influence permeated Mr. Braithwaite's judgments. Does he not place the work of Amy Lowell and Wallace Stevens and Robert Frost among his "Five Best Poems," conspicuously printed in the middle of the page? And is not the portrait which begins his article that of "Miss Amy Lowell—Now Firmly Established in the First Rank of American Poetry"? And have not the "two great successes of the year" been "the typically American poets Frost and Masters", both of whom printed in 1914, and neither of whom, I think, did Mr. Braithwaite mention a year ago?

Seriously, we welcome this Saul among the prophets. It is a matter of comparative indifference whether is recognized, so long as it is felt. If the magazine is a living force in the mind of Mr. Braithwaite and other students and lovers of the art, what matter whether or not they acknowledge, or even perceive, its very evident influence?

One has only to contrast his review of this year's poetry with that of a year ago to see how agreeably he has developed in sweetness and light, how completely his attitude toward modern verse has been revolutionized by the reading of and other new magazines, and by personal intercourse with a number of more or less radical poets. We even find him saying a good word for the Imagists: