Margaret Widdemer

“ CHORUS OF YOUNG MEN WHO RUN POETRY MAGAZINES
We're very careful what we put in;
This magazine is of highest grade;
If it doesn't appeal to our personal taste
There's no use sending it, we're afraid;
We don't like Shelley, we don't like Keats,
We don't like poets who're tactlessly dead;
If you write like us there will be no fuss—
That's the best of verse, when the last word's said.... (Bursting irrepressibly into youthful enthusiasm, and dashing their horn spectacles to the ground)
Yale! ”

“ All in vain, in vain—
(Enter, with a proud consciousness of duty well done, the Chorus of Correspondence, Kindergarten, Grammar, High-School and College Classes for Writing Verse. They sing Joyously)
The Day has come that we adore,
The Day we've all been working for,
Now babies in their bassinets
And military school cadets,
And chambermaids in each hotel
And folks in slums who cannot spell,
Professors, butchers, clergymen,
And every one, have grabbed a pen:
The Day has come—tra la, tra lee—
Everybody writes poetry! ”

“ In this dry landscape here there seems to be
No water, merely persons in large herds,
Who, by their long remarks, their arid girds,
Come from the Poetry Society.
What could be drier, where all things are dry?
What boots this bird, this pear-tree spreading wide?
Oh, make this bird they all discuss to pie,
Hew down this tree and shape its planks to ships,
Send them to sea with these folk nailed inside,
That I may have great sonnets on my lips!
[53]
Elinor Wylie (With an air of admitting the tragic and all-important fact.)
THE GRACKLE IS THE LOON ”

“ Bird—grackle—nay, I'd scarcely call
You bird—a mere egg you, that's all—
Only a bad egg has the nerve
To poach (a pun!) on my preserve!
To P.Q.S. and X.Y.D.
(Both columnists whom you should see)
And L.M.N (a man who never
Columns a word that isn't clever,)
And B.C.D. (who scintillates
Much more than most who get his rates)
A thing like this would be a trial.... ”

“ My soul shall be stripped and buttonless—it shall dwell in a naked tree!
[37]
Aline Kilmer (With a certain aloofness.)
ADMIRATION
Kenton's arrogant eyes watch the Widdemer pear-tree,
His thistle-down-footed sister puts out her tongue at him....
Kenton, what do you see? That yonder is only a bare tree;
Come, carry Deborah home; she is gossamer-light and slim.
"Aw, mother, but I don't want to!" Kenton replies with devotion,
"I've gathered you stones for the bird; come on, don't you want to throw 'em?"
Ah, Kenton, Kenton, my child, who but you would have such an emotion? ”

“ Far from this Grackle we shall flee
And seek Spring Chickens in the Spring!
Too soon Youth's mss must close,
(Omar) its rose be pot-pourri;
[28] What of this bird and all his woes!
Catulla, I would fly to thee—
Bright bird of luring lingerie,
Of bushy bob, of knees aswing,
This golden task be mine in fee,
To seek Spring Chickens in the Spring!
Envoi
Prince, let us leave this grove, pardie,
A flapper is a fairer thing:
Let us fare fast where such there be,
And seek Spring Chickens in the Spring! ”

“ CHORUS OF ELDERLY LADIES WHO APPRECIATE POETRY, (trotting by two by two on their way to a lecture, pause.)
Oh, how narrow! Oh, how shocking!
She's no Muse! She must be mocking!
[95]
MUSE (sternly, having lost her temper by this time)
I am a goddess. ”

“ My mother does Poetic Plays,
My dad does rhymes while signing checks,
And my flapper sister—we wouldn't have missed her—
She's writing an epic on Sin and Sex—
The world's as perfect as it can be,
Everybody writes Poetry!
CHORUS OF CRITICS, (chanting yet more loudly:)
The world's not quite as perfect as it yet might be,
Excepting for our brother-critics' poetry!
(The Spirit of Discord now creeps softly out from among the Critics.)
SPIRIT OF DISCORD
Rash poets, think what you would do—
There's nobody left you can read it to!
POETS (aghast)
We never thought of that! ”

“ Shattered apples, I picked you up under a tree, red wormy apples, I ate you....
That lets God out.
There were three green birds on the tree, there were three wailing cats against a green dawn....
'Gene Field sang, "The world is full of a number of things,"
'Gene Field said, "When they caught me I was living in a tree...."
'Gene Field said everything in Chicago of the eighties.
[14] Now he's dead, I say things, say 'em well, too....
'Gene Field ... back in the lost days, back in the eighties,
Singing, colyumning ... 'Gene Field ... forgotten ... ”

“ Frank wrote up all his evenings out till we began to cry,
But we drowned our envy in a long cool Rye!
And then we got an invitation, Frank and Chris and me,
To come and say a poem on a Grackle in a Tree:
[77]
[78]
[79]
But Chris and I'd had twenty ryes, and we began to cackle—
"Oh, see the ninety pretty birds, and every one a Grackle!
A Grackle with a Hackle,
A ticklish one to tackle
A tacklish one to tickle ... To ticker ... To licker...." ”

“ Folks who write poetry
There's naught on earth can kill!
(During this the CULTURE-HOUNDS, CRITICS, etc., have clustered round the NON-POETRY-WRITING PUBLIC, whispering, urging, and pushing. It rises and scratches its head in a flattered way, and finally says:)
[99]
B'gosh, I do believe,
Now that you speak of it, I could do just as good
As any of those there fool dead fellers could!
(The late Non-Poetry-Writing Public are both immediately invested with lyres, and wreaths which they put on over their derby hats.)
SEMI-CHORUS OF EDITORS (to Spirit of Rejection Slip)
You see? ”

“ Leaping as she went.
"If there's folk to stare at ye ye'll dance for all creation
(Since ye went to settlements 'tis little else I've heard) ,
Letting yer good wages go to chat of 'inspiration,'
Flappin' up an' down an' makin' out yez are a burrd!
Sure if ye got cash fer it 'tis little I'd be sayin'
(Och, Pierrette, stenographin' 'tis better wage ye'll get,)
Sorra wan these long-haired folk has spoke till ye o' payin',
Talkin' of yer art, an' ye a leppin' in the wet!" ”

“ My dear, come with us to Miss Rittenhouse's lecture!
MUSE (lifting her arms angrily)
Até, my sister!
ATÉ, (behind the scenes) I come!
(Enter from one side, Band of Poets—very large—with lyres and wreaths put on over their regular clothes. From the other side, a chorus of Poetry Critics. At their end steals Até, Goddess of Discord, disguised as a Critic by means of horn glasses and a Cane. The Poets do not see her—or anything but themselves, indeed. They sing obliviously)
[96]
My maiden aunt in Keokuk
She writes free verse like anything ”

“ It's quieter, at least.... Rambuncto—friend—
Why, you're not going?... Well—it's a stupid year,
And the world's very useless.... Sorry.... Still
The dusk intransience that I much prefer
Leaves place for little hope and less regret.
I don't suppose he'd care, to stay to dine
Under the circumstances.... What's life for?
[12]
Robert Frost (Rather nervously, retreating with haste in the wake of Mr. Robinson as soon as he had finished.)
THE BIRD MISUNDERSTOOD
There was a grackle sat on our old pear tree—
Don't ask me why—I never did really know ”

“ Corinne Roosevelt Robinson (Who, having engagements to speak at ten unveilings, and nine public schools and twelve other symposiums, stayed away, but sent this handsome tribute by wire.)
THE SYMPOSIUM LEADING NOWHERE
I sing of the joy of the Small Paths
The paths that lead nowhere at all,
(Though I never have gone on them nevertheless
They are admirable, and so small!) ”

“ Cries out upon my name.
Oh, what am I, the Muse and giver of Fame,
So to be mocked and humbled by this use?
I—I, the Muse!
(Enter Spirit of Modern Poetry, a lady with bobbed hair, clad lightly in horn glasses and a sex-complex.)
SPIRIT OF MODERN POETRY
You're behind the times; quite narrow,
Don't you want
Culture for the masses?
MUSE
No ”