Voices On The Wind - First Series (Second Impression)
An Anthology Of Today

Preface by S. Fowler-Wright

Published by: Merton Press
1922

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Acknowledgements.

        Thanks are due to 'Chambers Journal' for permission to reprint Evening (Lorna Keeling Collard); to 'The Poetry Review' for Betrayal (Lorna Keeling Collard); to Messrs. Erskine Macdonald, Ltd., for A Song of the Sea (B.J. Pendlebury); to the proprietors of 'Punch' for All in a Garden Fair (P. Habberton Lulham); to the Editor of 'To-day' for Unfed and Beauty (Stephen Southwold); to Messrs. Hughes and Harber, Ltd., The Royal Press, Longton, for Staffordshire (E.M. Rudland), and to M. Paul Fort and the 'Mercure de France' for Gai, gai, marions-nous (Anita Moor).

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

        As a companion to this Anthology, a similar volume will be issued before the close of the present year, containing selections from the best work of contemporary Dominion and Colonial writers.

        Those who are not already acquainted with Dominion literature, (which we are afraid must include the great majority of the book-loving public in Great Britain), will probably be surprised at the range and quality of the poetry which is being produced in other parts of the Empire, and which receives too little recognition in this country.

PREFACE

On Anthologies In General.

        A comprehensive and impartial anthology of the poetry of to-day would be an event of lasting literary importance, but there is certainly no such volume in existence, nor can it be said that it has been seriously attempted.

        There are some that represent mainly, if not entirely, certain cliques or coteries; and there are others which contain little more than specimens of the work of such writers as have already obtained the notice of reviewers, without any apparent reference to their intrinsic merit; and there are still others confined entirely and deliberately to the eccentricities of the moment, a species of writing which always takes itself very seriously, unware that it is 'conceived in the spirit of the passing time, and partakes of its transitoriness.' (Matthew Arnold)

        The present volume, though there are numerous writers of distinction who, for various reasons, are not included, can claim to be something more than any of these, being more varied in its contents, and more catholic in its sympathies.

        As Editor of Poetry during recent years I have endeavoured to give publicity to good work of every variety which comes under my notice, with entire disregard to established reputations and without preference for or hostility towards the poetic vagaries of the moment. I have endeavoured to compile the present volume in the same spirit of tolerance, and recognition of every manner of composition either in form or subject.

Romantic Narrative Poetry.

        Even that highest and most difficult form of poetry, - romantic narrative, - which is produced to-day under an extremity of discouragement, has found a place where it may consort on equal terms with lyric and didactic verse.

        And this, at least, is an innovation, for though romantic narrative poetry derives through Homer, Vigil, Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, and Scott, and need have no shame for its ancestry, yet I suppose that if Homer produced the Odessy to-day, he would not easily overcome the silence of the reviewers, or the reluctance of the trade to stock a rambling narrative by an ignored author, which a public educated up to the Imagist standard would know at once to be 'not poetry', and avoid accordingly.

Tendencies Of Modern Verse.

        I suppose it would be generally agreed that poetry is the one art in which for centuries past we have been supreme among the Aryan races. Certainly, the raw material of poetry, and the capacity to appreciate it, exist among us abundantly.

        But while it was noticeable that during the stress of the war the demand of the public for poetry increased very greatly, it is said that it has since diminished. May it not be the explanation that they asked for bread and we gave them stone?

        The craftsmen who consider their technique to be an end in itself, and who expend it upon the obscure or the trivial, must not complain if they have only themselves for an audience.

        The craftsman of any art will always strive for the shaping of beauty in new and unexpected ways, and it is well that it is so; but the wayfarer on the journey of life will lift to his lips the pitcher which is full of living water, however homely, and pass that which is empty, however beautiful.

It's Lack Of Courage.

        And putting aside all questions of construction, it appears to me that the quality in which modern poetry is most deficient is that of courage, and it is that loss by which it is sterilised.

        I do not allude merely to the decadent verse which attracts undue attention owing to the stench of corruption which arises from it, - every decade produces, and the next forgets it, - though it is the sign of its kind that it fawns on fate or shivers before it; not understanding that it is only the fine spiritual quality of courage in Villon which gave us an immortal voice from the thieves' dens where he consorted, through centuries of intervening and forgotten ribaldry.

        But this pusillanimous attitude is too often apparent in contemporary poetry to which the word 'decadent' is not otherwise applicable.

        From the times of David and Isiah to that of Fitzgerald and Henley the world's poets have faced the problems 'of human death and fate,' not unawed, but at least with eyes level and unafraid.

        If there were those also who could only cringe or whine before the mystery which surrounds us, humanity has not cared to remember them.

A Lesson From The Victorians.

        It is a point on which we might well take a lesson from the now-despised Victorians. There is nothing 'resolute in worst extremes' about the bulk of the verse which issues from the press to-day. Swinburne may have been 'without God in the world,' but he could still conceive the attitude of the Athenians, when threatened with the extremity of human disaster, in that heroic chorus, -

        How many poets of to-day, handling the same theme, would have realised it in an equal spirit? Imagine it in the hands of Thomas Hardy, or Ezra Pound.

        It is part of the greatness of Swineburn that though he had no faith in any divine overruling Power, or that there is constancy in love, or permanence in life, yet in a world of 'change, a darkness deeper far than death,' nobility and sacrifice, in a word Christianity, still seemed to him the natural standard of human conduct, and it is through this recognition, which is implicit in all his poetry, that it does not teach inconstancy or infidelity, though if often states them.

        There is more real poetry in these two high-hearted lines, -

        - written in an age so mean that it finds no use for the words 'adventurer' or 'adventuress', unless in disparagement or accusation - than in all the vers libre on pots and packing cases, and similarly inspiring topics, that has been produced during the present century.

Meanness Of Subject.

        Great poetry could never grow in so craven an atmosphere and its exponents bring in their own verdict of condemnation when they choose such themes as lice or barrel organs as fitting subjects for their compositions. (A current periodical, devoted to poetry, amid some better verse, and some which is not so, contains printed matter under this heading, in which appears this gem of poetic profundity:

Vers Libre.

        I do not intend to imply that all modern vers libre is of such quality. Some of it is almost as good as that which was produced in the time of Edward IV. But there is an amazing incapacity to discriminate among its enthusiasts, and work which reaches the borderline of genius may be found in certain periodicals of to-day side by side with the dullest rubbish ever written in intolerably bad English, or 'poems' in which a certain lewdness (Using the word both in its original and modern meanings) of outlook is the sole distinguishing characteristic.

        With the spirit of adventure in art, as in every relation of life, I have the fullest sympathy, and to vers libre, or any experimental form of verse, I have never shown or felt any hostility.

        Our literature for five centuries has been full of the music of irregular rhythms for those ho can hear them, and it is the defect of most modern verse of this character, not that it is irregular, but that it is halting and prosaic.

        I do not think the poems of Mrs Dawson Scott could possibly be produced in a more artistic or appropriate medium, but their originality is that of an authentic tradition, and their ground-work is the accepted metres in which our language must always find its fullest range of emotional expression.

        'Modernity' is a word which could have been applied to the bulk of the poetry of any era, but always it would have implied the fashion, the convention, of the moment, - not the inspiration, but the dead weight against which the living forces of passion and beauty and truth had to struggle to find expression which should be timeless.

        Great poetry is neither temporary nor local.

        'Modernity' is as serious a charge against it as provincialism, - the one being a restriction in time as the other in space, and the greatest poetry has always been that which is least conscious of either influence.

        After I had settled in mind the substance of this introduction, but before I had commenced to write it, I chanced upon a book by Miss Mary C. Sturgeon, entitled ' Studies of Contemporary Poets'. Her selection appeared somewhat surprising, both in its admissions and exclusions, until I read in her preface that she used the word 'contemporary' 'in its full sense', and that a good deal of contemporary poetry was therefore excluded; and as I turned over the book I realised that to her 'the full sense' of 'contemporary' in poetry, is that which is experimental or in some manner deformed or abnormal.

What This Anthology Claims To Be.

        Certainly, I have not approached the subject from that standpoint. But I have made a selection which, however incomplete, is wide enough (I hope) for the most diverse lovers of poetry to find many things in which they can take pleasure, and some with which they might not otherwise have met; and (I fear) for them all to find something also which is 'not poetry' to the intolerance of their conflicting definitions. But there is, at least, nothing which has been taken at random, or for the inclusion of which I could not give a clear reason if occasion required it; and I have endeavoured, in the range of selections, to cover the whole variety of contemporary poetry, from that quiet backwater of pleasant and cultured verse, the writers of which will assure you with serene confidence that Wordsworth was the greatest of English poets, even to those who will state with equal conviction that rhyme and metre are diseases of immaturity, which our literature (and who should know better than they?) has now cast off for ever.

S. Fowler-Wright

INDEX OF POEMS

An Anthology of Contemporary Verse

Only Poems by SFW included

From The Sanskrit. (A translation)

From: SOME SONGS OF BILITIS

II. My hair was blown across my mouth.

IX. "The first had wealth."

XIII. "O sombre woods, reveal if here she came."

VII. "I sing not loves long ceased."

From 'Scenes From The Morte D'Arthur.'

I. Lancelot At The Cross

II. Gawain And The Hermit.

PUBLISHER'S ANNOUNCEMENTS

Now in preparation.

Shorter Poems

by S. Fowler-Wright.        3/6 net.

Including Some Songs of Bilitis, Elaine and Lancelot, and several poems not published previously.

Just Published.

Some Songs Of Bilitis.

by S.Fowler-Wright.        1/- net.

Scenes From The Morte D'Arthur.

by S.Fowler-Wright.(Alan Seymour)        4/- net.

        Poetry.        A Magazine Of Verse, Comment And Criticism.

        Contains new verse, and literary articles and reviews, in great variety.

        Also Prize Competitions, and many items of interest to all writers, students, and lovers of imaginative literature.

        The only monthly periodical published throughout the Empire, which is devoted solely to poetry and poetic literature.

Established 1917         Price 1/- monthly.

The Merton Press Ltd., 11, Gresham Street, London, EC2, and 1, Newhall Street, Birmingham.

THE EMPIRE POETRY LEAGUE.

        This league has been established with the objects of extending the knowledge and love of poetry by social meetings and lectures; encouraging and guiding young and inexperienced writers; stimulating interest in poetry competitions generally, and especially in the schools competitions in the districts in which members reside; and, not least, of bringing the various parts of the Empire into closer touch with one another by these means, and by developing a critical appreciation of their contemporary literatures.

        It has a membership extending wherever the English language is spoken, and the Secretary, at the address below mentioned, will always be pleased to enrol members, and to give them introductions to others in their districts, so that social intercourse may be developed. Lecturers will be supplied by arrangement, where desired. Organising Secretaries are required in many centres where they have not yet been appointed, both at home and abroad.

        There is no entrance fee. The subscription is nominal, £1. 1s. per annum, which can be paid quarterly, if preferred, and which includes a free issue of Poetry to its members, and it is hoped that all lovers of poetry will avail themselves of the stimulating influence of an association of this kind.

107, Guildford Street, London, WC1.

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