The New Age, July 3, 1913

I'm just going to post about one article in this issue: the weekly "Present-Day Criticism," a column that usually consists of the New Age editors demolishing the said present-day critics. 

This one is written anonymously--though the epigraph from an Indian religious text and the author's declaration that they are back from a break leads me to believe that it is by Beatrice Hastings, conspicuously absent for a few issues.  Thank goodness she's back (if indeed she is, but the liveliness of the piece is another point in her favor). 

Anywho, this one is another attempt to prevent spelling reform, but what caught my eye is that the guy calling for the reform is none other than Robert Bridges, poet laureate--and who I know primarily through my work with Gerard Manley Hopkins's manuscripts.  Most of the highest-amplitude Hopkins poems were first read by Bridges, through correspondence--he would write out beautifully handwritten copies of "The Windhover" etc. and then Hopkins would cross out all his mistakes, add all the accents he missed, etc.  This is the reason that many print editions capitalize the "AND" in "The Windhover"--Hopkins seems kind of mad that he had de-emphasized the exclamation point after "buckle."  Whatever their friendship was like, we owe it to Bridges that Hopkins' poems were published in 1918--more on that in five years.

The clash of Bridges and Hastings excited my poetry nerdiness, only I wish they'd talked about poetry instead of spelling.  Bridges' plan is to simplify spelling by a moderate phonetic reform: instead of strictly phonetic spelling, he's willing to admit that many vowels are pronounced the exact same way.  The solution is to just make that overtly clear, so that "they" and "day" are both acceptable phonetic spellings (no word on whether you could mix it up at will, "thay" and "dey". 

Pseudo-Hastings points out that "they" and "day" don't actually rhyme.  Hmm... maybe to her?  I find myself wondering.  I'm glad that we have our ridiculously spelt language, though.  Even if I don't really get the argument on either side.  Must be that I'm American. 

The New Age, June 12, 1913

My favorite part of this issue was the unsigned list of instructions for writing modern poetry, which I can't resist copying here:

MODERN POETRY.

HINTS FOR THOSE WHO WOULD WRITE IT.

1. The theme should be as sordid and revolting as can be conjured up in the imagination of the writer.

2. Poetic expression need not be sought. Lines of poetry here and there may be lashed together by masses of commonplace language, Vulgar and slangy expressions. Realism will thus be “ attained.”

3. The writer should never miss an opportunity of inserting an oath or profanity, thereby avoiding a fatal insipidity; especially for the sake of rhyme or of botching up a halting metre. It is well to bear in mind that the writer need not hold himself responsible for the utterances of his creations.

4. The rules of metrical composition need not be observed. Whatever the metre chosen, the verses may lack or be in excess of the prescribed number of feet for such metre, according to the pleasure of the author. Any tag will do for a rhyme. Prepositions and conjunctions are now allowed to be quite perfect rhymes, and, for the sake of rhythm, the back of a sentence may be broken in whatever place the poet chooses.

5. In the old term “ poetic licence,” the significance of the latter word may be extended to include all phases of its meaning.

This issue has several frontal attacks on modern poetry--there's another attack on Yeats, with Pater and Wilde thrown in for special scrutiny.  Frost's "A Boy's Will" is called "idle rubbish" in the reviews section.  They even print a letter attacking their correspondent, Richard Aldington--accusing him of rudeness.  The New Age thrives on controversy, and it's always fun to find things like this. 

Is there any chance Eliot read the instructions for modern poetry and decided to attempt to follow all of them?  I'm being facetious, but I like reading The Waste Land through these rules.  I'll make a lesson out of it someday: it's good to emphasize that modernism emerged against massive resistance, and even sometimes-allies could be enemies.  This is close to Ann Ardis' thesis in Modernism and Cultural Conflict.  Which is more a note for me than for you.  Oh public notebook. 

The New Age June 5 1913

A quick report from this issue:

The New Age is covering catastrophes and atrocities these days: the Balkan wars, the Irish famine (a retrospective piece), wage slavery in England, a scandal in the Gilbert Islands, and of course faint rumblings of the impending WWI.  Oh, and graduate school reform. 

Turning to that topic, Ezra Pound concludes his three-part series with a few delightful observations.  First, I love this one: "Some triple-X idiot of an editor has boomed a bad poem and called it worthy of Shelley.  As if Shelley the revolutionist Republican, propagandist, writer of canzoni, would, were he alive in 1913, be content with the same mannerisms of expression that suited him in the year of grace 1813."  Readers should notice why this particularly delights me.  At least, it inspires me to work.  Other parts of his article aren't so great, but I thought it would be worth recording that artist-hipsters have been around for at least the last century--Pound complains about how artists are vegetarians and simple-lifers, rather than master craftsmen (emphasis, perhaps, on craftsMEN). 

This, though, is most precious: "Not only must the artist be able 'to look any damn man in the face and tell him to go to hell,' but he must be able to do this quietly, seriously, without needless bravura or bombast."  That goes out to my old bandmates at the University of Maine.

My favorite part of this issue, though, was the short satirical piece "Futurism in Food" by Lionel de Fonseka.  You may notice that his Wikipedia page has been updated by some other MJP-head, judging by the links attached.  It's the account of a visit to the Post-Impressionist Restaurant and then Moderno, the Futurist restaurant.  It's especially hilarious because many of the goofiest things about Moderno have come to pass in the foodie movement: "We believe that every emotion can be rendered gastronomically, and there are immense possibilities in food as a medium of expression.  What is art, after all, but conscious expression?"  My favorite part was at the end, though, when they are feeling cynical, and so are fed caramel.  I'll leave the punchline to the story itself, and highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a laugh at the Futurists (as all good Futurists do). 

Because the perfect connection between the two pieces above is too perfect to resist: the advertisement on the last page of this issue is for a restaurant offering "a simple-life, pure-food, non-flesh luncheon."  Enjoy.