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MODERN POETRY

of precise rhythm and intensely emotional sound veiling reality with a false emphasis. In poetry of this kind a tree is simply a tree—life curving out into the colored mechanism of energy—and not a sweet, shady bower where lovers may sit, or a cool nook for the tired wayfarer, or a happy thought of nature, or a symbol of God’s benevolence. This is the poetry that has been crystallized during the last fifteen years in the work of men such as Stephen Crane, Joseph Campbell, Ezra Pound, H.D., Wallace Stevens, Carl Sandburg, Jean de Boscherre, T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Orrick Johns, and others. And if this poetic division conflicts with the old dictionary definition of poetry, then this definition has become a sterile lie and must inevitably be discarded.