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Galimathias, by Matthew Josephson (8vo, 46 pages; Broom: $1). To discover fresh idioms; to regard familiar objects in the light of another poetry; to be personal and new: these qualities are praised in theory and until they are attained. For Galimathias they procured only a brief chorus of ridicule, justified in small part by the fact that it has the defects of its qualities. Often it tortures the language needlessly. It has gusto, however, and a satisfying loud rhetoric and movement as fine as a Swiss watch. The critics who damned the book most briefly, even, out of their irritation with new forms of beauty, should have been able to appreciate the cadence of a phrase like, "The white foam of the long cataract which from beginning to end is not the colour of water."
Second Contemporary Verse Anthology, edited by Charles Wharton Stork (12mo, 208 pages; Dutton: $3) consists of poems selected from the last three years' issue of Mr Stork's magazine, prefaced by an article on the aims of the magazine, and the editor's definition of poetry. "I believe in this anthology," Mr Stork states, "because I have had so little to do with its making." And yet he has surely had as much to do with its making as can be done by an editor who sets a premium on certain qualities in poetry and gives them the freedom of his magazine. The qualities here encouraged are simplicity, direct appeal, "humanism," "as opposed to the egotism of the futurists." Some of the verse thus selected is of very high rank. In rather a large per cent of the rest, picturesqueness and form are more prominent than intensity of feeling. There is such a thing as trying too hard to be universal, but at least there are poems enough in the one hundred thirty-nine of this anthology to please several tastes.
Some Aspects of the Life of Jesus, by George Berguer, translated by Eleanor and Van Wyck Brooks (8vo, 332 pages; Harcourt, Brace: $4) is an attempt to turn psychoanalysis to the services of religion. Christ's appeal is situated in the fact that his own life was a parallel in actuality to the various myths and legends exemplifying the "Oedipus complex," and thus he "translated into life the secular dream of the peoples." By an emphasis on psychological rather than historico-empirical truth, the author is able to preserve the miracles even in the act of explaining them away. His distinction between spiritual truth and the degeneration of such truth into material fictions, and his examination into the laws underlying such degeneration no doubt call for an enormous amount of skill, so that the book, while it contains bits of subtle exegesis, does not suffer from vagueness and shiftiness of approach.
Damaged Souls, by Gamaliel Bradford (12mo, 385 pages; Houghton Mifflin: $3). This is a gallery of psychological portraits of men prominent in American public life. The portraits rely on many documents and letters for details, the virtues of each man being dwelt upon by way of proof that he was merely damaged, not lost. The author feels that the common characteristic of the group is lack of analysis of their own motives and natures, coupled with limitless discussion and explanation of their conduct. The book is interesting, and on the whole, more than average fair in its conclusions.
