Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1887 — [?] as a Poetry Mill. [ARTICLE]

[?] as a Poetry Mill.

To write poetry is merely considered, in Boston, as an elegant accomplishment suitable ti the litterateur, and less a special gift than tho natural and expected result of scholarship and culture. The charming assumption with which a society or meeting of any description designates its m- misers to write a poem on such and 5... h a oc-ea-ion is infinitely amusing. “Why did yon not come to thu literary coterie?” questioned a friend the other day. “Mrs. Dias and Mrs. Anngnos wrote poems for the evening, and wo had a philosophical paper and tableaux.” This was an illustration of the Boston nonchalance regarding “writing poems.” it. is discussed in a malt- f fact way, ns an affair quite of industry rather than of inspiration. !i the birthday or wedding r.nniversa ' < ( prominent person i» to be celeb, * M a fair gotten up, an i v) Motion < - -d. or tho “Old South” re. ,-ivcu.iotlc-i - w tribution toward saving it from 11. d bthu-tive march of tmdo, tin instigatoi of tho affair all write poems- at a nafc ural feature of the entertainment Though the so-called “pout k” i,io. uunieroue, the poets aie few. vet those rhvmcrs and versifier, all enroll them selves i del that bantu r, and ■ a joy the felici t , their b Hos. Tin genuine poi-ts of Boston i*i, almost a.: f. w as of any ether cite. laiiipioibiw,. Lowell, V.'hitticv, erson;. Lon : Chandler Moulton.. ... a VS 0i the almost per IV. g-"' .; Join Boyle U'iiedl. , J r. Holmes, and Mrs. Ho we, in her “Battle Hymn of thu Republic” and her “Scaled Orders,” make up all that I now recall who Boom to have any claim to poetic immortality. Yet tho people who grind out their poems to, on, and for every occasion, are as numerous ns the prose writers. Volume after volume is published here of mero prosaic prose that rhymes, and is labeled—l came near saying libeled —poetry. What becomes of it is a mystery I cannot fathom. Where do all the dull* books go to, any way? one wonders. The number of volumes * of “poems” thut contain, perhaps, one that really merits tho name and retains the whole, is a signal advance over those that have nothing in them but mechanical rhyme. It is singular that in a city which may, perhaps, not unaptly be designated as the literary capital of the country, there is bo marked a lack of fine literary discrimination. Form more than spirit, quantity more than quality, appears to take precedence. To “publish a volume of poems” is as much the part of the natural expectation as to read the current literature and attend tho symphony concerts. Whether the poems are worth publishing is a consideration that does not seem to present itself.- -JBostovi Cor. Cleveland Leader.