Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1888 — Bostion as a poetry H[?] [ARTICLE]

Bostion as a poetry H[?]

To write poetry is merely considered. In Boston, as an elegant accomplishment suitable to the litterateur, and* less a special gift than the natural anrt expected result of scholarship and culture. The charming assumption with which a society or meeting of any description designates its members to write a poem on such and such an occasion is infinitely amusing. "Why did you not come to the literary coterie?' questioned a friend the other day. "Mrs. Dias and Mrs. Anagnos wrote poems for the evening, and we had a philosophical paper and tableaux. * This was an illustration of the Boston nonchalance regarding “writing poems.” It is discussed in a matter-of-fact way, as an affair quite of industry rather than of inspiration. If the birthday or wedding anniversary of » ' prominent person is to be celebrated, a fair gotten up, an exhibition opened, or the “Old South” receive another contribution toward saving it from the destructive march of trade, the of the affair all write poems—as a nab ural feature of the entertainment Though the so-called “poems” are numerous, the poets are few, yet these rhymers and versifiers all enroll themselves under that banner, and enjoy the felicity of their belief. The genuine poets of Boston are almost as few as of any other city. Longfellow. Lowell, Whittier, Emerson, Louise Chandler Moulton, who has a gift oi the almost perfect lyric verse; John Boyle O'Reilly, Dr. Holmes, and Mrs. Bowe, in her “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and her “Sealed Orders, * make up all that I now recall who eoom to have any claim to poetic immortality. Tet the people who grind out than poems to, on, and for every occasion, are as numerous as the prose writers. Volume after volume is published hers Of mere prosaic prose that rhymes, and is labeled—l came near saying libeled —poetry. What becomes of it is s mystery I cannot fathom. Where do all the dull books go to, any way! one wonders. The number of volumes of “poems" that contain, perhaps, one that really merits the name and retain* 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 cap ital of the country, there is so marked I a Jack oi 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 t<? read the current literature and attend ti e symphony concerts. Whether the poems are worth publishing is a consideration that doee I not seem to present itepit Boston Cor.

BILLY OWEN SERVES NOTICE. Chesterton Tribune; In a recent interview Billy Owen toh a Hammond Esho rep .rter that “Relative to the nest-office. 1 am sorry to learn that there is any appearance of s*rlfe after the federal offices anvwhere in the district. lio not want any petitions, or anything of the kind 8h ill pay no attention to aay of th m in recemmendiog a candidate. They but tend to make turmoil, and that is what wa must avoid.” As Congressman Owen wilt un<* doubtedly have the patronage of the Tenth congressional district at bis disposal, this information is import** ant. as it indicates the line of po’icy to be pursued. Those gentlemen who have been laboring so industilourly on their petitions will perhaps be disappointed, but the man who “stands in" with the party boss will feel relieved.