POETS AND POETRY.
"FORM" AND "A DISH OF APPLES."
OP the pictorial contents of the new magazine Form,' edited by Mr. Spare and Mr. W. H. Davies, I am not competent to • (161/Porns a Monthly Magazine of the Arts. London : Morland Press. 146.1 --(ft A Dish of Apples. By Eden Phlllpotts. London : Hodder and Stoughton.
17‘. mt.] judge, it all seems to me queer but not unattractive. Mr. W. H. Davies is the literary editor, and though we must allow something for the usual glitter of a first number, still there is no doubt that on the literary side the magazine has begun brilliantly. There are poems by Messrs. Walter de la Mare, W. J. Turner, Sturge Moore, Edmund Blunden, Miss Sitwell and Mr. John Drinkwater ; a short essay on Confucius by Mr. W e y, " A Roman Letter " by Mr. Richard Aldington, and a most attractive parable on the origins of the poetic impulse by Mr. Robert Graves. I will not spoil the parable by an attempt to summarize its argument here, let it suffice that by pre- cept and example it sets forth the merits, in a poem of any subtlety, of indirect methods of statement. If the reader turns to our poetry columns this week he will see there a poem of Mr. Robert Graves, which may seem at first reading rather odd.
think the reader will probably be right if he comes to the conclusion, as he doubtless will, that besides being a " light piece," and written for fun, the poem is intended : (1) as a piece of very simple symbolism, and (2) as a little study of a feminine mind toying with a phantasy. The apparent naivete and distilled simplicity of the poem become more attractive when wo remember that Mr. Graves is an exceedingly able poetical theorist. To return to the subject of Mr. W. H. Davies' work, I am glad to see that his Farewell to Poesy has just been re- published. It contains his charming " Angry," " To a Flirt," and " On Expecting Some Books."
Mr. Eden Phillpotts has just published a cycle of "apple poems " 2 in a little volume illustrated by Mr. Arthur Rackham. Both poems and illustrations are attractive. The Spectator readers on turning over the leaves will perhaps recognize what to my mind remains the most attractive poem in the collection, " Normandy Pippin," which first saw light in our columns.
A. WILLIAMS-Erms.
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