[PHELPS] THE POETRY OF TODAY 489 
Many causes prosper by the richness of their propagandist’s 
vocabulary. Not so long ago we saw the real estate agent marching 
with banners; his literature flew in every wind. That ubiquitous 
midsummer perenniel, the peripatetic book agent, scatters his wares 
with words. The modern advertizer, zealous for his cause, furthers 
it by using a full page in the most widely-read newspaper. But not 
so may the cause of poetry be advanced. The worth of poetry cannot 
be demonstrated in dollars and cents. You cannot prove that a 
love of poetry will mean a bigger annual business turn over and a 
larger margin. On the contrary, you may have to admit in honesty 
that it may mean less business. You imagine of course that it will 
mean more life. But life is not what people are after; they are after 
business. So you are discredited. And it comes about that the. 
difficulties in the way of being a propagandist for poetry are almost 
insurmountable. Poetry does not lend itself to propaganda. It is 
like sunshine. No one has as yet thought of a way of commercializing 
it. And until that happens it is difficult to talk about it. 
Yet, in spite of all this wise argumentation it will be considered 
truth that there is virtue to-day in attempting to be the propagandist 
of things spiritual. The propagandist of things material has appar- 
ently had it too much his own way for a long time. But after the 
earthquake and the mighty rushing wind comes the still small voice. 
The world of to-day is readier to listen to that voice than it has been for 
a number of generations. When the reality that we have called the 
world is breaking into the dust of chaos we hearken for tidings of 
another form of reality, more enduring and, to our new mood, more 
satisfactory. Even the politician among us becomes a poet and 
visions a land, his own land, real yet invisible to the physical eye, 
above the battling armies; and the maker of munitions is a dreamer. 
We are being made over. We are coming to apprehend the greatness 
and genius of our own age and to consider our own spiritual values. 
This makes it easier to plead for poetry, not, it is true, as a thing of 
commercial worth in the generally accepted sense of the term,—Mr 
Noyes has essayed that task and failed at it—but as a thing which is 
the very stuff of life. The world has done business for a long period 
of time. It is nearly ready again to live for awhile. It is ready for 
poetry. 
So I begin the discussion of the poetry of to-day. I wish to show 
that our age is imaginative and creative and really awake in the world 
of the poet’s reality; that it will become still more brightly awakened; 
and that there are many living poets to act as our awakeners, emancip- 
ating us from the dull realm of slumber. 
