[PHELPS] THE POETRY OF TODAY 499 
The Imagists are difficult people. O. W. Firkins writing in the 
pages of the New York “Nation” has found them so. The anthologies 
have nat as yet been able to handle them. Their unconventionality 
is too incorrigible and anthologies must preserve at least the appear- 
ance of a classic demeanour. Perhaps the argument for this whole 
contention concerning the poetry and poets of to-day is the right and 
proper argument in favour of the imagists. I had thought of saying 
it at the beginning and I say it now at the end, that herein I have not 
been attempting to lead away from the classics. On the contrary 
the attempt has been to indicate the road of return to the classics, 
to those classics whose work has become the soul of this planet and 
without which we cannot live. I am indicating the road of return, 
for I believe that a kindled interest in poetry of to-day with its rapture 
and desire will prompt the wish to understand the poetic moods and 
revelations of other generations. A love of poetry in one generation 
is a love of poetry in all generations. The love of poetry once properly 
aroused will want to embrace at the last all the poetry in language. 
Now the work of the imagists may not be poetry in many strict and 
accustomed senses but it has its poetic rapture and its sincere passion. 
These qualities are valid currency for the spirits of all ages. The 
contention for the poetry of to-day and for the cult of the modern 
lies in this: that a reaction in the spirit of a man may be achieved 
more readily through the impact of a modern poet’s revelation dealing 
with things modern than in any other way. One of the great functions 
of the poet should be that he reveals his own generation to itself. 
The other day I read a poem of Tennyson’s to an intelligent and well 
read young farmer. He shook his head. I read Masefield’s ‘‘The 
Everlasting Mercy.” His eyes kindled when I finished. So I say 
if the imagists by means of or in spite of their insistence upon icy 
clarity and hard statuary nudity, are upon a “modern” subject 
matter, and can kindle our raptures and arouse any stirring of the 
moods let us welcome them. Let us wish that the English Asso- 
ciation had welcomed them also. They might allow. their group to be 
represented by the following by Richard Aldington: 
NEW LOVE. 
“She has new leaves 
After her dead flowers, 
Like the little almond tree 
Which the frost hurt.’ 
In Canada we are making our own beginnings of interest in 
poets and poetry. We have had among us some half dozen men and 
Sec. I & II, Sig. 18 
