[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Snt,—Though not yet arrived at full fogyhood, I find myself in tune with your chorus of fog:es in their loud denunciation of Miss Sitwell's poem ; but my reasons for joining the chorus are not theirs. The fact that Miss Sitwell tells her story in a series of symbols does not upset me at all. It is a per- fectly legitimate and an essentially poetic method ; to express the abstract as concrete, to give shape to emotions and delicate mental processes in a visible, audible or otherwise " sensible " microcosm appropriate to them is one of the functions of poetry. Miss Sitwell's story is, I think, a charming story and 'eminently suited for expression in poetry;' but I do not like her expression of it. Why ? Because Miss Sitwell still writes like a schoolgirl. Though some of her images please me, I find others strand and inaccurate. They seem to me the result of careltiroltdling and careless
thinking. I have no objection to her using any mortal image she likes if by doing so she convinces me—pulls out the right stops on my unconscious. What I complain of is that her images often produce no effect on me at all. It is conceivable that this is a purely personal objection ; but an objection to her poetry which is not, I think, personal is that Miss Sitwell's technique is abominable. Her rhythms are crude and commonplace, the expression is often inexact and slovenly, and with an agonizing obviousness she is continually dragging in irrelevant ideas and phrases for the sake of the rhyme. The following lines embody all of these sins
"—no one cared a rap When I walked on the grass like the sheepish buds Of wool that grow on lambs chewing their cuds."
The rhythm there is villainous, " sheepish " is pointless and superfluous, lambs do not chew cuds, and even Miss Sitwell's would not do so if there had been no buds in the previous line.—I am, Sir, &c.,
AUGLTSTUS G. ATKINSON.
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