he urges the revolutionary value of "American eccentrics",
citing the fundamental primitive quality in their vaudeville art.
This may be another statement of Mr. Lindsay's plea for a closer relation
between the poet and his audience, for a return to the healthier
open-air conditions, and immediate personal contacts, in the art of the Greeks
and of primitive nations. Such conditions and contacts may still be found,
if the world only knew it, in the wonderful song-dances of the Hopis
and others of our aboriginal tribes. They may be found, also, in a measure,
in the quick response between artist and audience in modern vaudeville.
They are destined to a wider and higher influence; in fact,
the development of that influence, the return to primitive sympathies
between artist and audience, which may make possible once more
the assertion of primitive creative power, is recognized as
the immediate movement in modern art. It is a movement strong enough
to persist in spite of extravagances and absurdities; strong enough,
it may be hoped, to fulfil its purpose and revitalize the world.

It is because Mr. Lindsay's poetry seems to be definitely in that movement
that it is, I think, important.

Harriet Monroe.





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