BOOKS
BOOKS UPPER NIGHT, by Scudder Middleton. Henry Holt & Co. THIS little volume of ninety-seven pages contains thirty-seven poems, all essential poetry in vision, mood and artistry. There is no...
...nothing forced or experimental in substance or form...
...The book cannot be read hastily by anyone, and perhaps by some cannot be read at all: there is a consistent transmutation of all things into a speech whose tones and overtones need a spiritual ear peculiarly attuned...
...but I hope I can recognize imagination and craftsmanship of another type...
...Its themes are the old, old themes of the relation of one individual spirit to another or to others in this world, so concrete in color, line and noise on the surface, so mysterious and elusive at the heart of it...
...My own preferences in art are for the more direct, austere, and sculpturesque...
...A notable distillation of the author's deeper experiences and meditation, an unobtrusive and subtle gift of his firm and sensitive personality...
...There is no sterile nor futile verse or line or word...
...Middleton is a poet by nature and not by ambition and experiment...
...He is likely to go somewhat farther than several of his contemporaries now more frequently quoted in the anthologies.—William Ellery Leonard...
Vol. 19 • September 1927 • No. 9
