42
PARTISAN REVIEW
Secondly, too many American
poe~
have acquired less than the
best
from Eliot and Pound, from the Imagists, from all the influential schools
and sources of modern poetry. We have adapted the lean, nervous rhythms;
we have taken the understatement, the cryptic, obscure manners
of
writing.
And
in doing this we have forgotten an earlier, more fertile tradition in
poetry: the use of direct, didactic statement in verse. Again
C.
Day
Lewis
can be quoted with value:
or:
"You above all who have come to the far end, victims
Of a run-down machine, who can bear it no longer;
Whether in easy chairs chafing at impotence
Or against hunger, bullies and spies preserving
The nerve for action, the spark of indignation-–
Need fight in the dark no more, you know your enemies.
You shall be leaders when zero hour is signalled,
vVielders of power and welders of a new world."
"They that take the bribe shall perish by the bribe,
Dying of dry rot, ending in asylums,
A curse to children, a charge on the state.
But still their fears and frenzies infect us;
Drug nor isolation will cure this cancer:
It is now or never, the hour of the knife,
The break: with the past, the major operation." ·
I suggest to the revolutionary poet the possibility of writing didactic verse
as
one
of the means by which he can solve his present difficulties. There
are many others, to be sure: each dependant upon the individual predilec·
tions and abilities of each poet. The poet who is "up against it" can find
in Day Lewis a good teacher. The success of didactic verse depends, of
course, more on the poet's talent than on his method. Mere stripped
didactic statement is not poetry. But if the poet has, in addition to the
revolutionary themes and enthusiasm, which are admirably suited for
th~
type of poetry, the lyrical and dramatic talent which elevate his work
to
the level of poetry, he can travel far. His success or failure will depend
ultimately on his individual talent, which is unpredictable.
Finally, I would urge all revolutionary poets and students of poetry
always to remember, when they are writing, that they are poets, not public
speakers, nor lecturers, nor journalists. What they write must emerge
as
poetry. Otherwise, no matter how true the statement or incisive the ob–
servation, their work will be a failure. They might also bear in mind that,
as Malraux has recently written, "between a literature and a doctrine,
there is always a civilization of living men."
