54
PARTISAN REVIEW
IV Dawn
Was played recently by the Philharmonic.
Snap-shots of the localities described in music were passed around.
All 0. K.
After the Performance Maurice Epstein, twenty-nine, tuberculosis,
Stoker on the S.S. Tarboy,
Rose to his feet and shouted:
"He's crazy! Them artists are all crazy,
I can prOfJe it by Max Nordau,
They poison the minds of young girls."
Otto Svoboda,
500
Avenue A', butcher, Pole, husband, philosopher,
Argued in rebuttals "Shut your trap, you/
The question
is,
does the symphon}' fit in with Karl Marx?"
At the Friday evening meeting of the Browning Writing League
Mrs. Whittamore Ralston-Beckett, traveler, lecturer, nO'fJelist, critic,
poet, playwright, c.vlitor, mother, idealist,
Fascinated her audience in a brief talk •whimsical and caustic
Appealing to the y·ounger generation to take a brighter, happier, more'
sunny and less morbid
f/iew .of life's unchanging fundamentals.
Mrs. Ralston-Beckett quoted Sir Horace Bennet. "0 Beauty/' she said,
"Take your finger off my throat, take your elbow out .()f my eye,
Take your sorrow off my sorrow,
Take your hat, take your gloves, take your feet down off the table,
Take your beauty off my beauty, and g·o."
After the performance Maurice Epstein, twenty-nine, tuberculosi}:
Stoker on the S.S. Tarboy,
Kicked to his feet and screamed:
"She's crazy/ TheTT! artists are all crazy/
I can prC1Ve it by Max Nonlau
They poison the minds of young girls."
Otto Svoboda, butcher, Pole, husband, philosopher,
Spoke in reply: "Shut your trap, you/
The question is, what about Karl Marx?"
The writing of this poem does not mean that Fearing is a "bad"
revolutionary poet; he is merely choosing, for the moment, to look through
his particular "screen" at different sets of values, taking his value as a
writer, as an "observer" for a measurement of other values. Does this
poem mean that Fearing insists upon "art for art's sake?" Decidedly
not. The very content of the poem and the kind of observation that it
mak:es
d·~!nies
the so-called "ivory tower." And incidentally its humour
