BOOKS
THE AESTHETE AND THE SENSATIONALIST
POEMS, 1923-1954. By E. E. Cummings. Horcourt, Broce. $6.75.
THE COLLECTED POEMS OF WALLACE STEVENS. Alfred
A.
Knopf.
$7.50.
Here are two beautiful books, to handle and look at, and
books, for their contents, that anybody who cares about modern poetry
will want to possess. The sight of them is also a little unneIVing; what
they demand of the reviewer is not a progress report but an attempt
at a total judgment, a final placing. It is like a party, after the visitors
have left: set it out of your world, in my shabby autumnal Chelsea.
"How very amusing Mr. Cummings was!" "Yes, and so direct and
touching, too." "I couldn't quite follow all the jokes-that peculiar dia–
lect, is it
Bronx?"
"And he does go on a bit about
sex,
doesn't he--about
the machinery of it, I mean?" "Oh, that's the 1920s, my dear. Rather
charmingly old-world, in its way." "Yes, of course, but isn't he rather
sentimental
sometimes?" "Oh, I would say mainly very innocent and
sincere. What are his politics, do you think?" "Oh, what we would call
an old-fashioned Tory-anarchist. American politics are so very difficult;
they do that in a kind of radical tone of voice." "Yes, but didn't you
get the impression that he has mixed feelings about Jews-mixed feel–
ings
about Negroes, possibly-and then, of course, one must take it for
granted most Americans don't like
us."
"Oh, I think you're quite wrong.
There's a natural tendency toward emotional impatience and violence,
but nothing Fascist. Fundamentally, he's an anarchist and a pacifist."
"Is that why he seems to hate so many people?" "Oh, yes, he believes
in love. Don't you remember what a lot he had to say about love?
That must make you hate a lot of people. And he's very much of an
individual, a kind of metropolitan Thoreau, and so he dislikes ordinary,
conventional people--you do remember your Tocqueville, and all that,
about America, the extraordinary pressure of the urge to social con–
formity on the American with ideas?"
"1
thought he was lively, but to
some extent he did seem to be saying the same thing over and over
again." "I think poor Aunt Nelly was quite embarrassed by that anec–
dote, lively as it was, about the girls in the whorehouse. Though, of
