A NEW SCHOOL OF POETRY.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 523, 2 June 1909, Page 4

A NEW SCHOOL OF POETRY.

~l . Tlie...Kalian review ,','Poesia'' has just' founded (so .we.learn from a manifesto .by the.cditor.which prefaces,the current issue) a,now,school of letters under the name of . futurism. •••-So far, this paper has been.a j °J organ of the decadents, •and instill,• despite-tho 'great change which • its-..poetio.:.theory ias undergone, numbers proudly on tho last page a-list of contributors' which ■• includes;' such names as D Annunzio; .-Verhaereb, Paul Fort, and : The: editor, - however, now declares the intentions of the new • school. They aro'to'Bing of.the'lovo of danger, of the. qualities'of .energy, and rashness. The essential elements of-their verse-are to be • wurago,.audacity, and.revolt. .Whereas literature, so far; has glorified pensive 'immo-' oillty, costasy, and sleep, thev are to exalt aggressiveness, • feverish, sleeplessness, the step of th& gymnast, and the noblo art of soil-defence. All .this is very" well, but it is not new. When thoy tell us that tho splendour of tho world is to. bo enriched by a new beauty—the beauty of speed—and when a shrieking automobile is declared more ; lovely .than, the Victory of Samothrace, the Italian may start with the sensation of new • planets _ swimming ; into his ken,, but'we in , England can -listen unmoved' to' the : talo. ' Hqw:inany years' is :.it now since soineono i took Henley out in a motor-car and tho poet panting syllables on the glories of speedr Do;wo forget.M'Andrew and his Hymn? .Do we,still require "another Bob- , bie : Burns-to sing the song of steam" ?When they-tell. us,.that Time and Spaco died yes-' ■terday.,and that, we.'live in the Absolute, have we not •heard-that-gospel preached in , words of fire bv Mr. John Davidson ? When . thoy call ■ out that we must destroy our museumsi our -antiquities, did not Mammon bum the.Gothic cathedral in: our lost poet's great Momf'Signor-.Marinetti and his comrades, (none is'more than thirty years old ( .therefore, has at least ten years to ' ?H*™ f ore being: "cast into the wastepaper. , basket r-ono • perceives tho' -too-old-at-forty %?.ry''.of' England-.-and America' here ■■: re. « wed) imagino a yam'thing;, •. They are not J ;tearless; innovators; .but only-boisterousHres- t .passersoii a. fioldvwhero others have tilled J ;and reaped their, harvest. , Meanwhile.deca- i ■.'^«; : s.4 1 ' fi ) 1 l; ;tll - e '--P a g es;of ' ; '-''l , <>osia"-un- „ ■challenged.—'-'Manohester Guardian." . "