Preface We beg to thank the college professors, the students, the editors of the various student magazines, and all the others who have generously co-operated in the compilation of this year's College Anthology. A Introduction MOST interesting, though indirect reflection on our present day literature is found in an advertisement of Zona Gale's "Miss Lulu Bett" which I have just read. Part of this advertisement runs as follows: "The play as published here contains two endings -the one originally written by Miss Gale, highly praised by the critics, but which did not find favor with the public — and a revised ending that proved more satisfactory to the theatregoers. For five years we have been trying to select what to us has seemed to be the best poetry written by our college students. A very small number of the poets whose work has been published in the College Anthologies have subsequently produced creditable books of their own. Others, however, among them being the most promising originally, have thus far remained silent. Wherein lies the difficulty? I think it is in the struggle between the two endings of one's literary career, the one approved by the worthwhile critics and the other demanded by the public, that most of the promising talent dies a premature death. Among this year's group of college poets there are also a number who show distinct promise of better things to come. Will this promise be fulfilled or will it peter out in a "revised ending that will prove satisfactory to the theatregoers"? For the sake of poetry I hope that the authors of the best selections in this book will never descend to literary popularity. If they write sincerely of themselves for themselves, they are sure to hit upon the truth; but if they write of the multitude for the multitude, they are apt to produce that which they know not for those that care not. And, above all, may God save the Poets of the Future from the necessity of aiming for the editor's cheque, for that is the quickest and surest way to put a check upon true poetry. The Editor. X |