objective.

The -conclusions alwhys seem

to fall on theside of refraining from
anything that may offend big business,
h o matter what [business may do or not
do. There is no demonstration that our
economy, ifleft to beself-regulating,
is either competitive enough or intelligent enough to keep progress going or
avoid severe depressions. The sharpness
of attack characteristic of Braukingss
early years has been dulled. One comes
away with the impression khat recently
it has even ceased ta recognize the more
critlcal areas of weakness.
GEORGE SOULE

verse

SE four, I suppose, can be conidered as younger p e t s ; three of

thefourarepresentingtheir
second
books ; one, T -believe, his first.
Annie Allen> by Gwendolyn
Brooks
(Harper, $ 2 . 5 0 ) , bot& in form and cohtent, in strength and wealmess,resembles a good deal the authors first book,
A Street in Bronzeville. Wherethe
subject is the Negro people, or the
Negro person, Miss Brooks has gone
considerably beyond some of the quaint
and for-tourists-only self-consciousness
that at times made one a little uncomfortable in reading her first book. Her
weakness lies in streaks, as it were, of
BAWTOK:

I
I

............................

Quartet No. 3. N. Y. String Quartet

LP only

$a.os

ELAINE MUblC SHOP

9 E m + 4 4 tree+ Dept. N N e w York Cl+y 17
Cdalosue: 101 post said. Sample CODY of
record review JUST RECORDS
on request

-~

i
YAJESTIC THEA., 44th St. V[% gf Bway
wjlh M Y c C 0 R M l C K

AlrCanditioned.

Mah. Wed. &So+.

awkwardness, naivete, when she seems

to be carried away by the big word or
the spectacular rhyme; when her ear, of
a sudden, goes all t o pieces. The first
t w o sectims of the present collection
contain much more of this kind of work
than does the third. Her strength consists of boldness, invention, a daring lo
experiment, a naturalness that does not
. scorn literature but absorbs it, expIoits
it, and through &his absorption and exploitation comes outwith the remarkm a d e i n an entirelyoriginal way, not
oflhand so much as forthright. Miss
Brooks, by now, must realize that the
greatest danger to her progress lies in
the rislr of herbeing taken up; she
needs to be both very inquisitive about,
and very remorseiess to, her weaker side.
Francis Golfings Poems, 19431949 are issued in a limited edition of
250 copies by the CurnrningtoonPress,
niceiy got up, as is usmi with that outfit, and .rather expensively priced at
$2.75 the copy for the forty-two paperbound pages. Mr. Golffings main reliance is the ironic twist: at his best he
is fine, precise, wittyWhat lightning from the blue
Will blast this mess of fears?
The poets j a mez f o m
Reverberates in my ears.
%.
X t his not so good h e i s finidring, mannered-the trick> for Instance, of splitting a ward bebween the end of one lint3
and the beginning of the next is over4
worked-inclined to force in a theatricaI way a p i n t khat steady observation
discloses as really and after all quite
pointless, only a stunt.
The Metaphysical Needle, by
Madeline Gleason, is also issued in a
limited edition, 483 copies, by the Centaur Press in San Francisco, price, $2.50.
You also get for your money block-print
illustrations, colored yellow, bluej black,
and white, by Hal Goodman. These
seem to me arty-irrelevant; but r could
be fooled about such matters. This book,
too, is .handsomely got up; it seems a
pitythatthe
content could not have
been a little more worthy of the &arm.
One intensedramatic lyric, Rebirth, is
about all; for the rest Miss Gleason appears to have profound convictions in
Javor of life and love, and something
of a personahy comes through the awkward writing, which can be v e q awkward indeed-or instance;
.
Y J

But personal love can never give

The sole incentive by which w e live.

Nthough it pacifies, relaxes,

One dog.? not turn upon its ads
1

. ..

Harry &own, in
Beast in His
Hunger no$^ $2.50)~ is by no
means a n awkward writer; on the contrary, a very slick and competent perdormer indeed. Mr. Brown used to be a
very funny iellow; in &hesepoems he is
solemner than owls.
Silence has fallen on the centams wood
Where the mad ktng talked twittering
with the birds,
Peace has come to the river that ran with
blood.
The armies all have sunk into the sand.
The monarch, *he cold magician have los!
their eyes;
Corroded the brazen scepter,broken tha
wonderful wand .

..

Very much of that sort of thing; no!

mybody can do it, but Mr. Emvm can,
all too easily. The total impression left
is that of emotion, perhaps genuine but
SO current as to be suspect, expressed in
a fashionable patter that sufficient repe.
fltion reveals.for&e dead verbalizing f t
is. Perhaps thetroubleis that Mr. Brown
is being too universatile. I smear to God
thats what It says on the jacket his
poetryhas. Universatility.
ROLFE HUMPHRIES

&UNO WALTXR has recorded for

IColumbia a performance sf Beethovens Nlnth Symphony w v c h tells us
more about Bruno Walter than about
* Beethovens symphony. It tells us, that
is, of the warsenihgof the tendencies so
accurately described by the observation
attributed to T.oscanini 2 number of
years ago--When
Walter comes to
something beautiful he me1tsand by
the observation of another German conductor to me: Walter always had a
rhetorical nature. These tendencies
have developed into a softness and
slackness that is intolerable4xcept to
Germans for whom his performances
today are a means of sentimentally r e
calling the golden age in Berlin-in the
music of Haydn, Mozart, or Beethowm.
Any symphony of Beethoven, but especially the Ninth, and above all its grim