Excerpt from Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1917: And Yearbook of American Poetry The influence of this kind of criticism can do more harm to American poetry at present than any other influence whatever. The harm it does is by misrepresenting the art. If the public heedssuch criticism, audiences will diminish, and the consequent discouragement of the poets them selves will produce a decline in creativeness. It must be realised that no poet of to - day works and starves in obscurity till chance or influence brings a patron to reward him with fame and a compe tence, as was true in the past; fame and fortune for the modern poet are the gifts of public recog nition and appreciation, and if these do not come before youth advances to that vague borderland where it is lost, the modern poet gives the best of himself to other things. That poets have made money during the past few years is no proof that poetry to-day is less an art than a profession, but under the dispensation of modern democracy it does prove that poetry must make good business to flourish as an art. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.