The poetry in the magazines this year has been of an excellence in the longer pieces beyond the standard of any year in which I have made these estimates. The selections in this volume give evidence of a serious, even anxious, probing of human life. The lyric, represented by some lovely work, has not been practiced with the same irresponsible emotional delight as in past years. Perhaps, there has never been a year when the American poets have shown the independence of their own efforts, when comparatively new work has been so free from English influences. What influences there are, seem to come from French sources. _Vers libre_ has been taken out of the hands of weak and pompous innovators, and made a distinctive medium by a few earnest and powerful singers. The most notable distinction in this respect is to be found in the work of James Oppenheim, whose book, “Songs for the New Age,” is a milestone in our poetic progress. So is Vachel Lindsay’s new work. He has mastered a new form of poetic expression in his volume “The Congo and Other Poems.” Miss Amy Lowell, in the better parts of “Sword Blades and Poppy Seed,” is working toward a new elasticity in rhythm, which is beginning to produce effective and beautiful results. On the other hand Mr. Arthur Stringer in “Open Water” utterly fails to embody in actual performance the principles expounded in the introduction to that volume, though this introduction is as important a piece of critical writing in English upon the subject as I know. No matter how revolutionary they attempt to be in expression, there is still in these writers a traditional note imbuing the substance which makes up the significant part of their creativeness. The selections in this volume are chosen from all kinds and methods of poetic expression, and the reader’s attention is invited to their differences in many aspects--though the aspect of quality is, I think, of equal attainment in all--of such poems as Bliss Carman’s Phi Beta Kappa Poem, Percy MacKaye’s “Fight,” Vachel Lindsay’s “The Firemen’s Ball,” Eloise Briton’s “The Two Flames,” Conrad Aiken’s “Romance,” Olive Tilford Dargan’s “Old Fairingdown” and “Path Flower,” Joyce Kilmer’s “Twelve-Forty-Five,” and Don Marquis’s “The God-Maker, Man.” Of the shorter pieces, I think the standard is decidedly above last year’s quality. Mahlon Leonard Fisher has again followed the success of previous years with his sonnet “Afterwards,” which sustains his position as one of the foremost sonnet-writers this country has yet produced. This poet has the unusual distinction of a fine reputation without having published a book, but his definite contribution to American poetry will soon take place with the publication of his first volume, “An Old Mercer, and Other Poems.” A poem likely to create a profound impression is Don Marquis’s “The God-Maker, Man,”--a fine achievement, not only for its flashing images, but for spiritual substance shaped with compelling conviction.