PRIMITIVE & DECADENCE(American experimental poetry)by YVOR WINTERS

Winters compiled this excellent contemporary overview slowly over a period of fourteen years from 1920,which makes this short book of 143 pages an excellent read for the 21sr century student of our art.In five short chapters he covers The Morality of Poetry;The Experimental School; (as it then was considered!)Poetic Conventions;Primativism and Decadence; and the Influence of Metre on Poetic convention all of which help us to understand his conclusions ,' what he desires of a poem '..' a clear understanding of motive, and a just evaluation of feeling '. A welcome addition to the poetry enthusiast bookshelf and it its way a valuable historic commentary on the history of 'open' verse that came to dominate 20th century poetry.Valuable in that Winters was not just a 'theorist critic' but also a poet.