Contemporary American Literature Part 40

+Harry Herbert Knibbs+ (Ontario, Canada, 1874)--poet.

His material is cowboy life. For bibliography see _Who's Who in America_.

+Alfred Kreymborg+--poet.

Born in New York City, 1883, of Danish ancestry. Educated at the Morris High School. A chess prodigy at the age of ten, and supported himself from seventeen to twenty-five by teaching chess and playing matches. Had several years of experience as bookkeeper.

In 1914, founded and edited _The Glebe_, which issued the first anthology of free verse. In 1916, 1917, 1919, published _Others_--three anthologies of radical poets. In 1921, went to Rome to edit, in a.s.sociation with Harold Loeb, an international magazine of the arts called _The Broom_ (cf. _Dial_ 70 ['21]: 606), but shortly after resigned.

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING

1. Mr. Kreymborg is a rebel against all conventions of form and content in poetry. Consequently, the one thing to be expected in his work is the unexpected. How far his utterances are sincere and how far posed, each reader must judge for himself.

2. The following quotation from _Poetry_ (9 ['16]: 51) may serve as a starting-point in discussing Mr. Kreymborg's qualities: "An insinuating, meddlesome, quizzical, inquiring spirit; sometimes a clown, oftener a wit, now and then a lyric poet ... trips about cheerfully among life's little incongruities; laughs at you and me and progress and prejudice and dreams; says 'I told you so!' with an air, as if after a double somersault in the circus ring; grows wistful, even tender, with emotions always genuine ... always ... as becomes the harlequin-philosopher, entertaining."

3. The new movements in art--Futurist, Cubist, Vorticist--should be remembered in studying Mr. Kreymborg's verse.

4. What is to be said of his economy in words?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Love and Life and Other Studies. 1908.

Apostrophes. 1910.

Erna Vitek. 1914. (Novel.) Mushrooms; A Book of Free Forms. 1916.

Others, An Anthology of New Verse. 1916, 1917, 1919.

Plays for Poem-Mimes. 1918.

Blood of Things. 1920.

Plays for Merry Andrews. 1920.

STUDIES AND REVIEWS

Untermeyer.

Ath. 1919, 2: 1003. (Conrad Aiken.) Chapbook, 1-2, May, 1920: 30.

Dial, 66 ('19): 29. (Lola Ridge.) Poetry, 9 ('16): 51; 11 ('18): 201; 13 ('19): 224; 17 ('20): 153.

See also _Book Review Digest_, 1916, 1920.

+Peter Bernard Kyne+ (San Francisco, 1860)--novelist.

The inventor of Cappy Ricks in stories of business life in California.

For bibliography, see _Who's Who in America_.

+Stephen Butler Leac.o.c.k+--humorist.

Born in Hampshire, England, 1869. B.A., Toronto University; Ph.D., University of Chicago. Honorary higher degrees. Head of the department of economics, McGill University.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Literary Lapses. 1910.

Nonsense Novels. 1911.

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. 1912.

Behind the Beyond. 1913.

Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich. 1914.

Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy. 1915.

Essays and Literary Studies. 1916.

Further Foolishness. 1916.

Frenzied Fiction. 1917.

The Hohenzollerns in America. 1919.

The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice. 1920. (Sociological discussion.) Winsome Winnie and Other New Nonsense Novels. 1920.

For study, see Bookm. (Lond.) 51 ('16): 39; also _Book Review Digest_, 1914-7, 1919, 1920.

+Jennette (Barbour Perry) Lee (Mrs. Gerald Stanley Lee)+--novelist.

Born at Bristol, Connecticut, 1860. A.B., Smith, 1886. Taught English at Va.s.sar, 1890-3; at Western Reserve, 1893-6; instructor and professor of English at Smith, 1901-13.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Son of a Fiddler. 1902.

*Uncle William. 1906.

Happy Island. 1910.

Mr. Achilles. 1912.

The Taste of Apples. 1913.

Aunt Jane. 1915.

The Green Jacket. 1917.

The Air-Man and the Tramp. 1918.

The Rain-Coat Girl. 1919.

The Chinese Coat. 1920.

The Other Susan. 1921.

Uncle Bijah's Ghost. 1922.

STUDIES AND REVIEWS

Bk. Buyer, 22 ('01): 99 (portrait).