New International Magazines

Three magazines which aim at international authority

and circulation send us their first numbers from Rome,

London and New York. All three appear in a luxury of

format and typography more easily attained abroad than

here; attainable here, indeed, only at a cost so high as

to be almost prohibitive. We have, first, The Broom,

described as "an international magazine of the arts

published by Americans in Italy" (at 18 Trinitä dei

Monti), and edited by Harold A. Loeb and Alfred

Kreymborg, with Giuseppe Prezzolini as associate editor;

second, Fanfare, "a musical causerie issued on the first

and fifteenth of the month," edited by Leigh Henry and

published by Goodwin & Tabb, Ltd., at 34 Percy Street,

London; and, third, we have the resuscitated Little

Review, issued as a seven-dollar-a-year "quarterly of arts

and letters," in an initial autumn number, from 27 West

Eighth Street, New York, the "administration" consisting

of Margaret Anderson, "jh," Ezra Pound and Francis

Picabia.

In The Broom Alfred Kreymborg shows once more his

ability as an editor, but the new paper does not "start

something," nor arouse the excitement of anticipation, to

the degree that the first number of Others did in July, 1915.

There is much variety in the contents, which range from

a strictly correct sonnet by Walter de la Mare to phan-

tasmagoric designs in black and white and gray from

paintings in the most approved cubistic manner by

Albert Gleizes and Juan Gris.

We see many familiar names among the fifteen or so

literary contributors: Lew Sarett has a Maple-sugar Song

of the Chippewas; Amy Lowell offers a three-page chant

in praise of Lilacs-

Your great puffs of flowers

Are everywhere in this my New England.

Lola Ridge sings of Hospital Nights; Wallace Gould offers

a prose-poem narrative about Marnia. The only other

verse-entries are some Chinese poems of J. Wing, trans-

lated by E. Powys Mathers, and a twelve-line rhymed

poem, Lake, by Bayard Boyeson, which opens the number.

Other poets appear in prose: James Stephens with a

tragic Dublin story, Hunger, as ruthless and terrible in its

deliberate detail as the title implies; James Oppenheim

with a quite wonderful study of a sanely insane mind;

Haniel Long with a whimsical sketch. Conrad Aiken,

Louis Untermeyer and Emmy Sanders offer certain

critical inquiries concerning poets arid their art, and the

invasion of Europe by America. In short, almost every-

one appears except the over-modest Mr. Kreymborg.

The magazine has a beautifully printed page about five

by seven inches, set sumptuously in hand-made large-

paper measuring nearly nine by thirteen.

as it enters:

Fanfare-does not the word suggest something stirring, brilliant,

joyous, exciting-something which preludes adventure? .. . We are

the heralds of the new era, sounding the fanfare for its union with new

beauty. Such union calls for revelry; hence our Fanfare will be merry.

. . . We set forth boldly, our trumpets bright to reflect sunlight, our

Fanfare ringing truly alike for ritual, ceremony, battle, joust, forlorn

hope, festival, triumph or masquerade.

This paper, although a musical periodical, believes, like

Poetry, in a closer alliance of the arts. Its editor thinks

that musicians are too narrowly trained-therefore

Fanfare will deal with literature, drama, painting, sculpture, and theatre-

craft, as matters a knowledge of which forms a necessary complement to

musical culture.

So we have two or three clever drawings and a poem by

John Gould Fletcher among the musical entries within

the gaily decorative cover of Fanfare's first number.

The Little Review is larger than of yore-an hundred

and twelve pages measuring more than seven inches by

nine. It aims at the very latest thing, and achieves, as

its piece de resistance, a fifty-page poem by Jean Cocteau,

translated by Jean Hugo, The Cape of Good Hope. Having

read half of it, and being still in a state of innocence, I

commend the rest to those who can watch "the dangerous

hallucinations continue."

On the way to Cocteau, we have Ezra Pound on Bran-

cusi, illustrated; some Fumigations by Picabia, a phi-

losophy of Psycho-democracy set forth by Mina Loy,

poems in French by Paul Morand and in German by

Ivan Goll. Also there are some rather outspoken tales,

and Ezra Pound tells us all of our sins in a Historical

Survey.

It is said that Mr. Pound readopted The Little Review

because of its editor's brave fight against the suppression

of James Joyce's Ulysses. Well, it was a brave fight-any

fight against the censor's gag-laden fist takes bravery.

The trouble is, The Little Review never knows when to

stop. Just now it seems to be headed straight toward

Dada; but we could forgive even that if it would drop

Else von Freytag-Loringhoven on the way.