FORGOTTEN MASTERPIECES

Night Arrival | H. Stuart

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H. Stuart, presumably (though not conclusively) Jesse Hilton Stuart, Kentucky’s former poet laureate, is yet another bard whose name I hadn’t heard of before coming across it in a few magazines from the early 1920s. Being the first non-expatriate poet to appear in this series, it seems Stuart has, in the years since his death, garnered even less interest than those who orbited some of the twentieth century’s literary greats. Of the vast catalogue of Stuart’s work I can comment little, as I’ve read only a handful of his poems, but “Night Arrival” is undoubtedly a fine addition to our catalogue of love poems. Quotable, melancholy, and succinct, “Night Arrival” is perfect for any reader wishing to wallow in their romantic woes for a few soul-stirring stanzas. Go, hop into the poetic time machine and weep for your own wayward flapper.

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Untitled Poem | Evan Shipman

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Continuing our series of forgotten masterpieces with another Parisian expatriate, Evan Shipman was a poet I had only recently gotten down to reading. I was not disappointed. Having only read a handful of his poems, I’m convinced Shipman is a worthwhile endeavor to any lovers of modernist poetry. Unlike Cheever Dunning, Shipman very much embraced the tenets of vers libre, composing succinct verses with a rhythm that resembles the early lyrics of T.S. Eliot, those “Portraits”, “Prufrocks”, and “Rhapsodies”. “Untitled” takes a stroll on a street ravaged by time, a harrowing journey that sees Shipman embody a stone cold, time-transcendent narrator, Virgil guiding Dante’s descent. All of this being said, it is truly a forgotten masterpiece, one very much worth the read.

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Meditations | R.C. Dunning

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Much has been said of the late Ralph Cheever Dunning, though all that was said has not been repeated for what is now nigh a century. Since his death in anno Domini 1930, Dunning has been wholly forgotten save for those familiar with his inclusion Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. Whether or not Dunning deserves to be remembered is a topic for a full length essay, one which is currently being written by the editor of this review, but for now, a look at one of Dunning’s better poems should suffice. “Meditations” is surprisingly moving piece composed by the infamous dope fiend of Montparnasse, and is definitely worth a read, even if solely for curiosity’s sake.

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