Out of Context

The United Amateur
May 1917
H. P. (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft

The author is likewise responsible for the omission of the following couplet after line 26:

“Around his greatness pour idsheart’ning woes,
But still he tow’rs above his conquering foes.”

The rest of the magazine is devoted to prose of practical nature, containing suggestions by Editor Harrington and Rev. Graeme Davis for the resuscitation of one of the dormant press assocations.

The Coyote for April, home-printed and reduced to the conventional 5×7 page, opens with Mrs. Jordan’s pleasant lines on “The Duty.” While the general sentiment of this piece is by no means novel, the powerful and distinctive touch of the authoress is revealed by such highly original passages as the following:

“And black-wing’d, clucking shadows
Brought out their broods of fears.”

A poet of rather different type is displayed in “The Five-Minute School,” by Lovell Leland Massie. Mr. Massie is said to have “an unlimited supply of poems on hand which he desires to publish,” but it is evident that some preliminary alterations would not be undesirable. In the first place, the metre requires correction; though it is remarkably good for beginner’s work. Particularly weak lines are the second in stanza four, and the second in stanza six. The phraseology is stiff but by no means hopeless, and proclaims nothing more serious than the need of greater poetic familiarity on the author’s part.