Book Review.

"Birthday Poems of the Century," is the title of a small volume of rather obscure verse by Ernest Green Dodge 1G. The book abounds in striking phrases, with now and then an original thought, but throughout the first poems runs a note of artificiality that often hides altogether the idea of the author. This perhaps is responsible for the bewilderment of the reader who looks seriously for a purpose in the verses, for something more than an outre style of phrase or rhythm. In "The Twilight of the Race," for example, the elaborate simplicity in many places approaches the absurd, for it seems studied, not natural. The best work in the book is at the end, in the "Lyrics of a Life." Some of these are not unmusical, and they show fewer signs of self consciousness than the more pretentious efforts.

"Birthday Poems of the Century" by Ernest Green Dodge. Illustrations by Hope Dunlap. M. A. Donohue & Co.