Lighter Poetry Fading, Says University Bard

Light Verse is a dying art, contends Harvard's foremost bard. David T. W. McCord '21, Honorary Curator of the Farnsworth and Poetry Rooms in Lamont made the statement after winning the William Rose Benet memorial award of the Poetry Society of America last Saturday for the best poem published in the Saturday Review of Literature in 1951.

He thinks, however, that interest in poetry, as opposed to light verse, is growing.

"You notice that few are writing light verse in America today," said McCord. "That's because it's harder to do. It must be sustained, every line just right."

As an example, McCord, who has had several books of poems published, wrote this as his class report: "I might have learned to play the game; I might speak Russian, too, I might have split the atom, but I left those things for you."