THE MAGIC-MAKER

Sympathetic and able, this is a full d biography of one time playboy and of the 20's, now the acknowledge first poet of America and distinguished appointee to the post of the Charles Norton Professorship of Poetry at Harvard in 1952- 1953. From the in France during the first World War -- which led to his imprisonment and subsequent writing of that little masterpiece- The Enormous Room this follows his life through the years; his visits to Europe; his theatrical ventures: his first visit to Russia and the diary of his stay there; and the later and almost conservative years in New York. If this biography errs- it is on the side of praise, for authentic as is this talent more correctly summed up by Edmund Wilson who wrote of him; ""As a post cupies a unique and curious place... He has deserved this by his lyric gift which enables him to burst into delicious, if frequently by his audacity.... Yet Cummings has always so far as a poet seemed satisfactory. Spontaneity and na are a sine lyrical poetry, yet the poet should have at least the patience to calculate his effects and the expertness to carry them out."" Since this earlier judgement, Cummings has written many volumes of fine and more poetry- but the still carries its point. Perhaps in his exuberance Cummings has written too much. But he is justly memorialized in this biography and it will be a work of satisfaction and profit to any interested in the singular and influential nature of his career.