} Letters

(Cont‘d trom page i)

tions were circulated on Tues-
day evening and the mass
rally on Wednesday, when
the President of the College was
out of town and had to read
About the demonstration in the
papers. So much ior Mr. Kent‘s
claim to prefer “the politics of
conciliation and compromise"—
thnugh I have even more dam-
aging evidence to offer on that
point a little latter.

Mr. Kent admits the petitions
were circulated by (his own
words) “well»wisl-lers and partl-
cipants" (boldface mine). At
the mass rally he inflamed and
excited a crowd already over-
wrought by one of the most sen-
national and complex cases of
Illegal visitation ever to occur
on the campus. His purpose was
to incite, as he admitted to me
after the meeting. Furthermore,
as he admitted publicly (sea
Scarlet and Black, Nov. 25, 1966,
p. 4: the article was written by
Hamid Fuson, the editor and
one of the‘ planners of the
"sleep-in”), he had made his
demonstration represent every
other issue currently agitating
his administration. The result
was that students could not sup-
port one cause without support-
ing all the others, whether rele-
vant or not. His conduct was as
gross an example of the legisla-
tive device known as the "rider"
As I have ever seen.

Alter that mass rally, I sought
out Mr. Kent; and because I
had observed his revealing eva~
liveness at the meeting, I was
most careful to bring a witness.
When I asked Mr. Kent why he
could not have waited R mere
two days, until the President re-
turned, Mr. Kent replied, “I
know if we waited till Friday
we couldn't whip up student sup-
port."

Mr. Kent accuses me of
“character assassination," But
one cannot assassinate what
had already committed suicide.

The reader may observe that
Mr. Kent laments his fate in
words chosen from a speech
delivered by Mark Anthony, 3
classic example of the dema-
gogue, who was defending a
wouldvbe dictator. in the light of
all this, the reader may also de~
cide how much Mr. Kent‘s pro-
testations of innocence are
worth.

, , John Crossett-
, . ,(Classical languages)

_ SCARLET AND BLACK

No Cheers for ‘America Hurrah’ I

lly ELEONDRE SPIEGEL

It would have taken a better
observer than the average
playgoer — and such am I —-
to detect flaws in the acting
of America Hurrah; and since
much of the acting was delib-

erately exaggerated and uns‘

real, anyone would be hard put
to determine when the actors
fulfilled their intentions and
when they failed, At any rate,
it was the theme which aroused
most student comment. But
like the student senate, l do
not consider myself It vehicle
for student opinion; and so,
though 1 heard many different
opinions, I will express my
Own.

The first scene, or act, or

whatever such an absence of
form may be called, seemed to
Show the individual pitted
against “the system.” The four
people trying to get jobs rub-

mit to interviewers with plastic ,

faces and answer trivial or ar-
bitrary questions. Their despots
ate need for work and their hu-
man plight are ignored. Simi-
larly in the other scenes, we
see people who are inditrcrent
to someone in need, and cus-
toms whichrfoster such indif-
ference. Surrounded by these
impersonal institutions and un-
caring masses of men, the in~
dividual feels lost and alone.
Curiously enough, however, the
individuals who are suffering
no unjustly seem to feel no ans
ger, but rather guilt and fear.
Those of you who find that
point puzzling will have to spec-
ulate about it by yourselvesi
the play gives no answers,

As the first scene seems to
show what the society does to
make the individual unhappy,
so the second scene seems to
Show what the individual does
to make himself unhappy. The
three main characters are
bound to their TV -—~ that is
perhaps even their job — and
their petty desires. Only their
selfishness seems unbounded;
lot this they tell lies, use each
other, and almost let one of
their number choke to death.
Never do they think to question
the meaning of their lives or

the importance of their actions.
In them the vices of the so-
ciety, present in the first scene,
are portrayed in miniature.
No matter how much some of
the audience may have liked
the third scene, few would be
naive enough to think that it
did not offend, revolt, or shock
many of the people who saw it.
if the play was not meant for
such people, why weren’t they
warned or it, so they could boy-
cott it — surely a legitimate
procedure — and avoid being
hurt? i saw no posters saying
that the play was, quite liter-
ally, pornographic, and a dull,
lacklustre pornography at that.
Was the play, then, intended to
shock people? Whether that
was its intention or not, that
was its result. What become:
of the play’s protest against
human indifference to human
suffering, if the play itself, by
malice or thoughtlessness, pro-
duces suffering in others?

One might argue that stirrer-
ing is not bad in itself, that the
play communicates something
Valuable at the cost of suffer-
ing. But, unless falsehood can
be taught, the third scene adds
nothing to the message in the
rest of the play. Only a man de-
humanized by something worse
t h a n impersonal institutions
could think that such violence,
crime, and bestiality could ex-
ist in some corner of the uni-
verse where they might go un~
punished. Letting the charac-
ters tear apart the old lady
and the room she represents
and then leave the stage,
themselves unharmed and rm.
changed, exhibits a false view
of the universe, Yet even if
there is some message in this
scene, how many of those who
were shocked by it understood
it? The author foists his opin-
ions on an unsuspecting audi-
ence in such e way that he
leaves many people confused
and offended, indicating that he
doesn't care about other
people’s feelings or about suc-
cessfully communicating his
ideas — in short, that he him-
reli is a plastic person ortho
type portrayed in the first
scene. ‘ ‘ ’ -'

Nous
Where the Truth Lies . . .

lly DONALD STUMP

This year’s first issue of Nous came out Wednesday, and I
might be described as a kind of decorous hodgepodge, an int-
terdisciplinary tray oi aesthetic horssd'oenvres. Inside the simple
and beautiful cover are electronmicrographs, photographs, draw»
ings, poems, literary sketches, journal entries, is monogram, a
verbal puzzle, and a brandrnew Restoration catch, complete wifii
musical score.

Unfortunately I do not have the capacity in this column in
sample all the delights on the tray, so i will limit my oommentl
to the literary contributions. 0n the whole they show more noel
craftsmanship than i remember seeing in most of the issues at
former years. Present in many of the works were two virtue:
which have been, I think, more rare in the past: the attention
given to details of structure in the poetry and the use of well
considered imagery.

It has been the practice in much recent student poetry to d.
stray the integrity of the individual line, either by spiatterln‘
words out on the page I ll Ferlinghettl'ii “Coney Island of the
Mind No, ii," or else by writing what is essentially prose and
dividing it somewhat arbitrarily into run-on fines. About half o!
the poems in this issue of Nous still follow one or the other of
these two techniques, which are competently represented in Rob-
in Chambers' poem “i stand in the timelocked shadows" and
Sean McCormally's “Throughout the Day." But the other half
of Nous‘ content of poetry is written in more conventional linen
ones divided from each other to form grammatical or conceptual
units. For example, Lynn Adams' poem “Anna" begins,

A lady that I know about

Stands on a black rafiroad platform
Holding the rails of a toy train ——

The sections bumhed like a bouquet

In her milk—clean hand. (Whisper) . . .

It is good to see some thought in the division of poetic lines“
there is a delight in seeing a poet work skillfully within the limb
tations of a form, if for no other reason than it takes a great"
cleverness than unbridled methods of expression.

A second sign of the craftsmanship in some of the poetry
is the use of the structure to call attention to key words. I am
thinking particularly of Brian Harrls’ poem “(for Robert Low-
ell)" in which certain words are marked by their isolation in 1
line by themselves. For example, Lowell‘s imagined comment on
the relation between form and content is written,

I hate to see it when they do not
Grapple

I-le

Answered

The same technique of gaining intellectual punch by isolating
words or phrases in used effectively in Lynn Adams' poem “Sam.
one here is steadily breathlng," in Charles R. Burnl' work
“Imagine, it you will, a vision," and in several others. The ult-
til-nuts use of the technique is the monogram of the ultimau
name, God, which is given an entire page of the magazine. ’

On the' matter of imagery in Nous, r was impressed by the
number of magical moments in which the image served the work
as n whole at the same time that it called attention to itselfa
Take for example a phrase which graces Kit lcder's sometime;
prosaic and awkward “Diary":

. . . I have not felt so close to the raw skin of
poverty as i do today.

Or consider Molly Wolf's words
"Sheepdogs":

Now close, two streaks of duh and warm»white fur

sleeked to the earth and swift as storms, they chase
invisible sheep, birds, sun and one another . . .

it is unfortunately true that not all of the imagery is so har-
monious and well chosen. Some of it is impressionistic, like the
baroque chair which has a vague and tleeting role in John Gard-
ner‘s cryptic sketch called "The Change is Not New." Other
poems err on the side at swarnping the reader with too many
images and thus detract from the pleasure any one of them might
have produced alone. Molly Wolf’s “Storm" suffers from thil
mistake. Still other works use wildly imaginative metaphors that
are out of proportion to the thing being described and hence be-
come ridiculous. i fear that Charles R. Burns' interesting syn-
aesthetic “Vision” which is “rung" throughout the universe il
a bit too extravagant to express grief at separation from a lover.
It might be more poetic, and politic, to miss her less.

Although Nous contains the fruits of inexperience and hal
the inevitable roughness ot a hometown literary review, there
is workmanship apparent in almost all the works and none of
them were without virtues. The magazine is good enough to stand

in her delightful poem

on its own merits, not simply on the fact-that it was put out by »
ifriendi andpeerl. ’ -_, ’ . ‘- > ~

 

