spectra and Other Hoaxes

RICHARD S. WORMSER

\PECTRA is not a new sign of the zodiac or a proprietary
brand of rainbow. Spectra is a book of verse by Emanuel
jMorgan and Anne Knish published by Mitchell Kennerley
in 1916, when books of "new" poetry with improbable titles and
content were rampant. Spectra's preface defines its theory, "... the
theme of a poem is to be regarded as a prism, upon which the
colorless white light of infinite existence falls and is broken up
into glowing beautiful and intelligible hues." On publication, the
book caught appreciative eyes and was extolled by the so-called
"little" as well as some more popular magazines. Others, a Maga¬
zine of New Verse devoted an entire issue to it; The Forum carried
an encomium; The New Republic's review was by W^itter Bynner.
One of the gems, entitled "Opus 104," by Emanuel Morgan, runs
as follows:

How terrible to entertain a lunatic!

To keep his earnestness from coming close!

A Madagascar land-crab once

Lifted blue claws at me

And rattled long black eyes

That would have got me

Had I not been gay.

As William Jay Smith writes in The Spectra Hoax (1961),
"Spectra is indeed one of the greatest literary hoaxes ever per¬
petrated in America...." Its actual authors were the poets Arthur
Davison Eicke and Witter Bynner, who could not resist writing
what proved to be a most successful spoof of the schools of avant-
garde poetry swimming in the literary stream. Mr. Smith's well-
documented book gives a most amusing account of Spectra's ac-