SOURCE: A preface to Selected Poems: William Alexander Percy, Yale University Press, 1929, pp. v-ix.

In the following essay, a preface to Selected Poems, Jones briefly examines Percy's career as a poet.

Mr. Percy's first volume, Sappho in Levkas, was published in 1915 and from the copyright notice we may see that he was publishing as early as 1911. That fact almost sets him apart from all other contemporary American poets, for it was soon after the turn of the century that American poets learned to advertise, to lecture, and to write manifestoes. None of these things has Mr. Percy ever done, and from his group, "In New York," we may discover that he does not appreciate that lively, up-to-date, self-assertive policy that has done so much, temporarily, for so many poets. For having visited New York and listened to its conversation:

I once knew men as earnest and less shrill...