SOURCE: A review of Maine Ballads, in Poetry, Vol. LIII, No. II, November, 1938, pp. 92-96.

In the following excerpt, Schacht reviews Maine Ballads and deplores the poems, which he sees as smug and narrow.

In an introduction to his eighth book of poems Mr. Coffin says, in part: "Folk living and folk speaking still go on, in spite of all our modern improvements—the stories are there for the ballads, and the words to them, for anybody who has eyes to see the shape of them and ears to hear the right rhythms and the fall of the words." He ends: "These verses—the more ambitious of them—are not to be judged by the usual poetic standards. Some of them, judged by such, are little more than doggerel. They are to be judged, both in style and in plot, by the principles of folk design."

A foreword...