this conflict expressed itself in a kind of sensibility which America had
not produced before. Southern writers of the post-war period will have
to find out what Bishop did or run the risk of catching up with what
he did only after rediscovering it for themselves a generation later.

The winners of the prizes are all writers whose careers began well
before 1939, and it was perhaps to be expected that their maturity of
experience and craft would put them, from any reasonable point of
view, ahead of their younger competitors: performance, not promise,
had to guide the judges in their decisions. But the promise here is not
negligible; and although I should scarcely hold that this anthology
"represents" the new Southern talent, it contains a large portion of it.
There are five or six writers here, not yet published in books, of whom
much is to be expected; and I think it is fair to predict from the con-
tents of this anthology that the best Southern writers in the next few
years will be writers of fiction.

ALLEN TATE

-x-