Excerpt from the editorial defining the policy of Alcestis, where "The Idea of Order at Key West" appeared as the lead-off poem in the first issue:

"Is it the poet’s function to attack social evils (as Messrs. Spender and Auden do) and make him merely the instrument of an economic theory or shall he (like Mr Stevens and Miss Sitwell) rather try to capture and intensify the beauty of things as the aesthetic?

… It will therefore be the policy of Alcestis to publish only verse concerned with presenting artistic (as opposed to social) ends. The poet’s politics do not concern the editor, but his aesthetic themes and the manner in which he expresses them are of real importance.

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From J. Ronald Latimer, editorial for Alcestis.