NEW ZEALAND POETS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 291, 9 December 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

NEW ZEALAND POETS.

DUNEDIN AND AUCKLAND.

Mr. C. R. Allen, of Dunedin, has an established position' in New Zealand letters. He has written poems, stories and plays. His latest volume of verse, "Cinna the Poet, and Other Verses" (tho Borough Press, Henley-on-Thames) will enhance his reputation. , "Cinna the Poet" is a lengthy treatment of a theme suggested by the lines in "Julius Caesar" —where Cinna protests to the mob that he is not the conspirator of that name, but the poet. "Tear him for hie bad verses!" In rhymed verse Mr. Allen sketches for us his idea of Cinna's life, from his boyhood in his father's villa to his death by violence. The story is told with a sense of both humour and beauty; there are many lines that arrest by their poetical quality. There is a sort of allegory at the end. The Cinnas of to-day pray not to be elain, .but to be given bread. "How have we served the vision?" asks Mr. Allen. Cinna, whose poetry "was but a shadow of what Cinna dreamed," stands for all poets. . ■ The second narrative poem, "Father," a story of a medieval king with two sons, one a man of action, the other a meditative youth trained in a monastery, is not so successful. Tho meaning is not so clear, and the lines are more pedestrian. Mr. Allen should be warned against the over-use of "did"; this dangeiroue device for- lengthening a line occurs far too frequently. He is at his best, however, in' some of the miscellaneous poems at the end of., the volume. They ehow deep feeling and no small command of technique.

They went like- secret-freighted ships On errands dark for tyrant kings, They brought me no apocalypse, No rumour.of the healing wings. is a striking verse, describing the individuals in a London crowd, in a poem on Newman. Mr. Allen Curnow, whose verso is known to readers of the Auckland University College publications, "Kiwi" and "Phoenix," ie a young poet of unusual talent. The work in "Valley of Decision" ("Phoenix" Miscellany—the A.U.C. Students' Association Press) is simple in subject, but lit up with real poetry. Mr. Curnow is inclined to be over-philosophical and obscure; still, there is fundamental. brain-etuff in his verses, and that is a great deal, and there are lines that make a track of beauty. There comes no quiet to my heart from all things lovely, seen and heard ; calm eyes, sweet music, tell mo still: Keats died and the Immortal Ulrd. The poet and the -nightingale eing yet, two voices in one song; but matched against eternity their music will not echo long. . . . Unless there be a Light beyond, the common sun of lovely things, beauty's a creature of the mind : no nightingale, but poet, elngs. . . . Beauty walks on the edge of life, the farthest sentinel of sense, hard hope of an enduring light in an eternal transience. There is a similar cadence in here all your lovely hours must climb* nnd fall, and falling still abide. A promising volume, this, and printed in the dress that poetry deserves.