New Zealand Verses

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 106, 7 May 1938, Page 12 (Supplement)

New Zealand Verses

SOON somebody, or perhaps a group of persons, should be preparing for the centenary year a more comprehensive and yet eclectic anthology of New Zealand verse than has - yet appeared. Currie and Alexander's original little volume wa* the first step; their "Treasury of New Zealand Verse" was the second; and Quentin Pope's "Kowhai Gold" the third. Since the last was published a lot of good verse has been written. "Here are the Venses," edlte<T tiy Miss Helen Longford and published by South's Book Depot, Wellington, may be described as a footnote to this hietory. In his foreword Mr. C. R. Allen pays a well-

deserved tribute to the editor for what she has done to encourage New Zealand writers. Miss Longford edited the "New Zealand Mercury," a monthly journal devoted entirely to poetry. This collection of here, composed for the most part, bo one judges, of work done in the last 10 or 20 years, is rather uneven; here and there is the weakness of senti-' mentality, lack of discipline, and that mediocrity that ie so much more noticeable in poetry than in prose. Nor is the collection improved by the prose passages that have been chosen as leaves for these flowers. Among the old brigade of writers represented here are Johannes Anderson and "Martsyas"; among the younger Peter Middleton, Kve Langley, Douglas Stewart and Arnold Cork. A pleasant little book, but not a representative collection.