With Our Own Poets

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 142, 18 June 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

With Our Own Poets

I onca heard an Irishman pay ICileen J>ipjr'in the compliment that proves a poet: "More ihan any other writer *he goc» straight to the heart of thing*." Tho first thing you notice when you rend her poetry la it* extraordinary simplicity. She doe* not depend upon in I licnte metre or complicated rhyming to get effect; in fact, you become i|iiite *iire that she doe* not try to »«"t 'ITirt at all. While her poetry hn« not the starkntss of R. A. K. Mason's, for example, she in an economist in word*. Every line is clear, crisp, and concise, unequivocal and directly to the point, hut with a wnrm and homely beauty that betrays the polish of the true craftsman. I have always thonght. it atrange thnt fifteen Duggan, New Zealaniler an she i«, ulintiM belong no completely to the Irish school of poet*. Read her verse, and then that of Pa<lraic Coin in, (Catherine Tynan, or even William Dirtier Ye»t«, an«l you will fee thnt the intrinsic quality of their verse is the same. They all go "straight to the heart of things." They pos«e«s in common the faculty of seeing the hidden grandeur of email, simple things, and the homelines* of heavenly things. They hobnub with the angels and the birds alike. That seems paradoxical, but it. is correct of thia peculiar Celtic mysticiatn which know® so well that heaven and earth are part of each

other. But while Katherine Tynan and Coluiu speak of the rowan roads and the bog pools, Eileen Duggan think* of the tea tree after rain, the clumsy kakapo holding conclave in the bindi, the wind from the forest heavy with the sound of bells. No writer has ever captured New Zealand as Eileen Duggan lias. With

one deft, homely phrase she can give you the kiwi under the tree roots, or the dry raupo rustling in the moonlight. And for that our literature will always b® indebted, for New Zealand has never before found a writer, who, without description, could take her grey-green forests and her secret places and show them to others who could not see. Miss Duggan lived quietly ia Wei-

nnc/ at the end.

Odow on a dewy morning. With the blue sky blowing apart, Each bud broke on my eyelids. Each bird flew through my heart I prayed for the faith of a starling Under the tawny trees, A child, or a holy woman— What could be greater than these? But now on a heavy morning, With the dull sky blowing apart. When no flower blesses my eyelids. And no wing brushes my heart L made surer by sorrow. Beg what seems more to me— The faith of a willow in winter. Or the blind hound, nosing the knee.

lington. She was educated at Victoria College, whence she graduated Master of Arts, with first-class honours. Later she spent some time as lecturer in history at the college, hut returned to her writing, much of which has l>ecn done for overseas journals. She has published three books of poetry, the latest not very

For the last ten weeks the pages of "Enzed Junior" have been graced by as many articles from the pen of a poet great enough to discuss the works of others. Followers of Miss Duggan s articles have had brought home to them a real understanding of the phrase the poetry of words" and the rare beauty of words that truly "go straight to the heart of things. ' To-day we close, for a space at least, the series "With Our Own Poets, with our tribute to the author. It is fitting, we feel, that this tribute should come from the pen of one of the rising generation—Chris Barlow, who gives promise of following in the footsteps of those of whom Miss Duggan has written.

long ago. It lias a fine preface by Walter de la Mare, who, one of the greatest poet* of to-day, salutes her as a master of word*. "And at the Bad* is often considered Eileen Doggvn's best poem. It is a beautiful example of her chiselled simplicity, the unerenness in metre adding to tie rhythm. There is no attempt at conscious beauty, even the alliteration is mwt natural.

"ENZED JUNIOR'S" TRIBUTE to EILEEN DUGGAN

But it remains both in exterior words and interior meaning one of the best poems that ever came out of New Zealand. The first stanza tells us something that few of us can understand completely. It is only the spirit of ▼*ry delicate timbre that can vibrate to the paesing flight of a bird or the bursting of a bud. The meaning of the rest of the poem needs thought. What is the difference in the faith of a starling and the faith of a blind dogT The bright, friendly bird is the same ai a child. Tlieir faith is the faith of ignorance, happy, innocent belief, in the goodness of the world. But with sorrow the poet finds a change of heart, and prays instead for the faith of a tree, which, knowing cold and nakedness yet looks for new raiment in the spring; or the blind hound, that in spite of darkness, thrusts against the knee of its master and rests in complete faith in his wisdom. It is diffk-ult to do justice to this poet, who puts her love of the homely thingß of earth into the same lines which she expresses her familiarity with the things of Heaven. Like the Irish poets, she realises eo completely that one is but the complement of the other, like the warp and the weft of the same cloth. Thus she talks familiarly of St. Peter:

T kneel to thoce old dogged feet, That padded on from shore to city, I cry for that old troubled heart That tried to tempt Gcxl out of pity. Xo, indeed, it is impossible to tell what New Zealand literature owes to Eileen Duggan, v.ho, aa Robin Hyde eays, has an understanding of all the simplicities, great and lowly, not to be explained away.