Two New Zealand Poets

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 153, 29 June 1940, Page 4 (Supplement)

Two New Zealand Poets

Books In Review

PLLOWING the success of her volume of poems published in London three years ago, and subsequently extended with equal success to America, recognitions of which New Zealand should be proud, Miss Eileen Duggan has issued, through the same publishers, Allen and Unwin, a cheaper volume entitled "New Zealand Poems.' * ' With a few exceptions, including one of the finest of her poems, "A New Zealand Christmas," these forty-two poems are new. Published in honour of our centennial, the volume leads off with a "Centenary Ode." This is a powerful invocation of our history, but some of Miss Duggan's admirers may consider that she is not so much at home in this as in others of the collection. They will find that rare choice of words which Miss Duggan joins to beauty. Consider the bare sharply-etched brevity of "The Ballad of the Bushman," with its surprise at the end It is not for my sons I grudge to go, Good lads like them will never come to barm. The neighbours envy us the name they have, But God, If one of them could farm!

A companion to this is the poem about the bush woman who will not go to town"if you root up old trees, they bleed until they die." Here is a volume, within reach of all, that illustrates a New Zealander's genius. It is appropriate that it should appear in centennial year. Dora Hagemeyer, who was Dora Chappie, and was educated in Timaru and at Otago University, and now lives in California, has published a third volume of poetry, "Sonnets and Other Songs." In his introduction, Mr. C. A. Marris recalls his reference to the "fragile beauty" of Mrs. Hagemeyer's earlier poems, but adds that her art has taken on a new strength with the years. "Fragile beauty" is an apt description. Mrs. Hagemeyer is mostly occupied with the beauty of Nature, which she sees with eyes of tremulous ecstasy. Whereas Miss Duggan always seems to relate Nature to man, Mrs. Hagemeyer rather gives the impression of finding in Nature a wood beyond the world, a sanctuary folded in mist. These are sincere poems, delicately touched with beauty. The collection is published in attractive format by H. H. Tombs, Ltd., Wellington.