NEW ZEALAND POETRY

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21034, 9 December 1933, Page 17

NEW ZEALAND POETRY

New Zealand Best Poems of 1933. Chosen by C. A. Marris. H. H. Tombs, Ltd. 39 pp., (3s 6d.). Valley of Decision. Poems by Allen Curnow. Auckland University College Students' Association Press. Cinna the Poet and Other Verses. By C. R. Allen. The Authors' Press, Henley-on-Thames. 47 pp. (3/6.) Tai Tapu and Other Verses. By A. H. McC. Acheson. Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. (2/-.) The Oreti Anthology Verses, by "Southerner" (S. G. August.) The Georgian Book Shop, Invercargill. 33 pp. Songs of the Unseen. By F. D. Chepmell. South's Book Depot Ltd.. Wellington. 23 pp. (2/6.)

The 25 New Zealand Best Poems of 1933 are all the expression of a real poetic impulse. Very many are poems of discontent, longing for a beauty that can never be realised. The mood of very few is other than sombre. The reflections that autumn brings the failure of love and the wounds of the world have all been keenly felt. If the personification of beauty is felt more than perceived, if the sincerity of a mood is understood rather than its immediate source, then criticism has said her worst. It is remarkable that, with two exceptions, the most moving and most musical poems are those whose theme or setting is of New Zealand. These are Eve Langley's "Black Sticks," a strong foreboding of the death of a race, E.H.'s "Drive to North Canterbury," a poem of true description and calm reflection in which simple words are happily wedded to sense, and Alan Mulgan's "At the Bush Edge." The rhythm of this poem is subtle and graceful.

Be ready, Beauty, with your coinage

as you pass, Light-footed o'er the bush-edge grass. Hang on the dark puriri's pride The year-old penny, sombre-eyed. Give it for shining leaf, Too dark for joy, too bright for grief, Give it for friendly dome, Besprent with sun-tide's foam, Shadowing in tented still half-light The grey tree's might.

The most considerable poem In the anthology is a portion of "Considerations on Certain Music of J. S. Bach," by J. C. Beaglehole. Mr Beaglehole's high inspiration and strong, sure verse have raised this poem to nobility. Two shorter poems by Robin Hyde are so true emotionally, and so clearly and simply rhythmical that they live in the memory longer than poems that at first seem deeper and more colourful.

There are not many new contributors to this collection. The anthologist chose these poems from more than one hundred. He has done well to choose only those of whose sincerity and significance he may be sure. It is easy to discern Mr Curnow's passion, it is easy to discern his lyric gifts of swift rhythm and definite imagery, but it is not easy always to discern his meaning. Some of the poems seem to reflect stern spiritual experience, and others to express a fierce sense of revolt that is too impetuous for the patient flow of words. The chains of social organisation, the towering ugliness of a great city, the barriers of hyprocrisy that shut out warmth and love and beauty—these things he would destroy. These poems call for revolution of the kind that Tennyson prayed for, but the call will not be understood by many, as the meaning is hidden by irregularities of words and syntax. However, the reader who begins at "Relief" or "Host of the Air" is likely to persevere. In "Cinna the Poet and Other Verses" Mr C. R. Allen has published work which is so far his best as to denote a quite surprising development. He still shows a tendency to paraphrase simplicity into imposing language, as when he writes of Cinna watching the swallows and adds that their sister, the swift, "had held his gaze in fief"; and he perhaps loves quaint, obsolescent, or out-of-the-way words a little too fondly. Nor is it unapparent that his metrical sense, though true and musical, denies him those achievements, both in elaborate, rhythmical artifice and in instant rhythmical daring, which are equally the miracles of great poetry. But Mr Allen achieves a great deal. His successes are those of a poetic mind and poetic craftsmanship. His conceptions are surely developed and are left, by the last phrase, complete and clear. If they were slight, this would still be praise not often deserved; but they are frequently bold and subtle, so that Mr Allen's triumph in expression is considerable. In the title poem he makes fine imaginative use of that Cinna, the poet, whom the mob tore in pieces in "Julius Caesar," and sets him up as symbol of the unfulfilled poet:

Let him stand For all of us who, listening, have heard The exhortation, though the feeble hand Has nothing writ, or wavered on the

word, Till the high moment passed . . . But the hand that shaped these poems is strong yet delicate. The best of Mr Acheson's verse is as simple as this: A crocus lifts From wintry mould To catch the sun A chalice gold. A little child Just bows his head And kneels in prayer Beside his bed. A slender stem Links sun and sod; A childlike prayer, A soul and God. Many readers will be grateful for the vesper hymn (words and music) of St. Paul's .Church, Tai Tapu, in which Mr Acheson's words are set to a beautiful German folk-tune. The typographer has been supplanted in this charming booklet by Mrs V. Gould, whose lettering and decorations distinguish its appearance.

"Southerner" is a facile rhymester, whose romantic landscapes;, philosophical confidences, character sketches, and literary criticisms in verse are familiar to readers of the "Southland Times." His "Oreti Anthology" contains a few poems which scarcely merit a wider circulation, but many which can be enjoyed by the most distant strangers to Invercargill. Mr Chepmell's verses are undistinguished, but will please the many readers who care for such metrical assurances as this:

A longing, past all knowledge, Vibrates within my soul, As the breath of spring from the heather Sweeps up to the sunlit knoll; And the secret to me is whispered, As I listen 'twixt pain and bliss, That our life is only a Waiting To be one with a world like this.