POETRY An Australian's Collection

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31542, 2 December 1967, Page 4

POETRY An Australian's Collection

A Taste Of Salt Water. By Thoma* W. Shapcott. Angus and Robertson.

“Amid the complex, dull horrors of the 19605, poetry is a loophole. It’s a second chance of some sort: things that the age turns thumbs down on, you can get out in poetry.” So writes the American Robert Lowell, a giant among contemporary poets and exponent of confessional poetry. In “A Taste Of/Salt Water" we have the outpourings of a highly imaginative and original mind. Essentially a lyrical poet, Thomas W. Shapcott ha* introduced a variety of moods and rhythms into this collection that give an effect of great breadth. The crystalsharp lyric, “A whipbird straps the light awake” contrasts with the roiling oceanlike rhythm of “Quetzalcoatl." Light, colour, and intangible things are embedded in his sonnets and madrigal*, and his “Children’s Running Song" is a gem.

The series of Christ poems, “The City of Acknowledgement,” forms perhaps the most remarkable section of this volume. Again a singing like quality is apparent in “Carol For A Birth” and "Carol At The Wedding Of Cana.” The concluding Easter poem is most impressive in its contemporary implication. The cr»M te raised up, one among many. Acknowledgement is not east/ in our citv.

Deceptively simple, these poems reveal a warmth and tenderness that contrast very vividly wMi "In the Town” that deals with modern, urban, areUglous man. “The Town is an Old Sow-goddess.” LoneUneesthemes persist and the search for human warmth continues while the barriers go up between human beings. The routine of the city is monotonous, drab, colourless and above ail dumb. "There's always someone selling, someone sold.” And there are always the queues of indifferent men and girls on the streets “that writhe back like broken reptiles.” One could hardly say that these poems have a typically Australian flavour; their theme is universal, and the influence of mythology is apparent Readers who enjoyed “The Mankind Thing” will find “A Taste Of Salt Water” very much to their liking. Thomas W. Shapcott is a poet who is finding different ways of expressing the great imponderables, and makes us realise how poetry describes and changes the climate of the mind. It is a touchstone by which the spiritual condition of man can be tested.