N.Z. poems for teen-agers

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32880, 1 April 1972, Page 10

N.Z. poems for teen-agers

Nowhere Far From The Sea. Edited by Helen M. Hogan. Whiteombe and Tombs. 224 pp. Bibliography, Index.

(Reviewed by H.D. McN.) One commendable principle which is widely respected in our secondary schools is that English teachers, who are mostly intelligent, literate, and aggressively aware of their own likes and dislikes, should be allowed a reasonable amount of latitude in which to communicate their own enthusiasms to their pupils. When this permissive approach is compounded with the sound agricultural principle of the rotation of crops, the result is what is commonly known as a balanced education: a stony paddock of thirdformers bombarded with a high-density sowing of Wordsworth may result in a low level of germination, but when this is followed in successive seasons by Browning, Dryden, and Roger McGough (with perhaps a top-dressing of Yeats and Donne), the chances are that sooner or later a harvestable hybrid will issue forth. There can be little doubt about Mrs Hogan’s personal preferences. This book is subtitled "an anthology of New Zealand poems for secondary school students. It consists of just over 200 poems, 75 of which are devoted to just three poets: Ruth Dallas, Basil Dowling, and Denis Glover. No other poet gets more than a dozen, although there are three writers (Baxter, Fairbum, and Frame) on this mark. Curnow and Mason are allowed an astonishing four apiece. For a comment on this selection, one must look to Glover’s magpies, who, readers will be re-assured

to know, are still with us, philosophising on the state of the economy with their "Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle.” But Mrs Hogan has attempted to steal the magpies’ thunder by asserting in her preface that balance is irrelevant, that she has made the selection she has "because their simplicity of expression, the nature of their subject matter and their rhythm and humour appeal to this age group.” This is no doubt true, and one can accept the likelihood that Mrs Hogan’s pupils have enjoyed studying most of these poems under her; certainly, both Dowling and Glover often do draw a good response. But she has missed the obvious factor that the appeal of poetry to teen-agers is very much dependent on how it is taught, and there are plenty of teachers who can generate enthusiasm for poets whom Mrs Hogan has neglected. In short, this volume is the product of a teacher and not an anthologist; it will be most useful to Mrs Hogan, and also to those teachers who snare her interests and priorities (if such there be). It is hard to imagine it being much use to a majority of members of any one English department, since to those teachers whose course begins with “Henley Pub" and ends with "A Death Song for Mr Mbuldybroke” this selection will be little short of heretical. Mrs Hogan has been prescriptive and not permissive, and in doing so one fears that she has denied a majority of teachers enough scope for the exercise of that flexibility which the English curricula mercifully permit.