THE OPEN ALTERNATIVE

Press, 11 October 1980, Page 17

THE OPEN ALTERNATIVE

15 Contemporary New Zealand Poets. Edited by Alistair Paterson. Pilgrim South Press, 1980. 220 pp. $11.95. House Poems. By Rachel McAlpine. Nutshell Books, 1980. $4.50. The Sarah Train. By Elizabeth Smither. Hawk Press, 1980. $6.30. Public. By Graham Lindsay. Ridge-pole., 1980. $4.75. Morepork 2. Edited by Graham Lindsay. Ridge pole, 1980. $2. (Reviewed by Peter Sipipson) Alistair Paterson’s anthology of recent New Zealand poetry is designed to demonstrate a thesis about “the directions in which poetry has been moving over the last few years.” His claim is that there has been a marked change “from the traditional ‘closed’ form of English writing to an 'open’ form,” largely after the example of developments in post-war American poetry. The thesis is tenable in itself, but as an elaboration of the thesis the book is only partly convincing. The first problem is with the introduction. The editor does not write good expository prose (e.g. “there have been great changes and new empahses in where New Zealand poetry has been going”) and fails to offer a lucid and comprehensible account of the characteristics of the sort of verse he is advocating. Except to the initiated, open form is likely to remain a closed book. The second problem is with the relationship between the thesis and the poets chosen to represent it. Several of the poets included seem only remotelv related to the ideas of open form in their practice (for example, Elizabeth Smither, Rachel McAlpine), while other competent poets who do operate in open forms (for example, Murray Edmond, Alan Brunton, Bill Manhire) are left out. There is such a variety of techniques practised by the 15 poets included that no very clear understanding of the concepts argued by the editor emerges. If the reader wants a clear account of the principles of open form and their relation to the development of New Zealand poetry he should turn to C. K. Stead’s essay in “Islands 27,” "From Wystan to Carlos: Modem and Modernism in Recent N.Z. Poetry” where the matter is discussed with admirable cogency. Paterson’s anthology works best as a highly personal selection of some of

the more innovative poets currently active in New Zealand, and as such it is an absorbing and timely collection. The. past decade has been a prolific and lively period for poetry', and a rich harvest was available to’ the first anthologist in the field fo, some years. He has chosen almost nothing written before 1970 (though several of his more experienced authors, such as Curnow, Smithyman and Stead, were active long before that date) and much of the work is very recent indeed, preference being shown to the poets’ latest publications. Some work, in fact, is published here for the first time, including the first substantial newwork from David .Mitchell since his landmark collection of 1971, “Pipedreams in Ponsonby.” A fresh novel, up-to-the-minute quality is one of the book’s most attractive features. The poets range from absolute beginners such as Rosemary Allpress to the perpetual contemporary, Allen Curnow, who is, since Denis Glover’s death, the undisputed grand-old-man of New Zealand poetry. Perhaps the strongest representation comes from writers in their late thirties or early forties, such as Michael Harlow. Rob Jackaman, Alan Loney, Rachel McAlpine, David Mitchell, Elizabeth Smither, and lan Wedde. Many of the poets are represented by selections from longer poems or sequences, a feature (as the editor rightly points out) of current practice. Such works are difficult to excerpt successfully; the “well made poem” of the discredited “closed” tradition perhaps lent itself better to anthologising than does the typical “open” sequence. It is to be hoped that readers will be stimulated to seek out the complete work and not just mystified by the fragments chosen from important works such as Curnow’s “Trees, Effigies, Moving Objets,” Loney’s “Dear Mondrian,” Stead’s “Quesada” or Weddes “Earthly.” Five of the 15 poets are women, a much higher proportion than is usual in New Zealand anthologies, and a recognition of gathering strength and adventurousness of women’s writing. Two of the more prolific and experienced of this group, Rachel McAlpine and Elizabeth Smither, also have small new collections available. McAlpine’s “House Poems” have previously been published in “Islands,” and some are also in the anthology. Attractively printed and illustrated

(presumably by the author), this sequence of 15 appealing, but slight pieces is an affectionate celebration of the author’s “one-legged peering monocled mad old hag” of a house in Wellington, and an assertion, too, of the pleasures of female independence: I’m playing house mother’without father mother without other mother mother without children playing playing house with only the house to play with “The Sarah Train” offers another angle on domestic experience. There are 17 short poems all inspired by a daughter’s imaginary menagerie of panthers. tigers and lions. Ambiguously pitched between being poems “for” children and “about” them, they are deft and delightful pieces, airily avoiding the cuteness or sentimentality that threatens an enterprise of’this sort. Only three of the poets in Paterson’s collection are South Islanders; eight of the contributors (including the editor) are from Auckland, a disproportion that surely reflects some parochialism on the editor’s part, especially when the fact that the book is published in Dunedin is considered. Another example of the South Island subsidising the North? It is not as if the principles of open form writing have not yet percolated to the deep south. Graham Lindsay is one able young poet whose work reveals a close familiarity with recent American practice, and whose work might well have been included. His second collection, “Public,” is a vigorously experimental book exploring various kinds of narrative, formal and linguistic possibilities. The writing is clear and attractive though not yet strongly individual in character. Lindsay is also the editor of a very good looking and interesting new literary magazine entitled “Morepork.” of which two issues have appeared so far. Beautifully designed and printed, “Morepork”' has published some excellent poetry and fiction. There is a marked preference for experimental work; indeed the general atmosphere of “Morepork” is more innovative than that of Paterson’s collection considered as a w-hole. Some of the work in the first two issues gives the impression of being fashionably modish rather than truly modern, but it is a journal well worth supporting.