Conveying action in poetry

Press, 4 August 1981, Page 15

Conveying action in poetry

Listening

The poet, Christopher Logue, has two recent publications to. his name. One is a collection of his own poetry under the title of '.'Ode to the Dodo.” The other is his translation of part of Homer’s Iliad, that great epic of ancient Greece. Christopher Logue’s version has been published as “War. Music." He tells on the 8.8. C. books programme on Concert radio at 7.00 tonight that he believes himself quite good at conveying action in poetry — an excellent qualification for translating from the Iliad. The heroine of Caroline Slaughter’s new novel, “Dreams of the Kalahari,” grew up in the Kalahari Desert, in what is now Botswana. The author was also brought up there and she talks about the experience of people who live far from their original homeland. She describes the struggle to find an identity and the need to realise that “home’s got to be within you.” James Bond. lan Fleming’s famous spy hero, has been revived 20 years after, this time by another author. Thriller-writer John Gardner has translated Bond from the 1960 s to 1980 s in “Licence Renewed.” There are a few alterations. For instance, the

new Bond smokes a milder brand of cigarettes and has a slightly different attitude to women!

Choral work

The musical composition. “Arrivals,” was first broadcast on the National programme in February last, and is being repeated to mark Conservation Week. National 7.30 p.m. A choral work in the folk-rock idiom with classical overtones, it tells of a migratory group of Pacific people setting out for a new, unpopulated land. The strongly spiritual overtones of this migration are overtaken by a second wave with more worldly aspirations. The work ends with a call to end the environmental destruction brought about by the attitude of the' second Sand a return to the ility of spiritual development. “Arrivals” was composed by Matthew Brown, lyrics by Robyn Reed-Brown, and is performed by the Ars Nova Choir of New Plymouth and vocalist Wayne Mason, with accompaniment directed by the composer.

‘Pacific Pop’

The music of the ukelele

and the guitar has often been dismissed as “Pan Pacific Pop.” However, a series of six programmes takes a new look at the merging of the traditional and the contemporary forms in Pacific Island music. This music emerges as more than just “pop” of a sorts and is seen as a particular local creation of great interest. Ross Clark and Allan Thomas have com-

piled and present these programmes. The introductory one tonight on Concert at 9.00 gives examples of indigenous, traditional music ot both the Pacific and European cultures and shows the way's they have blended with one another.