A spectrum of poetry

Press, 9 October 1982, Page 16

A spectrum of poetry

Poetry New Zealand, Volume Five. Edited by Frank McKay. Mclndoe. 1932. 96 pp. $7.95. The New Poetry: Considerations Towards Open Form. By Alistair Paterson. Pilgrams South Press, 1982. 51 pp. $11.95. (Reviewed by Peter Simpson) "Poetry New Zealand" is published every two years and has. with the publication of this fifth volume, completed a decade of useful service to the art of poetry in this country. Each volume includes the work of more than 30 poets, and close to 80 poets have been represented in one or other of the five volumes. Most of the worthwhile poets of the period have been included, with a few exceptions, the most notable of which is Allen Curnow. The editor, Frank McKay, has clearly aimed to offer a representative selection of current practice, and has chosen work from right across the spectrum of poetic activity. The present volume (to indicate the range of poets included) contains work by Fleur Adcock. Meg Campbell. Keri Hulme. Sam Hunt, Michael Jackson. Barry Mitcalfe, W. H. Oliver, Alistair Paterson. Joanna Paul. Hone Tuwhare and Brian Turner — a good mix of young and old. male and female, traditional and experimental, new and familiar voices. • This catholicity of approach, though, is the limitation as well as the strength of “Poetry New’ Zealand." In attempting, as it were, to please all of the people all of the time, it lacks clear definition and takes on a somewhat random and miscellaneous character. It is probably better suited to the general reader with an interest in poetry, who relies on volumes such as this to keep up with what is happening in the field, than to the reader who follows poetry closely, and for whom many of the poems included will already be familiar from their appearance in journals or collections of

the poets' work For some of the poems by Alistair Campbell and Bill Manhire, for instance this must be the third or fourth time they have appeared in print. On the other hand quite a number of the poems appear here for the first time - for example those by David Mitchell and lan Wedde It is the inclusion of such unpublished work that continues to make "Poetry New Zealand' indispensable. My impression is that Volume Five contains a higher proportion of excellent poems than previous volumes, and 1 would single out the following as especially successful: Alistair Campbell's "Gathering Cape Goosberries." Meg Campbell's “Aftermath." Keri Holme's "Mushrooms and Other Bounty." Marihire's "Children.' David Mitchell's "After the Vogue" and Wedde's "Poem with Two Lines from a Song."

Alistair Paterson s "The New Poetry" is a pamphlet based on a lecture given at the University of Auckland. It is a development and expansion of the argument with which Paterson introduced his contentious anthology "Fifteen Contemporary New Zealand Poets." Paterson's conviction is that the recent work of Allen Curnow. David Mitchell. Rob Jackaman. Alan Loney, lan Wedde and others represents a decisive and welcome break with traditional poetics, and a successful adaptation to New Zealand of certain American poetic procedures (pioneered by Ezra Pound) which he designates by the term "Open Form."

Even for initiates into the intricacies of the current debate about form in New Zealand poetry. Paterson's treatise makes heavy reading because of the turgidities of its prose style. I doubt if the pamphlet will either' make converts or spread enlightenment. Paterson is a good poet and a good editor, but as a critic he is neither persuasive nor informative.