RECENT BOOKS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 147, 23 June 1945, Page 11

RECENT BOOKS

REVIVAL IN VERSE

SYMPTOM OF THE AGE? (By Q.). .

i More than one reviewer must. have remarked the large proportion of poetry—or at least verse—in the recent specimens of literature; submitited for criticism; incidentally also, j examples of what used to be called j "belles lettres," original or reprinted' in various topical collections. Is this a symptom of wartime psychosis, •or is it just a coincidence? Whatever it may be, it places the reviewer in a quandary, for, more than any'other form of literature, appreciation, of verse is largely a matter of taste or susceptibility. Just as some people •are said to be musical and others not so, according to their reaction to particular strains of music, so the .same set of verses will thrill.one person and leave another cold. Is there , any criterion? There used to be, namely, the " acknowledged masterpieces, the great lines, to be applied like a touchstone to the latest effusion. It was not a ■very good criterion at the best; with modern and modernistic' verse it is hard to apply at all. In the circumstances it is, perhaps, best to say whether one likes a piece of verse or a book of verses or not, and leave-it at that In any case that is.the way most readers will take it, and, for the sake of the poet, that is a course to be recommended. Try it for yourself FORSAKING ALL OTHERS. By Alice Duer Miller, author of "The White Cliffs" (Methuen and Co., Ltd., London). . ■ ■ ■ •■ . About the work of this American poetess there is, fortunately, no question. " She is, probably, the best living exponent of the art of fiction .in verse, the novel in rhyme, exemplified to a wide circle of readers by "The White Cliffs," since adapted to the screen and now showing in Wellington in that form. It is extraordinary what results can: be attained by a genuine poet, using the technique of. his craft in a variety of versification, to' tell a story and to amplify or intensify the mood and the emotion of each phase and episode with the type of verse best suited to it. "Forsaking All Others is not exactly a new poem, having been first published in 1941. The edition under review is the eleventh, which shows that poetry finds its readers still. In this short narrative poem of some 50 pages, there is the whole story, which in prose might have filled 300 or 400 pages, certainly a hundred times as many words. "So compact is her narrative," writes the critic Charles Hanson Towne, "that she must make every full-fledged novelist in prose ashamed of his verbosity. Here are the sharply-defined essentials of a novel. We get the lives of four people vividly and swiftly, and have glimpses of the gossiping lives of innumerable others." ; . , ■- . It is fair to add in passing that independently of outside models much good work in narrative verse has been done in New Zealand, from Alfred Domett's "Ranolf and- Amohia," written a hundred years ago, and B. 13. Baughan's "Shingle Short,", to the shorter stories in rhyme of James H. Elliott, of Hamilton, whose privately circulated verses deserve a wider recognition. AS IRON HILLS, Poems by Flexmore Hudson. (Melbourne: Robertson and Mullens, Ltd.) Both in quantity and originality of output, as well as in the effort made to encourage the,poet by the quarterly publication, "Poetry,"'., which : ■he edits, Flexm'ore Hudson must be about the most considerable of contemporary Australian poets. He is the author of other books, such as ' "Ashes and Sparks" "In the Wind's Teeth,". "The Child Discovers Poetry," "With the First Soft Rain," and "Indelible Voices." The poems are mainly of .revolt, of the revolt of the young against what they deem an evil heritage, a mood that has characterised Australian poetry for'years back. Here, in "Indelible Voices," the poet proclaims his mission: I sing for a generation given early to hunger and shame, fed from childhood on lies and dreams, befooled, but not to blame. And from "With the First Soft Rain," in free, verse: When I see you bitter and disheartened, ; I can no longer bother to rhyme a pretty I want to help you climb the mountain of niy courage. I tell yotr that our sun is young in as-. tronomic time — there are many million years for man to shape his life / by tho truths we poets know. Millions of years 1 - .„ , Long before that some race will end the tragic misery of our disordered days. What is the reviewer to say about this? Only that the poet knows best what he means and how he wants to say it.' It is again for; the reader to. try the effect on himself for •himself. To the quarterly of Australasian verse "Poetry," Mr. Hudson is contributor as well as editor, and there are essays in each issue (Nos. 13 and 14 to hand) on various aspects of poetiy. Eric Irvin, A.1.F., writes on "War .and the Poet—A Personal Essay,' and J. R Hervey a preface to the Christmas, 1944, number. It is all very interest-. m NEW ZEALAND NEW WRITING. No. 4. Edited by lan A. Gordon. (Progressive Publishing Society, Welling- . In' this neat, slender booklet Professor Gordon continues his good work of gathering together specimens pi New Zealand literary effort both in prose and in verse, and there is considerable variety in both, as well as merit. One likes "In the Sounds, by Bernard Vaughan Smith, "The Will and Mr. Wilkins," by H. C. .D. Somer : I set, a study in irony, and "Tidings oi Joy " by A. P. Gaskill, all prose pieces. R. Seymour writes on "A Present Tendency in New Zealand Literature, noting, rightly, it seems, "a serious lag between our literature and the normal, uninteresting but well-adjusted New Zealander," and concluding, "I have grown tired of the way some writers are prodding about at present, deploring the 'papa' formation of our society, writing up the 'new-chum gold,' while all the time they ignore a vein of good metal, certainly not very exotic, but tough and true." How many writers in this country in the last 30 years have really got down to this bedrock ,of actual New Zealand life and New Zealand people? One can think of very few. notably, the late Frank Anthony in "Follow the Lead," a novel of Taranaki farm life, and, once more, James Elliott's verse passim. SEA POEMS. Chosen by Myfanwy Piper, with original lithographs by Mona Moore. VERSES OUT OF PATTERN. By Walter Meade. "MORE BRIGHT BREVITIES," by Alan Blair, "THY SON LIVETH," with an introduction by Erica Oxenham. (Frederick Muller, London).

The firm of Frederick Muller, the publisher of all the above books, specialises in what might be called belles lettres, attractive, well-printed little books, a model of format and display, highly suitable for gifts, at a time when larger volumes are scarce and, if available, not always likely to please. "Sea Poems" is a collection quite different from what one might expect from the names. Here there is little or nothing about Drake or Nelson or the "meteor flag of England," but a great deal that is rare and hardly to be read elsewhere. In her introduction Piper stresses this point, saying that "these are the best poems or parts of poems I know that describe the sea (and seaside) or illustrate it in its relation to humanity." Scarcely a single poem in the series will be familiar to the average reader of verse. Here, for instance, is "Her Lancastrense" from the obscure Jacobean poet, Richard James (1592-1638); also George Sandys (1578-1644) in the episode, Ceryn Alcyone, translated in Elizabethan style from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and many others, also rare, but more modern. Walter Meade's "Verses Out of Pattern," written during this war by the author, a subaltern in the Indian cavalry, cover a wide field, Persia and the Middle East, as well as his homeland. They are a charming collection. Alan Blair's "More Bright Brevities" are as full of pithy wit and humour as his first series. "Thy Son Liveth," said to have been "dictated to his mother by a young American soldier during the last war, immediately after his death on the battlefield," is republished now with "the simple purpose—to give comfort to those of whom this war has demanded the bodies ,of their loved

ones."