NEW BOOKS

Evening Star, Issue 20346, 30 November 1929, Page 25

NEW BOOKS

CHEERFUL BUSH BALLADS In an admirable introduction to the collected verses of Mr C. H. Winter (‘Riverina’) Mr 0. N. Gillespie remarks that they continue the Henry Lawson tradition, though ho notes a difference. The resemblance is really closer to “Banjo” Paterson, whom “ Riverina ” recalls in his cheerful outlook on life, his preoccupation with horses, and his humour, dependant on exaggeration. These are jolly: verses by a 1 writer who was born in the hush, of New South Wales, has followed all the “way-back” callings that he writes about, and is now a Southlander. The New Century Press, Ltd., _ has done a service in publishing them in a cheap, paper-backed volume. “Far more verses about the bush, I suspect, have been written by men in dinner jackets than in dungarees,” Mr Gillespie says again. That is entirely true; it is the penalty of straining for a “ national ” literature. “Riverina” does not come tinder the indictment; his racy verses, homely as the song of the kookaburra, but with a joyous facility of_ their own, smack completely of the life which they describe. The ‘ Story of Bidgee Queen/* the racehorse that was born in a drought and reared on beer, is one long guffaw. If anyone is not amused by it he is to be pitied. ‘ Bidgee ’ strikes the main note of the collection, but there are poems, more sentimental, that have their charm. Bards who know it do well when they sing of “ the, land beyond the cities where the real Australia lies.” “ Riverina ” is a poet for the multitude. To say that, perhaps, is not to praise his poetry, but it would he a mistake to be too literary to enjoy it.