THE BOOKSHELF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21326, 29 October 1932, Page 9 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF

MODERNPOETRY " A SPECIALIST DIVERSION The Common Reader complains that the Modern Poet sends him to sleep. Tho Modern Poet reviles the taste of the Common Reader. The Common Reader responds by ignoring the Modern Poet. The Modern Poet cries out that he will starve; that the Common Reader will pay five shillings for a box of chocolates but will not pay for his book of verse. Tho Common Reader cheerfully admits it—ho gets more nourishment from the chocolates. The Modern Toot retorts that he does not write for the Common Reader, he writes for the free expression of his soul, and there, if he but expressed it in private, the matter might very well be left and everyone would be satisfied. But that is the rub—the Modern Poet must have publicity and admiration, and most important of all, something to rail at. He needs the Common Reader more than the Common Reader needs him. This fact becomes self-evident on reading " New Signatures," being representative poems by poets .who have " preserved their integrity without becoming obscure, without shoddiness or ambiguity," chosen by Mr. Michael Roberts. Let us -try at random one of these poemn, ."Camping Out," by William Empson:— And now she cleans her teeth into the lake; Gives it' (God's grace) for her own bounty's take What morning's pale and the crisp mist debars; Its plass of the divine (that Will to break) Restores, beyond Nature; or lets heaven take (Itself being dimmed) her pattern, who half aw.ike Milks between rocks a straddled eky of stars. Soap tension the star pattern magnifies. Smoothly Madonna through-assume3 the s. skies Whose vaults are opened to achieve the Lord. No, it is we soaring explore galaxies; Our bullet boat light's speed by thousands flies. Who moves so among stars their frame unties. See where they blur, and die, and are outfcoared. To put the thing quite frankly and «learly if this is the best the Modern Poet can do he must be content to do without the Common Reader, for the kernel, if kernel there be, is too well concealed for even the ordinary book-loving man to find and appreciate. Let this critic not be didactic—there may be something ,of value or appeal or artistry in these verses, but it does not touch anyone but the highly specialised technician. If th 6 poet is aware of this and content ■with his circle, all is still well, but the sooner he realises that the Common Reader does not and never will ba concerned with this kind of poetry, and must not be di->credited therefore, the better for his peace of mind. It may bo good poetry but it is poetry for specialists and the intelligence of the people does not come into it. Find the subtle thought in this dainty sentence which ends one of the poems: Nothing is real but the something It is, and we of it of ea«th; And love, in Rome's ghostly spring. It would drive any man to chocolates. ■"-New Signatures." poems by several fcands, collected by Michael Roberts. iElogarth Press.)

STRANGER THAN TRUTH 'ADVENTURES IN VENEZUELA / " Truth is stranger than fiction " is an adage -which was < invented before the advent of Americans. " These imaginative people have liberally enlarged the boundaries of truth and have done a good deal for fiction also. In fact, the two have become so merged that it is difficult to tell ■where one ends and the other begins. This difficulty has been experienced by Mr. Algo Sand in writing a book which he has called " Senor Bum in the Jungle " describing his travels in the tropics of South America. Mr. Sand is the most bitten man in the world. When the news went round that he had landed in South America, every beast of spirit, including freebooters, robbers, revolutionaries, murderers, wild animals, wild fish, •wild insects, snakes and crocodiles, left thfeir /jobs and set out to meet him, determined to get some of the pickings. There was not enough to go round, so some of them had to be content with his companions. In his travels Mr. Sand says he saw ,«n Indian save himself from crocodiles by offering them his wife instead, and he seems to have been impressed by the wisdom of the method, for he always managed to make his neighbours and followers the heroes of any encounters with murderers and serious carnivOrae, reserving himself for mosquitoes, robbers and similar minor trials. Thus he rubbed shoulders with violent death in a hundred forms but came away unscathed to tell the tale. Particularly colourful was the death of a leper who was bitten to death by 6iflall fish, Mr. Sand arriving too late to do more than make a spectacular escape. He brought away only two photographs; had he brought more it might have necessitated quite a different book. It is significant that the publishers do not supply a map. "Senor Bum in tho Jungle," by Also £>and. (Gollancz.) DELVING IN THE EARTH A STRAIN OF CRUELTY ) Mr. T. F. Powys has his adherents and Jus detractors, but all will admit that he Js a very individual writer, who is never afraid to experiment. He has chosen for his literary field the countryside. » countryside with many weeds in it, and moist earth which tends to promote luxurious growth, but also a canker of rot. .Mr. Powys loves to delve in the good earth, from which he derives an elemental fitrength and an elemental love. The three stories which make up the' latest book, " The Two Thieves," are very varied in character, but they have irt common the qualify that while they are not quite allegorical, (hey have a kind of generic application similar to that of folic tales anrj nursery rhymes. By far th" most interesting is the story called "God," which is perhaps the most sincere work that Mr. Powys has done. It tells with all reverence of the simple faith of a boy ■who, jn need of a personal God, believed that he had found Him in his father's tophat, from which, because the spirit of God is uniyersal and inhabits even the meanest of His instruments, he received much sustenance and stimulus for his faith. The first story. " Tho Good Earth." is so much into Mr. Powys' hands that he haS run riot in it. A dumb brutish yeoman, reducing all his beinj* to terms of the pood earth,' tries to obtain a. farm with good soil, but a neighbour forestalls him. Then he reaches out for good earth in the form r>f a wife, but once more fate snatches from him. Finally, obsessed by his idea, he goes out joyfully to plant the seed of his dead body in the good earth. In all the stories is a strain of cruelty and delight in Obliquity from which Mr. Powys* writing is seldom free for long. " The Two Thieves," by T. F. Powys. fCbatto and Windu&.)