PROSE-POEMS BY A CHILD

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8737, 20 May 1914, Page 2

PROSE-POEMS BY A CHILD

REMARKABLE COMPOSITIONS BT A BOY OP SEVEN. A remarkable series of prose-poems appear in the April issue of the "Poetry Review." The new poet is a seven-year-old Hampstead boy named Logan Wilshire, who has not yet learned to read or write. He dictates hie compositions to his mother, and' it is not unusual for young Wilshire, after romping with his boy companions on the heath, to go to Mrs Wilshire and say that he has “a strange dreamy feeling," and wishes to tell her "some beautiful words." Be then closes his eyes, and slowly dictates while his mother proceeds to write. The result of these efforts is embodied in the striking selections given by the "Review,” covering a period of two years since he first began to utter his precocious fancies, and "the prose-poems are regarded by Mr Stephen Phillips as both subtle and wonderful. Seen by a "Standard” reprosentalm young Wilshire gave no indication of taking himself at all seriously. Ho seemed more disposed to romp and may than to be interviewed upon his liteiari gifts. He saw nothing marvellous about his stories, and said that the other boys could tell similar stones if they got a chance. These fits of inspiration came suddenly and unexpectedly to him, but onco he started to dictate the ideas to his mother the words fell into their place in natural sequence, and there was never any need to alter a single syllable, it was an ordinary thing, he thought, for boys to have such ideas and to be able to express them in that way. Lately young Wilshire has. it appears, been aspiring to rhythmic form, and mav in yhie time express himself in verso.