SCOTTISH POETS OF TO-DAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3514, 19 July 1921, Page 52

SCOTTISH POETS OF TO-DAY.

‘ Who are the 30 foremost Scottish poets of to-day?” asks a correspondent. The mere form of the question, the way in which the startling figure ”30” seemed to leap out of the context of the letter, brought home to me m a new ana emphatic fashion the extraordinary ramifications of contemporary literature, in Scotland as elsewhere. At first it did not seem possible that I could know of so many Scottish poets of any account. As a matter of fact, however, when I started to cast my thoughts about, I found that I had not the slightest difficulty in exceeding that seemingly impossible figure. It was, indeed, a matter of nice difficulties to fix upon a list of 30, each of whom will undoubtedly have claims upon the Scottish anthologists of the future, without doing injustice to any of the innumerable aspirants whose slim volumes or occasional appearances in various periodicals within the past lew years entitle them to some slight consideration at least in such a. matter. —Scottish Literary Revival.—There can be no doubt that something in the nature of a Scottish literary revival is actually in progress to-day. How for it will go is another Question. As yet it is evinced by quantity rather than by quality. It lias been well said lately that One who has found it easy to lead all the verse of quality published up to 1910, and who then took a holiday from contemporary poetry, would return to it to-day to find that a veritable renaissance has taken place, that the pie has been opened, and that far more than four-and-twenty blackbirds are singing in liberty with fine careless lapture. There is much to indicate that the new age became articulate in song a. year or two prior to the war. Now it is in full chorus, a glorious burden graced by every conceivable variety of uescant ; and nothing so thoroughly indicates the greatness latent in it as' the fact that, while at least a dozen of the new poets would have loomed gigantic in the Edwardian days when we pinned our perishing hopes on Stephen Phillips and Alfred Noyes, we feel to-day that most of them are still merely practising for their greatest flight.” So in Scotland, too: no successor to Burns has yet made his appearance. —Outstanding Names.— I have succeeded in drawing up mv list of 30 to my own satisfaction ; and I am prepared to justify every inclusion and exclusion. It would be impossible to do so with any finality, however, short of devoting a critical article to each writer concerned. For the same reason I refrain from suggesting an order of precedence. An extraordinary successful group publication. “Northern Numbers” (pnblidied bv Mr T. M. Foulis last November), although guilty of various sins of omission and commission, provides a convenient focussing point. Eleven poets were represented, all of them worthy. Of these the following have more or less established their reputations and their position in Scottish poetry to-day cannot lie gainsaid—Neil Mnnro, John Buchan. Violet Jacob, Thomas Scott Cairncross (whose beautiful Border poems, in particular, deserve to be better known), Joseph Lee (the soldier-poet whose ‘‘Ballads of Battle” won him a measure of fame, and whose subsequent work in the Bin ns-Fer-guson tradition has extended his reputation). Will If. Ogilvie, John Ferguson, the banker-poet, whose sequence of Sanatorium sonnets “Thyiva” has run into seven editions since 1918, and Donald A. Mackenzie. The other three poets are younger, in fact, and in technique and ideation. These are 0. M. Grieve, the editor of “Northern Numbers”—who has been hailed m several important quarters as the most important of the lot; Roderick Watson Kerr, whose poignant war-poems have won for him the name of the Scottish Siegfried Sassoon : and A. G. Grieve, the editor’s brother - . The second series of “Northern Numbers” year will be marked by the inclusion, amongst others, of General Sir lan Hamilton, Sir Ronald Boss, ihe Rev. Lauchian Maclean Watt. D.D.. and a less well known but very interesting Edinburgh poet. Miss Spence, who follows the traditions of Baudelaire and Rainband. Names which Cannot he Omitted.— Those names are all indispensable, and fill the first 1,5 places on my list. Others now come rapidly to mind. The most distinguished of living Scottish dialect poets, Dr Charles Murray, of “Huinowith” fame, has led vet been mentioned: nor has Miss Agnes S. Falconer, whose dainty verse has

long graced the leading periodicals. Dr David Rorie, Victor F. Murray, Ronald Mactie, Dr J. M. Bullock, Sir Geoige Douglas, and Miss label K. Hutchison, the West Lothian lyrist, cannot be omitle 1. Mr J. J. Red, the author of "Wee Miaegregor, ' has written many verses of delicate distinction. Air Cyril Taylor, the Edinburgh author oi The Phantom Fiddler,” has a tender and individual note. "Gabriel Retoun is an occasional bard of quality, although his fame is more secure i:i the realm »,t prone. Scotland, too, is entitled to claim Lord Alfred Douglas, who, if included, must surelv claim precedence over most, if, not all of those we have named; and “Hugh Haliburton,” Lady Glenconner, blicrriff Mackenzie, and Air A. L. Stodart A\ alker may well complete a list which demonstrates the extraordinary vitality and variety of contemporary Scottish poetry. - -Scottish-Colonial Poets. — I have included the name of Dr Charles Alurrav, despite the fact that he resides in South Africa; but other distingui-hed Scottish-colonial poets have been excluded, mainly because they are less well known in the .Home Country; and of these the foremost, to mention only two, are unquestionably James Kennedy, of New York, and Bliss Carmen, in Canada. Young poets are quickly coming to the front, and the character of such a list as this will in all likelihood be quite different in the course of a few years. In the meantime no lover of Scottish poetry should overlook the verses of any of those whom I have mentioned ; and I shall be glad to supply short bibliographies of their work to any reader of the Weekly Scotsman who wishes it.—A. Iv. L., in the Weekly Scotsman.