SOME GRACEFUL VERSES

Hokitika Guardian, 30 April 1929, Page 7

SOME GRACEFUL VERSES

(From “Lyttleton Times”). ;'A dainty booklet of verse, entitled “The Love fc’onnets of Sonora Carilla dai Flores” lias been sent by -Mrs C. J. Parham (Ricliendo Parham), of Suva, Fiji, who is announced on the title page as the selector and editor of same, from the works of the said Spa .! ish poetess] Mrs Parham does not rav that she is resjionsible for the translation of the poems into English, but, whoever it may he, it has been done admirably. Mrs Parham has acted judiciously in saying in her preface (or proemio, as she prefers to call it) that the sonnets are intended to appeal to lovers and not to critics, for they are of the most perfervid, impassioned -Wiiracter. f hasten to say, however, that* the poetry is not in the slightest sense erotic, or bordering on it. on the contrary, all the poems, ultra scntimen-

tal as they may be, are as clean as ‘‘a wild musk rose blowing.” The poems in their original Spanish must be exceptionally fine to have inspired the translator as they have in these specimens given us. There is music in every one of the sonnets, and that should be praise enough. Included in the booklet, but apart from the Senora’s work, are a few verses by other poets, some of them .by Airs Parham herself, and very good they are. It must be mentioned that the printing and binding of the small volume was all done by the daughters of Airs Parham on their “plantation at Rukn Ruka Bay. via Suva. Fiji.”