A THEORY OF TIME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 103, 13 June 1941, Page 8

A THEORY OF TIME

"ISLAND AND TIME by Allen Curnow. Published by the Caxton Press, Christchurch, THINK it can be said that no other poet in New Zealand has given such continuous evidence of progress during the past few years as Allen Curnow. Ten years ago R. A. K. Mason had already made a name and reputation for himself; so had A. R. D, Fairburn, Curnow was just beginning to feel his feet. In the meantime Mason has made further progress (just- how much one will be able to assess more accurately when his collected poems, due any time now from the Caxton Press, are published), and Fairburn, while he may have made a technical advance, is still more or less bogged in the poetic mood of the thirties. Curnow, however obvious the influences which have guided him, has gone on from strength to strength. In the words of the turf advisers, he’s one | worth watching.

Apart from his determined wrestling with an apparently burdening sense of the passage and weight of time, his latest volume of poems, Island and Time, is interesting for revealing him as convinced now that "the need is for legend rather than for realism" in the literature of this country. Personally I find that statement debatable. The need is for both legend and realism. . Our literary roots must indeed strike deep down into our beginnings, but it is our roots we must keep there, not our heads, like some silly ostrich which seeks inadequate shelter from the world and ends up with sunburned hindquarters, In other words, I find it highly inexcusable on the part of many of our bright young men of letters that they seem completely unaware that there is a war on. But to return to Island and Time and Mr. Curnow, whom I feel sure is not really insensitive to these worldshaking times. Here are 25 poems, some of which have been published before,

and the majority of which are on a very high poetic level. Mr. Curnow’s time images may be a subconscious reaction to the many reminders we have had lately of our dim beginnings and the passing of our first hundred years. Some of them are dragged in by the scruff of the neck. Even a hotel bar in summer is peopled by men + » who lean and laugh Tranced by a dirty glass, All in that strange sea-dimension Where Time and Island cross. Those who have wrestled with J. H. Dunne’s theory about time will no doubt experience the correct response. I am inclined to think Curnow is at his best when he is not preoccupied with time. Crash at Leithfield contains some fine poetry, and shows a nice command of speech rhythms: And they were still sitting in the aeroplane Said the baker’s driver who sped to be in at the kill While it was burning; he said again and again Both of them were sitting, they are sitting there still. Some took home bits of scorched fabric and some Said they thought he was trying to land, and all that day We watched or heard aircraft after aircraft come Like foul birds over the dead, and none to drive them away. The. Victim, in which "Jan Tyssen, one of the four Dutch by Maoris when, Tasman called at Murderers’ Bay in 1642, sees his death as a ritual sacrifice reconciling the unborn with Time" evoked faint-very faint-memories of ‘Ezra Pound’s Cantos. Pound, by the same token, would surely find rich material for Cantos in the diaries of the rich, bawdy days of the whalers,

Dialogue of Island and Time shows Curnow paying more attention to what we may describe as topical matters. Says Time: National, the word, is a sign among you, Everywhere nation is talked and taught; In one-man schools, at publie luncheons, They speak of a nation, never of islands, . And Island replies: The third and fourth generations Begin to speak differently, Suffering mutations, Cannot help identity; Nation’s their only sign Meaning man and brother, Telling power, till Time Discover another. And later the Jew observes: Long or short endurance~ f There is no other difference. Though gun and gas are stronger, My wartare is longer. Country School is a nostalgic little poem that seizes a mood surely and satisfactorily: O sweet antiquity! Look, the stone That skinned your knees. How small Are the terrible doors; how sad the danny And the things you drew on the wall. I find that I am quoting with some liberality, chiefly because the volume is so full of quotable lines, small nearperfect fragments such as this: The sensitive nor’west afternoon Collapsed, and the rain came. Island and Time is a further example of the excellent work being published these days by the Caxton Press. The collection of verse by Curnow, Mason, Glover and Fairburn; Island and Time; and the projected Collected Poems by R. 4. K. Mason, will be three volumes which every New Zealand lover of poetry should have on his shelf, The typography and general presentation of Island and Time are both excellent, though I did not feel so happy about the arrangement of type on the dust cover. And a final point: the title would have us believe that we are situated on just one island. Or does Mr. Curnow, who lives in Christchurch, suggest that the North Island doesn’t matter?

J.G.

M.