A PAGE OF VERSE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 113, 22 August 1941, Page 3

A PAGE OF VERSE

Prize- Winning Comments By Readers | [ ORE than fifty readers accepted our invitation to comment on the verses printed in our last issue in June, and it was perhaps natural that the comments should be like the verses themselves-only occasionally 800d, but interesting because they were sincere. It of course happened, as it usually does, that many of those who sent entries misread the conditions. We did not ask that the verses should be arranged in order of merit, or that comment should be made on all of them. We asked for a comment in 200-300 words on ANY contribution on the page. However, since most of those who sent entries did indicate what they thought was the best contribution, it is worth mentioning that about 80 per cent placed "Frank," by Isobel Andrews, first, and that Jonathan Wolf’s "Swing" had the next largest number of admirers. The tact that a comment was critical, or even wholly disparaging, did not of course affect its chance of a prize. One guinea goes to ROSALIND REES, 41 Nicholson Road, Khandallah, Wellington; our two half-guineas to MRS. P. R. MILLS, Eli Bay, Havelock, Marlborough, and MRS. JEAN SMYTH. 11 Cecil Road, Epsom, Auckland. Their entries follow:

(1) Comment by Rosalind Rees I choose the prose-poem "Frank" for comment. And I’ll begin by praising it It isn’t verse, of course. It’s more thar that. Verse is rhyme, and rhythm without subtlety. Rumpety-tum, rumpetytum. Kipling or Service. But poetry dis much more, though it may also be less. Poetry is the right words in the right order. Sometimes the rhythm is simple, more often it is extremely complex. Occasionally it skips a beat or falls out of step, like a good democrat in the army. For poetry is true to life: none of your one-eyed heroes,

~ And maybe Isobel Andgews has just ‘about got a poem here. There’s the pair of them: left behind, safe, as we are. And Frank: who existed only as she saw him: on the veranda, handsome, smart, easy-going. . . . She’s got it all down in a few lines. .,.. And then fate stepped in, and got him, If she hadn’t put him down like that he’d be dead now. Properly dead, I mean. But as it is, he and a lot of other fellows will go on living, walking down the road, with the sun shining. ... Anyone who knows a Frank is grateful for that. And they know she’s got something. A poem, in fact.... (2) Comment by Mrs. Mills I think the best that can be said for these verses has been said by the Editor -they are sincere, But that is not enough.

Take "Frank" for instance-neither the best nor the worst on the beautifully arranged page. The writer takes nearly a column and a-half to say what she might better have expressed in one or two paragraphs of plain prose. Certainly it is not verse. If the language is poor, perhaps it is natural. "Dave’s best suit gets mildew" and "I'd get round to saying, what about the swot"-how could you make poetry of that? And why is it "funny" to watch him going up the path? And isn’t the idea of Frank having "for two or three summers " a premonition of death rather far-fetched? "Frank" at least gives a simple and homely picture of an aspect of family life lived happily and naturally-but, I repeat, \t is not verse and it is very far from being poetry.

(3) Comment by Mrs. Smyth Many besides myself must have read "Frank " with a surge of that desolation which one attempts to repress while "going on as usual." It is only when we re-read it calmly and critically that we begin to understand its distinctive quality. The author has succeeded in a most difficult style, that of using the rhythms of colloquial speech to express. deep feeling. Everyday speech is unemotional. We use it to cloak rather than to express our deeper feelings. So many of us, these ‘days, are using such a screen that we may perhaps read into this verse much more than it suggests. "I told him he was too beautiful, and Dave said he’d be a general . . ."-so typical of what

we have all said to disguise that sudden cold, inner clutching, The author may not have intended a parallel with death when she wrote "then all of him was in the sun"; yet how close it comes to those of us whose brothers tread that shining pathway of which the end is death for their country. We feel that in life their path may have been in the shade, but in death they are forever in the sun, Frank’s story must be the story of many lads now missing. Many. a brother and sister left behind must see themselves in Dave and his wife. The picture is so true of my own home-it must be true of many another. I know we have

gone back to the poem again and again since we read it last week, and it always gives us something — relief — satisfaction -a feeling of " That’s just it!" If a poem releases a tension, or if it comforts a desolation — well, that is enough for us at present.