BROTHERS ACROSS THE TASMAN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 401, 28 February 1947, Page 21

BROTHERS ACROSS THE TASMAN

MODERN AUSTRALIAN POETRY. Selected by H. M. Green... Melbourne University Press. MEANJIN PAPERS, Spring 1946. Melbourne University Press.

(Reviewed: by

David

Hall

hills on the south side of Sydney, down towards Botany Bay, you will notice a dark, oilylooking scrub growing. This reptilian vegetation (if that phrase is possible) seems en’irely appropriate to its surroundings, that empty waste land of golf courses, factories, and promiscuous dumps of old, rusting metal. One day in October, however, you will perhaps notice that the scrub has put forth flowers, minu‘e blossoms of an exquisite. fragile beauty, and close inspection shows that the dark foliage of the bushes is, though a monotone in colour, infinitely various in form. Something |.ke this has been my experience with this new anthology of modern Australian poetry, There is a lot in it I don’t like. Hunting back through the book at the second reading (and verse cannot be appraised on a slighter acquaintance than that), I jotted down some opin.ons of the poets: "descriptive, conventional,’ ‘last war memories obsess re’ urned man: dull and conventional," "hints of Roy Campbell," "sentimental, epigrammatic," "echoes of Housman, dull," "an unabashed Georgian, dull," yes, dull; keep it solemn, solemn, solemn. The general effect, somehow enhanced by the mildly irritatng banishment of all names of authors to the end of the book and the dismal, spidery typography, is of safety at all costs-certainly at the cost of vigour. Perhaps it would have been better to have admitted something by "members of our principal extremist group, Angry Penguins." Anger there is in this anthology, anger at the perverson of man by _ indus-trialism--James McAuley’s Blue Horses. Indeed, thesé poets are at their best when they set down the great candle of uplift and take up the little peashooter of satire-A. D. Hope in The Return from the Freudian Islands and Brian Vrepont in The Pleasant Future of Jones. If I complain about the dullness and portentous seriousness of many of these poems, their facile mystic sm, their heavy burden of unpurged literary memories, I must at the same time salute with gratitude and, I hope, humility, the good qualities of some fine poets. There are many passengers in this galére, but there are some rowers here who can carry the whole boat. Besides McAuley and Hope, there is Kenneth Slesser of the lively rhythms. There is R. A. FitzGerald (or is there?). There is Kenneth Mackenzie. But there are also the creators of the earnest, the voulu, the desperately determined efforts to be poetic and Australian and fashionably safe. Farewell to these, a long farewell. | you stumble over the sand- * % me HE other little gift from across the Tasman, a recent number of the Australian literary quarterly, Meanjin Papers, is easy to accept. Its format is graceful and distinguished. Besides the work of Australians it has contributions

from Britain, the United States, and éven New Zealand (Kendrick Smithyman). In fact, the American Karl Shapiro, has wri.ten the best thing in this number, an eloquent verse letter. Some Australian poets seriously com"pete. with him. I much prefer Judith Wright’s poem printed here to those by her included in Modern Australian Poetry. Max Harris leads dancing apes down Collins Street — dear Dantes in reverse you have cursed me with your blessing, and blessed me with your curse. The short stories in this number are of good quality. Mona Brand’s excellent Absentee combines simplicity of form. with the most. clairvoyant psychology. In Rain Mark Hannah tells a "straight" story with spirit and skill, and Anias Nin is macabrely fantastic. A description by William Lester of the war experiences of James Picot, an Austral an writer who died prisoner-of-war in the hands of the Japanese, is moving. There is a good deal of balanced and penetrating criticism, both of new books and of current literary trends; perhaps the most persuasive of the critics is Sydney Musgrove. Elizabeth Hamill pleasantly satir'ses the whirligig of literary taste. Meanjin Papers ("pronounced Me-an-jin, the accent falling on the second syllable") takes the considerable risk of reproducing a number of portraits of its contributors. I rather’ regret that the ed:tor did not take the even graver risk of presenting us instead with more Australian art-in addition, that is, to the two agreeable but not wildly exhilarating line drawings here repro- > duced. ~ New Zealanders who. value creative work in literature and the arts may well subscribe to Meanjin Papers. Besides the pleasure it will give them, its example should be an extra push forward even to the impetuous.

What the lay parent (f one may so describe him or her) will most appreciate about Mrs. White’s book is its matter-of-factness. It is a _ practical guide, broad-based on ten years’ personal ' experience of children’s libraries, and written .n a plain straightforward style. The author discusses. books and _ periodicals as sources of entertainment and instruc ion, and doesn’t bothér her head (or the reader’s) with excursions into the by-paths of child-psychology. As she points out in her chapter on poetry, the Freudians.. have psycho-analysed Mother Goose, and the Marxians have tr ed to liquidate her, without, in: either instance, any effect on her popularity _ in the nursery, Except for three appendices — a bibliography’ of children’s literature, a list of longer plays for children, and ‘a catalogue of world folk-and-fairy tales -Mrs. White provides no_ book-lists. She is not concerned so much w.th what are good books, and plays, and poems for children, as with what makes such work good. But in her assessment of values she is most liberal in citing examples, and parents who found it difficult to judge the wogth of a book’ for themselves could keep their children happy from infancy to late adolescence merely by referring to the titles or the authors she quotes with approval. For her survey is a wide one. It begins with picture books for the very young, and in successive chapters progresses through fairy tales (ancient and modern), realistic stories for Standards 2-6, biography, social studies, books on arts and crafts, nature study and science, plays, poetry, and the special.sed fields of children’s magazines and encyclopaedias. All are discussed with an infectious enthusiasm which makes About Books for Children thoroughly pleasant as 1 as worthwhile reading. Its value to parents, teachers, and librarians, to uncles, aunts, and all others who have juven le relatives is both present and

permanent.

J.

M.