A Glance from Earth to Heaven

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 555, 10 February 1950, Page 20

A Glance from Earth to Heaven

T: was announced precisely enough as a. four-day School devoted to the study of poetry with } special emphasis on the speaking of verse. In the opening passage of his first lecture on the Bases of Poetry, Professor S. Musgrove, of .Auckland University College, was equally precise; if in less formal language. "Tam sure only," he said, "that I know nothing about poetry; what is its fundamental -basis or what makes it tick." Coming from a Professor of English this was a good beginning; a fair indication..that the membérs of the School were not there to display the size of their intellectual muscles, but to exchange experience, and learn whatever they could: from, each other. This | ‘was also beginning and end of rational It is possible to be ei agape poetry, to put’ down rhyme sche ‘a8 algebraical formulae, and even plot graphs, say, of the number

of times Housman used the word lad ‘in each year he was writing poetry, comparing that curve with the one obtained by a similar plotting of the word death. This would be an interesting and precise exercise, but it hasn’t much to do with poetry. The School, which was held at Victoria University College under the auspices of the Wellington Regional Council of Adult Education, concerned itself with poetry, which, Professor Musgrove said, "Does not deal with the rational area. Whereas the rational view of the universe assumes a world of inanimate objects. Outside’ and separate from the person," Professor Musgrove continued, "the poet sees an animate world of externals, which by incantation attains a kind of unity with the person. The excitement of poetry is a religious excitement, that of being one with a living universe. "Poetry was therefore a public occasion used naturally when people were gathered together to observe a religious

rite. They were inspired by the voice of the god speaking through the poet. Poetty should express something common to everybody, and up to the 19th Century it was the normal thing for poetry to be publicly spoken. The retreat of poetry into private symbolism

is an unwelcome development which may be a symptom of the muse drying up." Growth of an Idea HE existence of the School was an indication that at least forty people in New Zealand do not want to retreat

into privacy with poetry. The idea of holding a poetry school came to W. J. Mountjoy, now Regional Adult Education Tutor,in Hawke’s Bay, when in 1939 he attended a London substitute for the Oxford Verse Speaking Festival. As a result of a talk he gave in Dunedin when he returned to New Zealand, a school was held there this time last year. The Victoria University College School, just concluded, was the first to be held in Wellington; besides Mr. Mountjoy, the lecturers were Professor Musgrove, James Baxter, and Zenocrate Mountjoy. Besides listening to lectures, the School provided an opportunity for people attached to poetry, a minority activity, to meet others in the minority, to be reassured by the fact that there were others, to be stimulated by the exchange of ideas, and the sound of verse well spoken. Some good points were made about verse speaking at the lectures and discussions. A clear parallel was drawn between the aim of the poet and the aim of the vérse speaker. If the poet is a person possessed by a god, the verse speaker must be possessed by the voice of the poet. He must not get himself in between the poem ‘and the listener, he must identify himself with the poem, not use it to display himself. He must, therefore, try to feel to some degreeyas the poet felt, which means knowing how the poet lived and what the emotional climate of his ‘time was like. He must recognise that each word is placed in a poem for a purpose, arid that purpose must be respected. The verse speaker —

may not indulge in an emotional wallow, | but express the feeling of the poem and nothing else. | Borderline | HE discussions were always interest-, ing, and occasionally penetrating questions were asked; on the poet as’ possessed, for instance. If ever a man was possessed, Hitler was that man. Would Mein Kampf therefore be classed as poetry? How close is the poet to the | madman? Pretty close, said Shakespeare. "The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact." This applies particularly to the poet who makes his own private world. He is a minority of one. . . "I said the world was mad, and the world said I was mad, and damn ‘em, they outvoted me!" Perhaps there is a difference between rational madness and poets’ madness. The rational madman. progresses logically. He’ builds an atom bomb from plutonium or uranium, and then proceeds to work. out a better destructive process With hydrogen. The poet’s madness, if it is madness, is a more constructive, liberating, uplifting | form. After their four-day experience, » the members of the 1950 Poetry School will have, at the very least, a clearer view of these two types of madness, and it should not be difficult for them to decide where they want to look, if, indeed, any» doubt has ever entered their minds. Rational man keeps his eyes on, the ground, but, The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from)

earth to heaven.

G. leF.

Y.