AN IDEALIST

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 650, 14 December 1951, Page 13

AN IDEALIST

THIS INSUBSTANTIAL PAGEANT, Poems by Monk Gibbon; Phoenix House. MONK GIBBON writes from a NeoPlatonist metaphysical bias. Early. under the influence of the Irish mystic, "A. E.,"’ Gibbon is orientated in the same way, with the world of archetypal forms behind, face to a world, this "insubstantial pageant," of Form embodied. He is more than attracted to the idea of reincarnation, a conception beautifully (continued on next page)

BOOKS (continued from previous page) expressed in his poem that begins, "Swallow, what brought you safely to these eaves... ?" He writes poetry in which words are used expressly to say what he wants to say as directly, sincerely, earnestly as possible. He is naive, as all idealists are, and he ha8 suffered as all idealists have, not with an awful helplessness but wath an agony all the keener because if Phoenix: knows he is immortal the gods make him pay for his knowledge. Phoenix rises again even though I saw it clutch the wormed weight Of all past, present and future hate, And draw it like a madman’s pall Down on its spirit». These poems, and the sections of prose-poetry, could do much to restore a love of poetry amongst a wider reading public because they are affirmative and give up their meaning at first reading. Deeper levels are reached in an often felicitous and never obscure symbolism. A phrase in "Poets" is brilliant:_ . . The metal is gold, the coin has been clipped to hell.

W.

Hart-Smith