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New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 652, 4 January 1952, Page 5

Sir,-I read Mr. Watson’s letter criticising James Baxter's poem over three times, and then I awoke to him. May I congratulate him on the neatest piece of satire I have yet read? At first, I was tempted to take the letter seriously and mutter darkly about "deliberate misunderstanding" and . "ostentatious middlebrow conservatism," but then I eis! ‘that, by pretending to be serious, Watson had done more to make ‘he school’ of criticism appear absurd than a whole volume of refutation could do. I fell to the deceit when I saw that no one would. be so. pompously.. selfrighteous and obtuse as he was Pretending to be. How well he succeeded in impaling the inanities those’ critics perpétrate, with such neat phrases as: "One cannot condone, poetry of this nature. Are we in this country so deep in the mire of pseudo-intellectualism that we are unable to distinguish .. ." This is delightful stuff, and wonderful parody indeed. Of course, we know that the letter had nothing whatever to do with the poem which. prompted it (and we realise that Mr. Watson must appreciate Mr. Baxter’s poem for the lovely thing that it is) but it does so. beautifully take off the Edwardian ¢fiticism-to its last. conservative and _- illogical mumble-that we can forgive him for using this poem as an excuse. The letter, asa parody, has one fault: it overdoes the satire so much that there is a danger:that readers may: take it seriously. May I caution Mr.» Watson against this fault, since he, of course, would not like to be thought serious in his pomposity, I am sure. And as I read over this letter, I am worried in case I have fallen: into a similar fault

myself,

D.

G.

(Wellington).