RUGGED OR PASTORAL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 716, 2 April 1953, Page 10

RUGGED OR PASTORAL

NEW ZEALAND POETRY YEARBOOK, 1952, edited by Louis Johnson; A. H. and A. W. Reed (with the aid of the N.Z. Literary Fund); 10/6. PPORTUNITIES for the publication in this country have seldom, if ever, been greater than they are now. The

Poetry Yearbook emphasises that, perhaps as a result of these opportunities, we have many poets of high quality writing at present. It deserves continued support, even though in this, its second appearance, it could be improved from a typographical viewpoint. The first collection focused attention on a group of poets who were thought to represent new trends. In this volume the editor pre{sents his poets alphabetically, although mentioning in his introduction that they fall into two loosely defined groups ‘which he calls the "personalists" and | "socialists." _ The term "pastoral" might have been | better for his second group, and it is indeed interesting that the pastoral note is so strong. It is seen in the poems of Charles Brasch, Basil Dowling, William Hart-Smith, Jocelyn MHenrici, Geoff. | Paliee, for instance, and one might include with these the innocent balladry of James K. Baxter and Keith Sinclair. | This distinction is, of course, made at present between ee two major schools of American poetry -the followers of Frost and the followers of Eliot-and it is significant that Hart-Smith in- particular is considerably indebted to Frost in technique. It is worth noting also that the list includes two of the best of: the new poets: Jocelyn Henrici, who has a very sure feeling for words, and Geoff. Fuller. ’ The best poetry in the volume, however, is not by any newcomer, but by those who are established, and most of the younger poets seem to speak with Wavering voices beside the vigour of Denis Glover, R. A. K. Mason, and A. R. D. Fairburn, who are well represented. Perhaps the best poem, certainly the most ambitious, is Kendrick Smithyman’s "Of Death By Water," a lengthy to restate the Moby: Dick story through New Zealand. eyes. This seems to be a poem of major importance in its exploration of the past of the world as a whole, in_a religious and evolution--ary sense. It is a tough, elliptical work containing a remarkable profusion of sea images and some fine rugged writing, as in the lines beginning, ""The mad surf

banged stone on stone."

P.J.

W.