POETS' CORNER
Sir,-Although I am unable to give "Arejay" the code that will decipher the mass of verbiage the moderns dare to call poetry, I would like to quote Aldous Huxley on this subject, with the earnest hope that some of our so-called poets will read the words: "Obscurity. in poetry is by no means always to be avoided. Shakespeare, for example, is _one of the most difficult of authors. He often writes obscurely, for the good reason that he often has subtle and uncommon thoughts to put into words. So have some of the poets writing obscurely
at the present time. Most, however, have not. Their thoughts and the way they see the world are commonplace; only their syntax is extraordinary. Almost all the contents of the ‘advanced’ reviews are just ‘Mary had a little lamb’ translated into Hebrew and written in cipher. Re-Englished and decoded, they astonish the reader by their silliness. Catching the sense at one remove or ten, he is annoyed to find that it is either nonsense or platitude."’
ENBEE
(Marton).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19530724.2.12.2
Bibliographic details
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 732, 24 July 1953, Page 5
Word count
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176POETS' CORNER New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 732, 24 July 1953, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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