Poetry in New Zealand

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 767, 2 April 1954, Page 12

Poetry in New Zealand

NEW ZEALAND POETRY YEARBOOK, 1953, edited by Louis Johnson; A. H. & A. WwW. Reed, Wellington, 10/6.

(Reviewed by

J. C.

Reid

N his introduction to this third Poetry Yearbook, Louis Johnson defines one of its chief aims as "to ,stimulate and encourage activity" especially among new ‘writers who "are daring to be themselves" and are moving "in a useful direction from the formalism" of their elders. It might be argued that New Zealand poets need encouragement less than more vigorous criticism. On the evidence of this volume containing some 46 poems by 24 new poets and 52 by 17 established ones, I find it hard to see in what direction, if any, the first group is moving, and how far formalism has, in fact, been rejected. There are several "TImagist" poems (Fleur Adcock, Jocelyn Henrici, Margaret Pool); some "Georgian" pieces (Barbara Dent, Ngaire Hogan, Bruce Mason), as well as one or two, such as Robert Chapman and Robert Thompson, who, despite "clever" imagery, are almost "Spasmodics" in imprecise feeling and what Hubert Witheford in his discerning criticism of James K. Baxter calls "lack of definition." At the same time, some newer poets show up reasonably well, especially, I think, Henry Brennan, Geoff Fuller, Colin Newbury, John Pascoe and C. K. ‘ate while the "established" poets | singularly uneven batches. Such longer poems as Baxter’s "The Sirens," Brasch’s "Letter," Johnson’s "A Boy in Winter,’ Smithyman’s "Visions by Mather’s Farm," both in their control and richness of feeling rather emphasise the thinness of their or others’ briefer pieces. However, I welcomed the less self-conscious tone of W. Hart-Smith’s Paul-Bunyanish trio, Basil Dowling’s wry "The Early Days" and two pieces by M. K. Joseph. Where the faults of the newer poets appear to be desiccation of feeling and portentous moralising, those of the older ones seem to be image-stammering and too literary responses. There are certain words which poetry cannot do without; but it is significant that we find in three pages by J. R. Hervey love (12 times), death (7), pain (3), and also the popular body, bone, flesh, agony and time; in three pages by Anton Vogt, seed, womb (2), loins, bawdy, impotent, unfleshed, unnatural, hand, heart, head, cruel, together with body, bone, flesh, pain, time; and in a short poem by Robert Thompson death, love, womb, flesh, limbs, blood, sex, etc. And so it goes. When such words are facilely manipu-, lated have we anything but a kind of verbal legerdemain, in which there is not only nothing up the poet’s sleeve, but nothing in his hands either? That such faults can be found may, in its way, be a measure of the degree to which Mr. Johnson has fulfilled his aim of giving an annual report on the state of poetry in New Zealand. There is certainly enough interesting verse here to justify the volume. The older poets occasionally speak with authority and some younger onés show symptoms of poetry. Yet, unless selection is made more rigorously and the established poets are prepared more often to offer their best, will it much longer be

possible to publish a yearly volume as large as this without helping to perpetuate the idea that the level of New Zealand verse is lower than individual poets’ volumes suggest it is?