"THE SUNLIT HOUR"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 871, 13 April 1956, Page 5

"THE SUNLIT HOUR"

Sir-Mr. Baxter has done more to explode than to expand his criticism of Ruth Gilbert’s poetry. His broadcast review, he says, was mainly directed against "emotional falseness," particularly in her religious poetry. I have reread his review, of which I have a verbatim note, and I find that he referred solely to "Once in a Market Place"; and I wonder again why he picked out this, single, slight fancy, as if it fully represented the rest, and fired both barrels into it. Now he adds another example-this time, of the woman poet’s "temptation to moralise about her biological function"-in "The Blossom of the Branches," where Ruth Gilbert "identifies her (poetic) attitude in childbearing with that of the Madonna at the Nativity." Quite true; she does. But Mr. Baxter, who told us in his broadcast that he "thinks in images," assumes the right to forbid Miss Gilbert to use that image. Why? He is so sure that here, as elsewhere, Miss Gilbert’s image derives from "a way of feeling what one imagines should be felt," as he put it, and not from intense, authentic, and self-directed emotion. This is dogma-tism-and dogmatism of one _ who, having hard-earned his own creed and skill as a poet, suspects that any different creed or skill must be a sham. Mr. Baxter’s genuine quality as a poet is not expressed in such closely traditional forms, rhythms, diction, and range of image as Miss Gilbert’s; but moleskin’s not the only wear. Poets turning critic might sometimes try a hair shirt instead of a high: hat.

GRUMPY

_ (Wellington).