AUSTRALIAN BALLADS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 902, 16 November 1956, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN BALLADS

Sir-wWe learn from James K. Baxter’s critical review of the Oxford Book of Australian Verse, edited by Judith Wright, that this addition to a standard series does not include the work of certain very well-known poets. Mr. Baxter quotes Judith Wright as pleading that "the balladists did not contribute anything to the solution of the problems of Australian poetry." Is this the only test? What of the pleasure and enlightenment these poets have given to generations of Australians-and New Zealanders? I cite a particularly telling testimony to their influence -here. In her preface to her anthology of New Zealand Farm and Station Verse, Mrs. Woodhouse says that Banjo Paterson followed Macaulay in opening up to her, as a child, the charm of vérse. Gordon came next. "Then a high country shepherd, about the time that he gave me my first lesson in working a dog, commanded me, as an essential part of my education, to read Ogilvie’s verses." Many years later, as Mrs. Woodhouse rode to the blacksmith’s shop on a fine morning, with some of Ogilvie’s lines "swinging in time" with the strides of her horse, the idea of a New Zealand collection of country-life verse recurred to her and was developed. According to Mr. Baxter’s review, neither Paterson, Gordon nor Ogilvss is included in this Oxfo-d anthology. ,

GALLOPING

VERSES

(Wellington).