TRITON AND PROTEUS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 927, 17 May 1957, Page 12

TRITON AND PROTEUS

SINCE THEN, by Denis Glover. THE IRON BREADBOARD, Studies in New Zealand Writing, by James K. Baxter. Both from ime ermaid Press, Wellington, 10/6 and * Oe

~ (Reviewed by

James

Bertram

HE re-appearance of Denis Glover as a_publisher-his new device shows an athletic mermaid blowing a _ formidable conch-is a most welcome literary event. Appropriately enough, these modest first yolumes (with two admirable title-pages, and one classically frivolous wrapper) are both devoted to verse: one gives us poems from the old Triton himself, the other a garland of seaweed from that agile dolphin, James K. Baxter. After R. A. K. Mason, Mr Glover has the most distinctive individual style among our poets. Since Then-the title comes from an unlocated war-poem, but it has reverberations-is a collection of short poems, many of which have appeared in the pages of The Listener, together with the fine lyrical sequence Towards Banks Peninsula, and the commissioned, "two-bob-a-line’"’ sequence, The Air. The air is not Mr Glover’s element, and he was allowed no crashes: a fatal deprivation. Elsewhere a sombre Anglo-Saxon mood ("thaes ofereode; thisses swa maeg"’) reigns powerfully and antiseptically, like chlorine. It is relieved, in the epigrams, by a gleam of true Celtic wit. All of these poems,. however resultory or wayward in impulse, show the characteristic tough resolution and ham-mered-iron craftsmanship. Four of them -‘Mountains and the Sea," "Winterset," "Laiene," and the untitled "Mother of Christ" lyric-seem to me vintage Glover; and that haunting piece of Chas. Addams décor, "Loki’s Daughter’s Palace,’ remains unforgettably in the mind. Mr Baxter’s seventeen parodies of New Zealand poets are a brilliant four de force. With unflagging zest he deals faithfully with two literary generations; even when the identifying initials repeat themselves, no alert reader will ever be in any doubt about the victim. Perhaps Mr Baxter rather pulls his punches with J.K.B.; and D.G., though acquainted with vulgarity, is not often vulgar in his verse. But these are spots in the sun. My first reaction was that the parodist had over-handicapped himself with his recurring breadboard; my second, that too often he had relied on a single familiar poem as model. But I finished the series with nothing but admiration for the insight that makes this Jeu d’esprit a serious work of literary criticism as well as an entertainment, and for the quite remarkable dexterity with which it is brought off.