He Cheerfully Jettisons His Own Work—says Robin Hyd

Radio Record, 3 July 1936, Page 5

He Cheerfully Jettisons His Own Work—says Robin Hyd

str.king up an acquaintance with Robinson Crusoe, But more than that, it is like meeting with a resident of some very old and forgotten city, which has remained blandly aloof from the march of progress, and continued to enjoy its own means of culture and tradition. I do not mean to imply that this slight, dark New 7 % 7 e ~~. with Walter D’Arcy Cresswell is a little like -y

4SGaliancer, who in VLataiona was taken for an Andulasian and in Andulasia for a Catalan, wears goatskin breeches or takes no interest in the modern world. He was born in Canterbury, and his education ‘at Christ’s College (which comes in for one of the very few honourable mentions of his long poem, ‘Lyttelton Harbour,"’), has a pronounced sense of humour, and likes talking over the wireless. He is a ready and agreeable conversationalist, as anyone who has listened in to his many talks from IYA will know. But D'Arcy Cresswell steers by his own compass, if his stars are those of the ancients, He has made himself independent of the usu2 quarrelsome and competitive audience by retiring quietly, for the last few years, to Castor Bay, pagan Made caen 00 OCR sam eh cee en mesa teatact semana atannsenes ane eee setreuenue "Wwiois

one of the loveliest blue dents in Auckland Harbour, and derhaps the least frequented. Here he lives in a little hut under a large blue-flowering morning glory vine, has one companion in the smallest and most formidably savage black . kitten I have ever seen, and, for the rest, continues to write. This winter he has set himself to completion of the second part of "Poet's Progress,’’ that remarkable journal which in London made a success

(extracting a review of a column and a half from the phlegmatic London "Times’’), and in New Zealand sold less than a dozen copies. He has recently sent off to London "Since Byron," an anthology of poetry, and has scattered on the waters several pamphlets and brochures, of which one, ‘‘Eenie-Deenie-Dynamo," jis an assault or the Machine Age, soon to ‘be brought out by the Caxton Press. "Lyttelton Harbour," the adroit and musical satire in sonnets which the Unicorn Press produced about a month ago, has some sore belabourings for Christchurch, in . which city Mr. Cresswell received decidedly unkind treatment over the. first chapters: of his’ second "Poet’s Progress," the citizenry finding him too

critical, and demanding that his serialised publication shor be withdrawn from the daily paper which was bringing it ou "Farewell, Cathedral City, once my own, Your founder foundering in a pot of tar," says Mr. Cresswell, and turns to happier matters at Casto: Bay. At present, he is working on his first play, a poc. drama called "The Forest." It has a New Zealand bac! a

ground of Oia trees striving the oncoming of civilisation. Th first act has a_ gentleness «a beauty surpassing anything ¢ = that he has written; perhaps tha is because the play dwells on the theme which has always haunted him-the spirit of man, a long time absent or invisible, coming kack to ennoble him in a materialistic world. ; It is not merely by living in isolation that D’Arcy Cresswell divorces his work, not from the world but from the people who suffer from a delusion that th are, and own, the world. He has a quarrel with the machine as master of man; in his own case, this seems to produce both better work and freer living than that of the imitators of Sydney Bridge's sound and fury. He has another

belief-with which I, personally, disagree, root, branch and Apple of Knowledge-that woman is mentally and spiritually inferior to mankind. This appears in many of his books, from the first ‘‘Poet’s Progress" to "Lyttelton Harbour." I cannot help transposing the old Spanish proverb as -to what happens when Satan encounters B-elzebub in a high-walled lane to "what happens when

iVirs, rankhurst meets D’Arcy Cresswell in a cul-de-sac,"" With these unfashionable prejudices and un-sombre gravity is coupled a sort of nonchalance, which enabled him, before -he wrote "‘Poet’s Progress" and with it cracked :the hard shell of London indifference, to sleep in a London dosshouse, tramp Spain with a shilling or so in his pocket, offer himself (unsuccessfully) for a soldier against the Riffs. refuse business engagements which would have fattened his purse and bled his poetry white. He. knows how to stand on his own. feet, in his’: country’s name as_ well as his own. There is a. dignity about that poem, (Continued on page 51.)

He Cheerfully Jettisons His Own Work — {Continued from page 5.)

"Oh Hngland; why do you hasten to fall and forget your leaves?" which is to be found both in "Poet’s Progress" and in one of his-own two collections of poetry, published in England. Other young men, most of whom have obviously read and tried to imitate "Poet's Progress," have since then tramped strange fields in England and recorded their impressions. But their books are not "Poet’s Progress," which, if you haven’t read, I most sincerely recommend that you should, always suppos: ing you can find a bookseller who keeps a scopy. D’Arcy Cresswell, as a poet, has been much under question. He is in love with the ancients, dislikes most moderns, doesn’t read novels, insists on craftsmanship, frequently and quite cheerfully jettisons hig own work as immature or youthful, to the annoyance of people who like it. But he has a right to his own ways, and perhaps lhe ways were not, in the long run, amiss. seeing that in the past few months hi> work has heen far more discussed in New Zealand than for years. He of fended the Christchurch people by criticising their war memorial: I won der if many of them have read his ow1u beautiful war memorials to New Zealand’s dead, printed in his books of poems under the titles of "The Islands of Love" and "Ghosts of Foam?" This is a pasSage from "Ghosts of Foam.’ which is not included in the second collection: "Then whisper one to another The high, hushed trees. "Here is borne one who was the wind’s slim brother, In race more fleet than the print of sunvmer’s feet On water, under the winds white ienees. , And here is one, (Oh, dead; dead) who was Hope's-most handsome son, The pride Of Time’s one deathless daughter; for whose young head Of ali his dauntless youth . The down-looking sun wove a gold wreath of truth, Hre in a hapless land he died. " There is space for no more than one other of D’Arey Cresswell’s poems, "In a Field of Oats.’ I hope that they will all be fully known in New Zealand soon. "Oh envied freedom! though the mowers’ Inives Must lay thee low, oh to have your still lives! Helped by the rain, helped by the cquial sun, None harms his kind ,and all to fulness come. How can I into your fair kingdom creep, From daily spite to loyalty so deep? Or japid birds, light robbers of those ’ Jast, Ld band with thee, could heavy birth be passed, Alack! if ali who fly in thought haa wings, Poets, of men, were yet more hunted things."