Mr. Walter D'Arcy Creswell, author of Poet's Progress (Faber and
Faber, 7s. 6d.), is a young New Zealander who apparently believes himself to be the greatest poet in the English language since Tennyson. His book is a description of his experiences in pursuit of recognition since he came from New Zealand in April, 1921., Only for a week was he persuaded to abandon his true course and take a positiOn as a publisher's traveller, but he soon gave this up and when his allowance from his parents was stopped earned enough money to keep himself by hawking his poems from door to door. From the exiguous examples of his poetry given in this book, it is difficult to believe that all Mr. Cresswell's claims can be justified, but certainly the-story of his experiences is an unusual one and unusually well told, in a direct narrative style and with less expansiveness about the beauties of nature than one expects to find in vagrant poets. His style- is reminiscent of an eighteenth century diary—it is at times very like the Journal of Fox the Quaker, and he has the same habit of relating material events directly to the state of his spirits at the time The book is a mixture of pas- sionate conviction, conceit, and perhaps some of the color ial shrewdness that is necessary to perceive the anxiety of English men of letters for a new development which will give them their lead. It is difficult to acknowledge any virtue to conceit, but in spite of Mr. Cresswell's pretensions he can write in a simple and impressive style, and this book, if he develops in the right way, may be a bargain for first edition hunters, though not for some years to come.
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