Recent Poetry
TRADITIONAL poets, not without cause, frequently accuse the modernist school of cerebral rather than emotional inspiration. Some of the volumes here reviewed confirm that the supporters of form do not always themselves speak from the heart. Where their themes are governed by mental contrivance, a fall in quality is instantly noticeable. Intellectualism must play its part, but a poem invariably suffers when effect is being too consciously sought. As for the critic, while he can give only his personal reactions to a poem, a degree of liberty must be allowed him for criticism of the poet's command of rhythm, compression, clarity and syntax ; for if it be admitted that poetry is an emotionally satisfying, rhythmical, condensed impression of sensual or spiritual feeling, what other criticism, apart from self-examination, can be made ? How can the critic criticise intellectually what has never been intellectually contrived ?
Dorothy Wellesley knows when to flout the rule of compression, for she has discovered the value of emphasis by repetition. She uses this knowledge frequently in her Selected Poems (Williams & Norgate. vas. 6d.), but not always, it must be admitted, with com- plete success. Many of the poems in this selection appear longer than might be necessary to convey her strong personal feeling.
Christopher Hassall is also at his best when briefest. In The Slow Night (Arthur Barker. 7s. 6d.), which is his first published collection for eight years, there is much to delight his admirers. All the poems in this book are in blank verse and show a mature confidence which indicates that the years between have not been wasted. Typical of Mr. Hassall's present vigour is the following stanza from "Red Warning," a soliloquy from a gun battery in Essex : " . . . We unmask the gun
And wait, feeling the burden of our failure.
If only we were not alone in this ; If only those blue butterflies that lob Their chips of lovely weather at the poppies Would cringe to emerald cover, proof that the moon Or scabious outbreak on the sun had set Us all at odds. But unaware, they drink The day. Too plainly it's within us, not Without, where normal August mints her gold, That Nature is disfigured."
In his Collected Poems (Sidgwick & Jackson. los. 6d.) John Gal.vs- worth conveys in ardent miniatures man's eternal passions--old wine in new bottles. It is a representative collection and offers what the poet considers to be his two hundred best poems up to three years ago. In the words of his "Juan," he has "loved often, never cleaved to one," and the reader, at any rate, may be glad of this. The popular children's author V. H. Frrtcllaender is a poet with whom Hodgson, Davies and Monro would have found much in common. Her Stand Alone (Fortune Press. 6s.) deserves to be read if only for comparison ; it will serve for more than that.
Mr. Day Lewis writes warmly of the work of a young Australian, David Campbell, whose Speak with the Sun is published by Chatto and Windus (6s.). Mr Campbell is certainly versatile and is happy with both ballad and lyric form. The virility of his work is suggestive of his outstanding South African namesake Roy Campbell, while in quieter tones he might recall another and an older South African, Francis Carey Slater, whose Veld Patriarch and Other Poems (Long- mans. 8s. 6d.) are remarkably robust but on the whole insufficiently
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