24 JULY 1936, Page 30

Collected Obituaries

This Modern Poetry. By Babette Deutsch. (Faber. 7s. 6d.) SoiuE years ago there was a popular song, which ran " We've danced this dance_before,

And now, Babette, - You'ro in my arms once more."

Miss Babette Deutsch's book recalls it irresistibly. We've danced her partici:der denee so many times, and ;law, clasPig This Modern Poetry, we are invited to go giili: opinioft agar; Tfie,.band, we may be'sure, is still playing some very rousing, tunes; full .of exhortation to fare th'6''iriusic," stand up to the modern dilemma, grapple with the hideous eomplexity of the Machine Age; and get ,_litto step with the '1!pfeli Pylons. Nor are -weldisapPobited, 'for Miss' DetitsehilleIal good hostess—has-thought of everything. The entire reper- toire of New Country Dances is on her programme.

There was a time when these verse galas were organised exclusively by rather daring young men, but on to their favourite trapeze there is now clambering a troupe of breathless- aunties, striving to " keep ;up " with their modern nephews. Miss Deutsch is certainly the most energetic of, these robust dames. She has-learnt all the passwords, the private rituals, mastered the nervous laughter and the minatory phrase, dis- covered how to say " Boo ! ". at the right moment to the appropriate geese. She has, in fact, the whole bloodcurdling act off pat. -nitire-li—ers- end, - haveVet- -45fielir in 'fide

of appraisal. Miss Deutsch likes to stew each poet to a nice broth in which she can taste his quintessential " attitude.'

With smac4ort.he lips she ..knows 'whether or not he hi..4 4"istiticir faced the music," &c. rewarcV will :be a "stirring abituart a- yard of sentimental

rhetoric culminating in " words as keen as cognac, as fresh as an April wind " or

"'the whele.,:_bocly of her poetry shines and tretables with the seal light of the archipehigo, the billOw of the island-Winds."

These windy specimens- occur on successive -pages, and are typical of the blurb " atmosphere which prevails throughout} N precis Li. made of selected " statements," and this is ex= panded-and inflated in a context of vaguely ," poetic " imagery; tendentious moralising-and bright modernity of the sort that reduces Hart Crane to " intimationss of a brave new World." All Misa Deutsch's. energy is spent in -skirmishing on the f.inge:s of poetry; inn-those public .bcigs'orenigarised psychology, and nebulous polities which make up the modern personation