POETS OF THE FIFTIES
S1R,—Lovers of poetry, and of arguments about poetry, will to some extent understand Mr. Grigson's annoyance with Mr. , Hartley for not providing a detailed criticism of the poems in Mr. Conquest's magnificent anthology. But I, for one, realise only too well that the ninepence one gives for the Spectator is in payment for a large number of pages on miscellaneous subjects, leaving Mr. Hartley little room for coping in detail with eighty or ninety poems. I feel it would be charitable of Mr. Grigson to forgive him, if only because he is one of the few critics who have previously given reasonable attention to the individual books of Mr. Conquest's con- tributors. But perhaps Mr. Grigson's remarks are, in a way, a compliment to Mr. Hartley and the Spectator: he has not rebuked other journals for the vague and fantastic reviews they have given to this and other anthologies. So may we not read it that he was simply expecting more of your journal and its critic? —Yours faithfully,
Previous page
