Half forgotten voices

Peter Levi

Poems 1938-1983 Sheila Wingfield (Enitharmon Press £8.85, £5.25) Collected Poems 1912-1944 H. D.

(Carcanet Press £16.95) It is interesting to see suddenly the col- lected poems of these two ladies, both famous in their time, and both perfectly serious and able, but now rather forgotten. H. D., whose initials disguise Hilda Doolit- tle, was an American, born in 1886 who liv- ed on until 1961. She was engaged to Ezra Pound, married to Richard Aldington, and had a platonic affair with D. H. Lawrence. She was then analysed by Freud. She star- red in a film. She seems to have had some lesbian tendency, and small wonder. I doubt the great merit of her later work, which includes embarrassing 'I was there' poems about the London Blitz. I used to possess her 1925 Collected Poems and once thought her over-estimated — wrongly, I now see. The present offering is over 600 pages long and, for true completeness, there may one day be a second volume.

Sheila Wingfield, born in 1906 in Hamp- shire and still alive, led an utterly different life and has never been quite as famous, though I remember with affection stray volumes of her poetry. H. D. was called an `imagist', and her poems have floated, if at all, on the incoming tide of the modernist movement. She deserves better. Sheila Wingfield was praised from early in her career by Yeats, Walter de la Mare and Elizabeth Bowen; also by Kathleen Raine, Herbert Read, Christopher Ricks and Harold Nicolson. The late G. S. Fraser saw a likeness, in her Collected Poems, to Louis MacNeice. Fraser was keen on Ireland, and praised an early book by Philip Larkin, then working as a librarian in Belfast, for its Ulster regional quality. Sheila Wingfield became Lady Powerscourt, — Powerscourt being a schloss with pepper-pot turrets in the Wicklow Hills, which was burnt down by accident about 15 years ago. It looks ex- tremely beautiful, in a romantic Anglo-Irish way. She never led the London or the inter- national literary life.

It is odd how much these two have in common. They are both eccentric, self- taught scholars, and their poems are full of weird and pleasing information. They are both highly individual voices. H. D. died at 75 and Sheila Wingfield is now 77, so here

we have two serious and admirable precious but beautiful, and must be lifeworks of what in the long run Wingfield zany but intriguing. 14.1),:a H. D. look. Sbela called minor poets. In youth, poems are like a fire smoothly burning, ")a sea rhythmically spraying, but S, I1!,, Wingfield's spit and crackle like holly• are both fascinating and memorable, ailh" their personal tones are unforgettable. Boi" in their way, were imagists.

Poets frequently have odd life stories, and at any given moment their futures are

e often predictably grim, particularly th. ri futures of their reputations. Philip Larkt, recently made a praiseworthy attemPt revive W. W. Gibson (1876-1962), IL Pr; senior by ten years. Gibson was able to m. ost inherited his life just being a poet, on 111°Ilve; inherited by chance from Rupert 13r°°.. He published, in 1926, a Collected Paefil.! 800 pages long, based on 20 Previ°5 volumes. He was then 38. He went on.I°his acclaim, another 14 volumes to de

, ceasing at 62, creasing

a, rid his archive is in Hexhinam19.when wife died. He survived her another 12 Year. sr; awmhoou.nnteeodfsipeoetry?' is linked to the sterriet question, 'who on earth needs all tlia After centuries of fumbling, as in. tiles cmauseehomf oTrrea hswiftly, e rnnwde Clare, or hoar tsonletintee

poetrY

are hungry for. But today, more than ever, o ne of the things we want is a genuine 311,0 individual voice. It is a little easier pchosetitnrygutihshap, thinoupgrhosaelsoaphdarder to take.' 1,, o. ften even more personal. Willgo°uettrYelalAini: ing that either H. or Sheila WIngfiel" re going to occupmany pages of some funio Palgrave's Golden Treasury, °Ile reading reasonably recommend them for rea!"1,,,, c(nWaolwlien.dg`The chatter of small territorial 1111.“:). (Wingfield) isapboeeamustifoufl lait.Idapthciefhtiseeirr Greek adaptations come very close, In ',d slightly arty manner, to classic strent.h„ clarity. Neither of these poets Is unmemorable as poor Gibson, so far a_re recall him at all, who represents little than a rotting bridge between two ages Sheila Wingfield makes no tented

an early version of Blunden.

assault upon one's attention. Her Pnte of are sharp and single, and the P deep thought and feeling. They are quite unafraid of ordinariness, and they ar!..t. of not on poems being made of words, but not life. Verbally, they are dexterous and truthful, though they do not attempt the flight of Milton or Yeats. They seem to have gone on quietly getting better for language. Years, without passing any crisis of tanguage. 'Beat Drum, Beat Heart' (1946) is the only gesture at a 'major' poem and it is convincing only as a personal statement. It gives the impression that Sheila Wingfield is too honest, too genuine and doubting, Perhaps just too nice to be a great poet. She Cannot manage the long sentence or the sonorous statement. But the bulk of her Poetry is all the better for that. It has a sober sparkle, and she always produces i rtiething sensible, often something mov- ng to say. I am now ashamed that 30 years

ago 1 was ashamed of liking her poetry so much.

H. D. is likely to continue more popular with literary people. She sags behind Pound and she needs rescuing from her early associations. She was a pure and individual voice, and I think she taught Pound more than she learned from him (not much). She is like one of the ancient Greek women poets she so admired. We really do not need the second volume, the translations and all the prose. But I am afraid that somewhere along the line she got lost, though Freud seems to have been a liberating influence and no evil genius. She and Sheila Wingfield both merit much closer attention as poets.