7 MAY 1965, Page 14

The Apocalypse

SIR,—It is clear from Mr. Ian Hamilton's review of The Faber Book of Twentieth Century Verse (April 23) that his standards are not those of Mr. David Wright and myself. That is fair enough, and I have no wish to quarrel with him. But it is surely not fair to represent us as 'champions of the Apocalypse.' I nowhere in my introduction referred to this abortive poetic movement of the Forties. Of the poets we did include in our anthology, only Dylan Thomas and Vernon Watkins were at any time associated with it. The first of these, if I am not mistaken, definitely repudiated it later, and the work of the latter has developed on quite individual