Discussions Useless—

A Drunk was There

Very little was achieved at the two literary discussions on the Tuesday and Wednesday of Arts Festival. The main subject under heavy fire was the Literary Year-book.

Poems were read and discussed at the first meeting but unfortunately very few people were game enough to air their views. At the second meeting it was agreed that Yearbook contributions should be allowed to come from any outside magazine, provided that they had been published fairly recently and were written by bona fide students. Also, Universities which send to the Yearbook material rejected from their own literary publications should not be encouraged to do so. It was generally agreed that the many little literary magazines springing up all over the country should be supported. Bruno wandered in about this stage. New Zealand writing, its changing forms and developments were dealt with at length, stimulating arguments provided by Bill Broughton and Wystan Curnow (Auckland) and Dunstan Ward (Canterbury). Most of this discussion was punctuated by the involuntary hiccupping of a drunken duffle-coat flaked unmoniously on one of the forms.

The meeting was livened up, however, by Mr Mark Young (Victoria) reading one of his better-known unpublished poems to the gathering.

Poets, writers and followers to The Royal . . .

—John Parkyn.