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Salient: An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 12, No. 8, July 27th, 1949.

Glow and Glitter

Glow and Glitter

The real life and soul of this number of "Hilltop" lies with the work of the poets. Of it all I find the poem "Seagulls among the Mountains" by Charles Brasch the most attractive, though Baxter's sonnets, particularly "Sea-Change," are remarkably good. Their underlying technical excellence gives them a sense of ease which greatly enhances their intrinsic worth. In each of Campbell's three poems one finds that individual words seem to assume an especially sense. There is a gemlike quality about much of his poetry which marks him off from any other New Zealand poet whose work I know; some others glitter but few glow with the peculiar beauty which makes this distinctive.

Pat Wilson's long "Views of History" occupies seven pages and for the most part is sustained fairly well. His frequent naive style is suspended here chiefly on pure whims.

The poem's justification lies mostly with the fertility of the poet's imagination. Hubert Witheford's' poems I found at times rather diffuse—perhaps because of much of his imagery is rather more subtle than the others. Arthur Barker's translations of Ronsard, while suffering from the dehydrated symptoms common to almost all English translators of alien verse, are nevertheless very pleasant.