The Voices

At the last poetry-reading in the Little Theatre recently Anton Vogt's readings were quite competent. He commenced his readings from contemporary English and American poets with two poems by the well-known American poet, Archibald McLeish, after which "Dirge" by Kenneth Fearing proved a stimulating if rather frenzied change. After this the audience were more or less prepared for Laurence Durrell's "Ballad of the Good Lord Nelson"—a light piece in a satiric vain. However, he returned to a more serious mood with Conrad Aicken's "Preludes," Robert Graves' "The Bards," and concluded with Stephen Spender's "In an Elementary School Classroom."

A selection of poems by Charles Spear (the Christchurch poet) were read by Eric Schwimmer who achieved a fascinatingly haunting atmosphere with a faltering, near monotonic delivery. Hubert Witherford followed with some of his own verse as yet unpublished in book form.

Alistair Campbell initiated a useful practice when he gave a brief outline of the characteristics of John Crowe Ransome's poetry before he read some poems by him. He remarked that Ransome's poetry, steeped in the tradition of the South, went back to the Cavalier poets whose verse was marked by its, detached ironic tone which prevented it from becoming too personal. To my mind this gives an impression of emotional sterility in much of Ransome's work. He commenced his readings with the much-anthologised "Captain Carpenter"—in his words "the reductio ad absurdum of the Cavalier idea." However, the manner in which it was read almost completely sterilised the poem, and the laughs came only from the most flagrant of Ransome's attacks on credibility. The reading was not light enough—it was too matter-of- fact, but not the matter-of-factness that can give a humorous effect. He next read "Winter Remembered" and another poem before he came to "Dead Boy"—this poem, elgaic in feeling, best illustrates the sterile of Ransome's emotion and the Cavalier detachedncss of his style. "Blue Girls," "Spectral Lovers," and the well-known "Equilibrists" followed.