edge

The next magazine that appears before me for consideration is better in every way. Apart from a few minor blemishes, like using different sized types for two adjacent poems by Kendrick Smithyman, the layout is expert. The contributions too are of a much higher standard. For a start, they are by well-known writers Keith Sinclair, Kendrick Smithyman, Denis Glover, and James K. Baxter. Even some overseas names, if you are impressed. And look at the number of editors. A magazine with such a list of celebrities cannot fail to make an impact. I mean, after all these are the creators of good taste. I did not even need to read beyond the title page to know that it was good.

However, there were some names which I was not sure about, so I read their work to see whether it measured up at all to the standard I knew the others had maintained. It was there I got a shock and Edge slithered down in my estimation. On page 23, in a poem written by Gary Langford, one of the editors, and a person who revelled in bad taste with a low-class story in Argot, has perpetuated his bowel humour with the use of the words 'ass' and 'pee'. And on page 35, the last page I read before my disgust got the better of me, Ronald L. Johnson used the word 'f**k'!! Enough! Enough!

Compare either with any Landfall. Well, with this Landfall in front of me. Landfall 96. Everything is perfect good taste. Good writing not that I like half the poems, but then I don't usually like poetry anyway not that I can understand half the poems, but then that is my fault the magazine cannot afford to please everyone. The point I am getting at is that if offends nobody, so there is not really any criticism of it anyone can make. In fact I do not need to specify any Landfall they all maintain the same standard.

There is only one poetry magazine in New Zealand that is any better. This is Freed, I breathed a sigh of relief when I came to Freed. I threw up my hands with joy. There is no bad language, no vulgarity, no rude drawings, no spelling mistakes. In fact the magazine is perfect in every way. There are no articles, no stories, no poems. Just what we wanted. There is nothing. Everybody can participate. Everyone can enjoy it. No need at all to be intellectual. I wish other magazines would take the hint.

Freed IV, the Auckland University poetry magazine, has contributed the most of any literary magazine in the country to the regeneration of body and soul. I wish all other pocky magazines would take the hint.

John Hales