1961-03-04 — Page 18

WHO ELSE BUT

Modern poetry isn't all macaroni

THE LINES OF

DIFFERENT LENGTHS

It's people

like these

200

T. S. Ellot

Laurie Lee

Robert Graves

you'll find worth reading

IT has been estimated by an Oxford don (and so it may be true) that one

person in every 60,000 has it in him or her to be a poet.

Mr 1. W. Bateson, of Corpus Christi College arrived at this statistic by totting up the number, of known, still-readable poets during the three centuries preceding our own, relating them to-size of population, calculat- ing the trend.

collections of On this basis, some 800 poets in a precious, coterte product fluential of all

poetry," THE should be writing in England because, of course, for every contemporary during the twentieth century! poet there must be several VERSE (Faber, 78. (d),

His conclusion: that poetry is readers, only relatives. * recurrent natural abnor- I therefore make no apology mality, like the tendency to for giving pride of space have twinz."

Dylan Thomas

BY PETER FORSTER

or

did

to

and

For the Jerusalem built in England's groen pleasant land" meant to Blake sexual liberty, and the "dark ratanic milla" had nothing

to

do with the Industrial Revolu- tlon, but were the church altars of the eighteenth century!

of

(By way of further cluelda- tion, and brilliant analysis other poetry on these detective lines, I commend the above- mentioned Mr Bateson's "English Poetry," which itself deserves issue us a paperback.) So it is unfair to gird at the moderns because meanings

delved bo

for. must ofter Pootie form is not some in- animate, restraining thing, like

a corset, but a living, develop- ing, changing force, and in this the anthology century, shows, fascinating attempts

50

MR. SEARLE?-

have been made to experiment, THE PENGUIN RONALD SEARLE, (3′′ (d).

NOT THIS

There a

nothing obscure about, say, the great poems in- spired by the First World War, such as Wilfred Owen's, begin- ning-

..

"And ever before, it is not necessarily calem," beginning, the poetry of today. The usual those feet in ancient time."

I wonder if the churchgoers charge is that the moderns are

"Red lips are not so red, obscure, and so some of them who regularly belt it out to

As the stained stones kissed the Party's stirring tune,

by the English dead," certainly ure.

Desembled beldames at women's But then

the best-conferences who even

kick off pro-

Or Dame Edith Sitwell's 1940 known classics are not always credings with a spirited. rentament in the blitz- simple. Take, in fact, the most dering, realise that they are famous single poem in the lan- giving vent to an anti-clerical "Still falls the rain- than gunge, William Blake's "Jeru pacan in praise of free love?

I

OBSCURE?

thin

This week to the issue as an excel-

[or

is of special interest the often- lent-value paperback of what because, although poetry that poetry has been called "the most in more widely read today

is

So much expressed notion

✰✰✰✰✰ SHOW BUSINESS by SUSAN BARNES

*

Latin lovers only love themselves, says Dawn

And ridicule terrifies them

[ISS DAWN ADDAMS drummed her

MISS

neat nails on the restaurant table top. For a moment it looked as in her poise was about to desert her. "No man's arms," she said, "can solace a woman for having the love of a child taken from her. It's a destroy- ing thing. My husband knows that.”.

Dawn Addams has the trim prettiness of the ideal secretary. Her manner is self-possessed, her movements brisk.

Her pert face is unlined, like a child's. But when she talks of her own child, Stefano, the six- year-old boy who has been kept separated from lus mother by the courts of Rome, her eyes fill with tears.

Her estranged husband, Prince Vittorio Massimo, has forbidden her to set foot on the country estate where he keeps the boy. "This has been going on for two and a half years. Let's face it. He is behaving like a-. He's

marriage, the only place you can go without being criticised is the bathroom." Down

Addam's blue eyes wandered over the

of bowler hats topping the British warms near the restaurant door.

TOW

49 or 60 or something. He's *The English treat marriage been morried before. He's lived as a serious thing. They sow

his life 20 times over. Why can't their wild eats and marry Inter. he let the child live?

"Here I am," she continued, "a healthy young woman of 30. And I can't do anything to organise new lite until I know about my child. He would give a pur- pose to my life. My carcer doesn't. I recognise I'm not ter- rife shakes ns an actress.

"I want a husband whose life

I can participate in.

It's not

excitement, drama that I crave.

It is tenderness.

**The Englishman is a good husband because he is brought up on the honour system: in his studies, his sports, le is taught to be truthful. The English man and woman belleve each other.

"Englishmen are more senti- mental, more touching in their relations with women,

Democratic

"Latins like publicity for their "The Italian aristocrat dees love affairs. The Englishmen not treat his wife like a wo- prefers to live in secret.

man. He chooses a wife that The Latin is in love with other men want in order to ac- himself

more thon with the And he lacks humour. quire a valuable possession. And woman. Once she is acquired, he treats Let's face it. You need an awful her like a piece of property. lot of humour in a love affair. "Before marriage, the Latin You have to be able to laugh. lover may appear to be atien- even in the most intimate mo- tive, gay. But this changes as ments. The French can do this, soon as the marriage contract The English certainly can. But In signed. He is not interested not the Italians.

in what sho

thinks, what are

lead a "Italian patrielona Chekhov life. Dust plles up in

her interests, what are her per- sonal ambitions. She belongs the library and another picture

to him and that's that.

'I disappear'

lies to be sold, but any girl with modern, ideas who wants to or ganise the household is not ap- preciated.

"He, on the other hand, re- "And nothing can induce them

"Trying to be democratic consists of wearing jeans and going around in a Jeep. They get out of people who work for them everything except respect.

"I can't stand them moro."

"They love intrigue. They don't quite know what to think of me, because I'm a bit of trapmenili. I don't talk very much. They don't like that."

I can

"Why" I asked, "do you must have it so that

courts i am able think he wanted to marry you?" persuade the

Mias Addams looked at me. to provide a home for my con. Her eyes were very round.

This case has dragged on for "Do you know, I haven't the two and a half years, and now faintest idea," sho.said.

the court is sitting again. "Why did you marry him?". "they do not reach a

decision this _Ame, I don' know what I shall do. I can not stand another. year of

bla."

taina his freedom. And because to put money into anything like they are fully aware that I am Latins, are terrified of ridicule, a village school. Instead, the not permitted to see my son. It's not the case of what's good patrician has a drink with the for the gander is good for the villagers in the pub, and the goose: the husband is free but next day calls them savages. his wife is not."

Again, there was the brittle tapping of varnished nalla.

"I got impatient when people Are boring, Miss Addams sald,

And I show it. I disappear.

Dawn Addams drew on her "This is all right if you're unmarried. But if you're mar- Miss Addams'e baby blue cycs ¦-

gloves, picked up her handbag, Mins Addams went on: "I band. Or, a child. Or a real; and set off trimly into the ried, especially to an Italian, had taken on an loy quailly.

"Hamana. love slicking your husband naks where you've

the, was solely 4 decoration to my home.

Strand. She was not, she said, "At the moment I am 'star going to throw herself under a been.

needle in and turning it around. husband's life. I attracted people'

And how "All you've done la find ga

is dear'

a French film called train. Bha was going to shop little; to him. But he nover knew me, ring in attack of social, claustropho- Stefano?" they ask me! 'It I married him 10 days after: 1 The Liars, but when wo finish for a little tweed coat with a blaɛ, and guno out to get a must be lovely being here and met him. He didn't even know it I'm resigned to fiming in velvet collar, suitable for a six-

You know? And my nationality,”

Italy, have a flat in Romo, year-old boy, -brenika of fresh air. But in seeing him?

any

Flattered

"He was older, cultured. I was inttered and charined, an

"And nobody else ever asked mo to marry him.""

"And now I don't have a bus

Dark as the world of man,

black de our 1033

1

Blind, as the nineteen 1hundred

and forty nails Upon the Cross."

The title speaks for itself-just as the world of Boarde speaks for Itself. His Jakes saldom need a caption. It is a world of unmistakable, rather wobbly, down-drooping lines a world in which a telephone operator darns a pile of sock wiih

Iinea from the switch-board, or a car salesman's customer lieo trapped behind the radiator grill. A timid man removes his shoes before seking for a dance, a ghostly hand emerges from the hotel bedroom and leaves a pair of feat in the corridor, a Henry Moore reatinifig figurd reclinos broauce my fest are killing me" And when a "monster sale" is advorticed Searle at once conjures up a sale of monsters. The Penguin Baarle conslete of a slection from his carllor books, the satire is (almost) always tinged with humanity, and if much of it la mad it lo no meddor than our own everyday world.

H.M.H.

BOOKSHELF BRIEFS.

murder. Robust.

THE SCENE OF THE CRIME. John Creasey. Hodder

• THE SMARTEST. GRAVE. ● THE MAN WHO WATCHED There is a good deal in this B. J. White. Collins. 128. od, WOMEN. Bert and Dolores Hit- collection I do not pretend to Joint prize winner of a crime chens. Boardman. 12s. 6d. The understand-brightened prose novel competition for tons, this man with the curious compulsive and lines jumbled together is a period plece-mystery and kink of the title leads American macarons-Fashion, all different murder in remoter East Anglia railway detectives on to the trail lengths and senses.

at the turn of the century. Pace of big-time freight-car robbery, Elves way to grace in the tell- was inga refreshing change. Also much, in my view, misconceived through trying to make poetry what W. H. Auden MESSAGE FROM SIRIUS. & Stoughton, 12s. d. Family called " social instrument: Ceell Jenkins. Collins. 12s. 6d. man puts his hand to murders it is not that, it is necessary The other prize-winner, Vastly galore around Chelsea to further

different setting-murder of a plan to rob. his fermer STY luxury, like linen.

top pop singer at his night-club ployers. An ill-contrived plan; But what a magnificent roll- haunt of off-beat peers, politi- and a curiously flat Creasey, call of poets docs emerge: clans, panel-game pundits. Ur-

SING ME A MURDER. Gerard Manley Hopkins...bone detectives, polished writing. Helen Nielsen, Gollancz, 138, ed. TS Eliot... Robert Graves but too discursive. ... Empson. .. Spender

· © TEA AT THE ABBEY. C. E. darling of the discs, and some Laurie Lee... Lawrence Dur-Vallfamy. Michael Joseph. 138. touching, highly effective de- roll... Dylan Thomas.

J

Death of a girl singer, American

fd. Preposterously-named char- tection by grief-stricken play- acters concerned in a country- wright husband: Ingenious, Here is part of our literary house murder romp. You may unusual story and n ecol cop- heritage, and it has been made not be left guessing for long, histicated look at life in Cali- in our own times.

but the book delights by unforc-fornian high soclety, ed, sustained humour.

-(London Express Service).

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