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Casting Off

Juggernaut, by Gavin Bantock (Anvil Press Poetry, 3s.).
Pancakes for the Queen of Babylon by Peter Levi, S. J. (Anvil Press Poetry, 5s.).
The First Cities, by Audre Lorde (The Poets Press Inc., no price given).
The Pattern of Violence, by Paul Coltman (Outposts Publications, 3s. 6d.).
Allies, by W. G. Shepherd (Anvil Press Poetry, 4s.).
Oases, by Marcus Cumberledge (Anvil Press Poetry, 5s.).
Driving at Night, by Joan Murray Simpson. (Orion Press, 5s.).

I define a poet as one who casts off, sets sail and gives consideration to the trimming of his rigging only when he is afloat. To me, all the rest are versifiers. It is not enough to be prepared to cast off. The proof is in the deed.

Praise, then, two men who have been brave, even if they have not returned with all the trophies.
I like Gavin Bantock's nerve, for one thing! In an age of keyhole sensibilities and racked mysticism, he blasts his missiles not at the gaps between the stars, but at the very planets. Who else has dared to write poetry under titles like Christ and World?

Now he essays Juggernaut, with a style which would convey the Juggernaut feeling even without the gathering momentum of his ideas. After a slightly laboured opening, this Juggernaut swings along like a primeval ape crashing from tree to tree—only occasionally touching ground and gathering a splat of bathos.

I found it worked better when read aloud. In the live reading the tautology, the over-development, the odd slipped stitch, were hardly noticed; on the printed page they crept in regularly.

All in all, a brave throw. You may quarrel with Mr Bantock's obvious quest for a life-force, a fulcrum, a centre—for the elusive 'it'. You may feel—as I did—that towards the end he cheats romantically in hinting at a solution. But you will surely gasp at the sheer scope of it. And you cannot fail to find line after line which is 'big'.

I wandered lonely through Peter Levi's new collection—feeling I might as well be a cloud for all the contact with reality his Ten Poems for Nikos Gatsos provided. At last I decided reluctantly I must leave the poems to Mr Gatsos—reluctantly, because Peter Levi is a poet of brooding integrity and these latest poems arc shot through with insights. The images are there, too. Key images flick in and out like leitmotifs throughout the book, and they are images which seem to he worth tracing.

So I did not feel I was being conned; I felt more as if Mr Levi had shuffled his images, his ideas—his very lines—and had dealt them without turning up a single straight flush. The music was sparse and sporadic as in a Boulez composition, without I he mat hematical compensations of Boulez.

Mr Levi has taken off out of this world, but he has failed to convey this reader into the next. I have failed, too. I appreciate the working of an intense talent, but I fail to receive his communication. I hope Mr Levi's new departure will lead him through chaos to the harnessing of chaos. I am sure he is poet enough to do it. I respect his having made the initial leap.

Audre Lorde, they insist on informing me, is a young West Indian-American poetess. For me 'poet' is enough. Sensitive, sensitive writing, with a bloom on the expression. She seldom falls into the traps of 'woman's poetry'. I will not try to quote, though she has fine quotable lines, for fear the fragile poetry will fall apart. But I will recommend anyone to read Generation, If you come Softly or Gemini.

I know nothing about Paul Coltman except the poems in his wafer of a book. He attempts nothing which he does not achieve, and his quiet sanity is almost a relief after the risks taken by Levi and Bantock. Wind is as superbly controlled as the wind in the sail itself. The Sea Was Always in Us is solid, impressive. Perhaps next time he will dare some of those risks. . . .

W. G. Shepherd is another who could take a few plunges. I have had the feeling before with his work, and I had it again here, that he is holding out on us. What he provides is good enough, but I am curious, I want the lot, the guts! Thank goodness for his humour, though.

Carefulness again—this time from Marcus Cumberledge. Cultured, courtly, often gentle and sometimes very human—but careful. Not the sort of poetry which leaps off the shelf into your hand. Curling-up-with-a-good-book-and-half-an-hour-to-spare poetry. Is that an accusation? You may have the spare half-hour.

I must mention Joan Murray Simpson, whose expression has a brightness not to be denied, even when the poetry is rather awful, as in The Snowman. At least two poems, The Disinherited and Loving and Climbing, have the fresh tint of experience, and this draws her into letting her hair down just the right amount. Elsewhere she is just poeticising, but brightly.