New Zealand Literary Topics
Two slim volumes, New Zealand Best poems of 1938 and New Zealand New Writing No.3, June l944 , bought in Auckland about 40 years , were recently pulled from the files and made an interesting reread, turning up overlooked content of note , some contemporary issues , especially in respect of war veterans , their treatment and the high incidence of suicide .
The book of poems , selected by C.A. Marris, once belonged to Helena Henderson (1913 to l968) , the author of two , one Returned Soldier , about a pacifist who went away and fought in WWl, returning to a little cottage provided by the government , tending the garden, the small lawn , shining the taps , making bird cages and baskets , leading a quiet life . Except...
But in the dreadful midnight hours ,
Borne in the terror's icy breath,
Come Eitel, Friedrich, Hans and Paul ,
Good men and true he sent to Death .
Apart from writing poetry, Henderson was a novelist , lived on a yacht for some years , inspired women to write , even produced books under a male name . She was encouraged to write by her mother who worked on the Christchurch Press newspaper and also wrote poems and essays . In the case of Helena's storekeeper father, he faked his suicide the night before she , a Catholic , married in a registry office.
With so much debate currently going on about fossil fuel and the affect on the climate , a 1944 poem praising coal by Anton Vogt, born in Norway, a NZ schoolteacher , at Reefton , a coal mining town , stood out . He had written two volumes of poetry, the latest , Poems for a War and a play soon to be in print and on stage .
The treatment of Tuberculosis was the subject of a short story of interest to this blogger's wife who worked with TB patients , mainly Maoris, when she was a nurse at Hamilton, in the North Island of New Zealand , in the l950s. In those days patients were placed in beds out on open verandahs to be exposed to the cool , clean air and sunshine. Now it seems resistant TB is making a strong comeback , especially in PNG with limited resources and facilities , cases turning up in the Torres Strait .
There is an emotive short story, The Woods no More, by R. Gilberd who had spent most of his adult life scrub-cutting , farming , public works , bush-felling , then a slaughterman in the freezing works at Gisborne and representing the union on the local Trades Council .
There are several poems at the back of the book dealing with the war ... Killed In Action, The Leader Makes Plans (to take over the world , then what ? ), Enemy Aircraft Overhead , Stalingrad , l943.
Some of the contributors became involved in the Australian literary world. Poet , editor , literary critic , short story writer , essayist and publisher Douglas Stewart , for example , became literary editor of The Bulletin , Sydney, for 20 years and was described as the greatest all rounder of literature in modern Australia . Three of his works appeared in the l938 book of poems . He wrote the biographies of prominent Australians ,the artist Norman Lindsay and poet Kenneth Slessor .
