CURRENT LITERATURE
POST-VICTORIAN POETRY By Herbert Palmer
Here is a monument, if not to modern poetry, then to the industry of Mr. Herbert Palmer. His book (Dent, I2S. 6d.) contains 370 pages, many of them devoted largely to quotation and in it reference is made to no less than 25o writers, all of them presumed to have written poetry worthy of mention since the death of Queen Victoria. Inevitably much of it is little better, and some no better, than a catalogue ; poets of such talent and individuality as Mr. William Plomer and Mr. William Empson are packed without comment into lists, and highly original writers like Mr. Frederic Prokosch are summarily disposed of in an undiscerning paragraph, despite the extended treatment given to others who, if quotations correctly represent their achievement, might have been left unexhumed in forgotten anthologies and periodicals. Mr. Palmer's acquaintance with modern poetry, good, indifferent and bad, is catholic, but his familiarity has had the result of making him detect " influences " everywhere, often with a conspicuous lack of plausibility, and of blinding him to the positive qualities which distinguish one good poet's work from another's. His assessments of particular poets vary so greatly in merit as to make one suspect the very foundations of his judgement ; it is heartening to find a writer so little inclined to take established reputations on trust, but less so to find independence balanced by an ability so often entirely to misrepresent a poet's achievement. If Mr. Palmer's discrimination had been equal to his enthusiasm, Post-Victorian Poetry would have been a useful book. One must regret seeing so much industry expended in the production of something which is neither useful nor a pleasure to read.
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