The annual P.E.N. Anthology of New Poems usually contrives to achieve a high level of competence without being in the least exciting, and the latest in the series is no exception to the rule. There are 64 poems by 51 contributors, and, if one ignores the presence of Edith Sitwell’s ridiculous and pretentious La Bella Bona Roba, one could fairly say that every poem deserves its place. Nevertheless, doubts cross one’s mind. Are there no young poets nowadays attempting to break new ground? Were none of the editors captivated by an eccentric poem, or tempted by an unfashionable one? It is good to see more work by such admirable and as yet uncollected poets as Graham Hough and Zofia Ilinska, but did 1960 produce no new good poems from George Barker, W. S. Graham, Norman MacCaig, Thomas Kinsella, or Robert Graves? This Anthology pretends (by its very title) to be some sort of survey of the poetic output of a year, but the 1960 volume, like all the others, leads one to suspect that the title should be changed to “Poems that Three People Could Agree About”. It appears to be nothing more.

Thomas Blackburn’s Anthology is not a survey either, in spite of the title. It is a “Programme Anthology”, which is intended to illustrate certain attitudes of the editor. These attitudes, which are rather blunderingly and speciously expressed in the Introduction, are based upon the conviction that, “Poetry is concerned with the dark interior engines of the psyche”. In this post-Freudian Age, once we have got used to “such terms as the Unconscious, the Super Ego, the Collective Unconscious, or the Id, these abstractions have to be restored to the turmoil of emotional experience they have been distilled from, and known by the whole being.” In short, “poets are trying to give a local habitation and a name to the mysterious and savage fauna that are within us.” Whether or not this is an acceptable thesis, the consequences of believing in it could be exciting, but the choice of poems is not always understandable in terms of the thesis they are supposed to illustrate. Auden’s “The Shield of Achilles” fits, but “The Willow and the Stare” seems a little out of place. Larkin’s shorter poems fit, but does “Churchgoing”, admirable poem though it is? Moreover, thinking along the lines Mr. Blackburn indicates, one wonders at the absence of work by such explorers as Constantine Trypanis, Terence Tiller, and Norman MacCaig. One also wonders why many of the poems were thought suitable for inclusion, in particular the four quite dreadful poems by John Pudney, who would have served the book better if he had, as a Director of Putnams, devoted his time to seeing that the pages were larger, the print less cramped, and the whole production less sloppily set out.

If Mr. Blackburn deserves castigation for a sloppy job, Miss Jennings must be faulted for her cosiness. Her book (which is garnished with a peculiarly silly dust cover) is, in the main, a thoroughly admirable introduction to both the making and the reading of poetry, and should be in every school library. But it is at times far too cosy and simplified. An almost coy note appears in her voice when she discusses (very properly) some of her own experiences as a poet, and by the time one has reached the last chapter the vast simplifications have piled up so high as almost to disguise the fact that this is really a quite intelligent book. In the section on “Poetry in the Fifties”, however, a more serious flaw appears: the list of poets awarded certificates of contemporaneity is fashionable rather than perceptive. The expected names turn up with mechanical efficiency—Amis, Wain, Davie, Larkin, Gunn, Enright. To these are added Muir, R. S. Thomas, Ted Hughes, Jon Silkin, David Wright, and Jonathan Price. One wonders why poets such as (again) MacCaig, W. S. Graham, Tiller, Fuller, Norman Nicholson, who are now at the height of their powers, and who, in sober fact, published all their best work during the fifties, never seem to get a mention in these surveys. One has many such moments of doubt in this book. (How, for example, dare Miss Jennings refer to the “Eighteenth century calm concern with generalities?” Can she have forgotten about those angry and passionate men?) Still, this is a worthy book, and some of those who listen to Aunt Elizabeth on the Children’s Hour may well be tempted to stay tuned in for the sterner realities of The News.