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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington N.Z. Vol. 11, No. 1. February 27, 1948

[Introduction]

When Salient went to press ten years ago, its aim was "to link the University more closely to the realities of the world." The realities referred to were in the main the political realities—Franco and Spain, China and Japan, the submergence of Austria and Czechoslovakia in Greater Germany; at home, capitalism and M. J. Savage, Uncle Scrim, Aunt Daisy, and free speech. There was a smell of burning from the first fires that heralded the great conflagration, and writers hastened to send out last-minute warnings before the ship became a blazing wreck.

In the circumstances one would not have been surprised to find a parallel poetic "realism" in vogue. Certainly the Phoenix Club read a paper on Realism, and offered ten shillings for the best essay on "The Relation of Poetry And Politics." But except for attempts like—

On and grinding on the train
Like a lurching drunkard
Sweating soot . . .

and some of RLM's. the poets kept crying for the moon, or languishing in lush alliterations. The cynics were affectedly world-weary, light humour almost invariably had the heavy touch, even simple thoughts were dressed in ponderous and overdone language, and often an oblique [unclear: nssn] at realism took the form of cocky satire or clever, clever verse. RLM is rhyming couplets-

Now Henrietta was a hen
Of penetrating ac-u-men ...

Probably the editors did believe that the poet should be relating knowledge and social action, commenting on the lives of people busy in a city or on an island, striving to order our values and interpret our moods: but an editor who receives no copy cannot maintain a policy. In July 1939 the editor complains. "No staff has ever had to face such tremendous difficulties, due to the almost complete lack of support from the [unclear: colvc] as a whole. Contributions have been almost non-existent in spite of almost superhuman efforts to secure them. But in the next sentence we read that The literary merit of the contributions has been unusually high"—a statement that obtains no [unclear: eonAmwtlon] from this reviewer. There were no poets, and those who might have been tempted to contemplate their [unclear: navel] were hushed by the threat of war.