1970 Arts Festival Yearbook

Edited by Arthur Bates.

Price 50 cents.

This yearbook was disappointing. The contributors were on the whole well known and few of the contributions were either extraordinarily good or bad.

The quote from Humbert "O my Lolita, I have only words to play with" is applicable not only to Murray Edmonds, but also to Dennis List and Norman Bilbrough. Their poems are disjointed and do not convey anything in their entirety.

Several of the poems are very simple yet effective. These were Brian Turner's "Mirror, mirror on the wall." and Brent Southgate's "Studies".

Many of the contributors are clever but little else because the connotations they hold for the author, do not convey the same thing to the majority of the readers. Russell Halley however has managed to avoid this in "Hoardings" and manages to convey the contemporary power figure.

"Commissioner Gerder in his heat sealed vinyl suit with disposable hands and removable feet never forgetting the disposable head."

The best poems in the yearbook are Jim Horgan's "Palendromes" in poetic form, and "Kingseat/My Song; 1969". Both these poets know the meaning of words and demonstrate it in their poems.

Of the prose lkey Robinson's "It Goes" conveys most, though it is more poetry than prose.

The standard of writing is fair, but little of it is very promising and little of it is distinctly New Zealand. Most of it could have been written by Americans.