Murder and mysteries of church

By PENELOPE BIEDER

Kendrick Smithyman: Last Poems

The Holloway Press

$65

Maurice Duggan: Selected Poems: A Voice for the Minotaur

The Holloway Press

$100

Two volumes in limited and numbered editions of 150 copies pay handsome tribute to two New Zealand poets from the same generation. Both Duggan and Smithyman were born in 1922 but Duggan died at the early age of 53 in 1975, with Smithyman's 50-year career ending in 1995.

Maurice Duggan gained notice as a short story writer but his poems were never collected and published in his lifetime. While some in this collection have appeared in literary journals and the Listener, for many of the poems it is their first outing.

A Voice for the Minotaur is edited by Ian Richards, author of To Bed at Noon, a biography of Duggan, and the poems reflect Duggan's ferocious intelligence, his passionate intensity and that most powerful emotion - ironic despair. He railed against the unpredictable shape of his life - and the lives of those he loved. In a succinct foreword Richards tells us Duggan struggled with depression, alcoholism and a mid-life love affair where he tortured himself over his treatment of both his wife and lover.

Just when he had vanquished alcoholism he learned he had the cancer that was to eventually kill him. His awareness of the brutally brief time he had presents itself in his later poetry with an intense immediacy, unlike some of the earlier work which is betrayed by a stylistic overkill which feels almost fusty now.

What is never overwhelmed by style, however, are the workings of a fine mind, someone completely unafraid of self-analysis, and Duggan's poems are a rich and valuable addition to the legacy of his prose, far more than a historical curiosity.

Smithyman's Last Poems consists of 37 poems written between 1992 and his death in 1995, only a few of which have been previously published. As with Duggan the literary allusions are wide-ranging, from Emily Dickinson to Dylan Thomas to Raymond Chandler. They reveal a poet reverberating with life into his 70s, determined to mine every joy to be found, whether it is celebrating a colleague's birthday, recalling a childhood memory or reflecting on a rather startling painting by Stanley Spencer.

Unlike Duggan, Smithyman published 12 volumes of poetry during his long career and this last volume stands up well with his finest work. Four pages of notes by Peter Simpson appear at the end. Both books are superbly designed and printed by Tara McLeod.

Holloway Press books are available from Parsons Bookshop or can be ordered from The Holloway Press, English Department, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland.

* Jack Leigh is an Auckland reviewer; Penelope Bieder is a freelance writer.