'FROM ISLAND TO ISLAND'
Extracts from an unpublished autobiography
ALISTAIR TE ARIKI CAMPBELL
Alistair Te Ariki Camp bell was a leading figure in the post-war Literary Society of Victoria Univer sity College which after several 'Broadsheets', published a new literary journal Hilltop in 1949. In these extracts from his unpublished autobiography we approach some of the sources of his poems, especially that of'The Return', his most celebrated single work, first published in Hilltop 2 under the title 'Landscape with Figures'. He also gives us a student's view of life at Victoria, but before coming to Wellington he had 'reluctantly and resentfully' enrolled as a student at Otago University for the 1944 academic year ...
HERE'S AN AIR of unreality The Baxter myth had taken root. man's heroic spirit. Baxter was T about this year I find difficult 'Convoys', not surprisingly, is an spoken of in a wed tones as a to explain. Of course the University immature and uneven poem, prodigy, and all heads would turn itself, the old part in particular to watch him as he shuffled into with the clock tower, is a little view, revolving resonant lines in unreal- pure Disneyland gothic his head. Or so we supposed. in scale and conception. But the More probably he was nursing a unreality I experienced came hang-over, for he was already more from my refusal to come drinking heavily. to terms with university life. He could be found in the Part of my mind was bent on Bowling Green Hotel in the academic life, part rejected it company of two or three because the study required hangers-on, spou ling obscene would be an obstacle to my verses of his own making or writing verse. The result was an relishing the orotundities of impasse which brought me close Yeats or some new discovery to a breakdown later in the year. such as George Barker, rolling But meanwhile James K. the words in his mouth as if he Baxter, who had attended liked the taste. Occasionally I King's High School, arrived on ran into him, with the same the scene. Even then, at the age cronies, in the Silver Grill in the of 18, he had captured the Octagon, his favourite student imagination, and after Alistair Te Ariki Campbe/1, 1953· chophouse. the appearance of his long war time poem 'Convoys' in the Otago showing the influence of C Day By November tensions had become Daily Times he had become famous. Lewis's 'The Nabara', a long intolerable. Alistair decided to quit: Everyone was talking about him. winded tub-thumping tribute to 'I wasn't in a funk. It was more than that.
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Jt was more like a paralysis of the will, a11 d for some time before stumbling on in a 1924 Chevrolet convertible for the might have been a foretaste of my mwtal Penrhyn Island. South Island. breakdown 16 years later'. He resig11ed from the Health Department The Mackenzie country itself was And so in November 1944 I arrived b11t ma11aged to get into the Wellingt011 windswept and strewn with strag in Wellington. I had passed through Teachers Training College and at the same gly trees, and mile after mile of the city before, on my way to stay time enrolled as a studen t at Victoria. He tussock. The road was stony and with Aunt Peg at Onehunga, but I was admitted to th e student hostel Weir awash in places with shallow had never stopped there. Welling- House where he shared a room witl1 Bob wandering streams. There wasn't a ton then was still under the shadow Barraclough who was traiuing to be a town sign of a sheep anywhere, so the of war and crowded with American planner. purposes of the wire fences might servicemen who would soon be almost have been to define the road, shipped out to halt the advance of Our room was on the first floor, to distinguish it from its surround the Japanese in the south-west with a superb view of the city, ings. No sign of a rabbit either, Pacific. Numbers of New Zealand harbour, and the snow-topped although the whole area was troops were also present, and in the Rimutaka Range beyond Lower riddled by their workmanship. nervous climate scuffles broke out, Hutt. On fine still mornings, when Oddly enough, faced by this one of which became a nasty brawl sunlight flooded our rooms, you felt desolation, I felt exhilarated. involving hundreds of men from as if you were suspended in space, Tekapo was enchanting. Against both sides, and later known as the high above the earth. Two of my a backdrop of towering peaks, 'Battle of Manners Street'. closest friends shared rooms on the brown hills plunged softly into a Walking along the narrow same floor, Harry Orsman opposite lake of opal, where, close to shore, a unfamiliar streets, knowing nobody us and Ro y Dickson at the end of fe w tiny islands, tufted with willow, and with little money, I wondered if the corridor, above the common floated in sunlight. A small pub I had made the right decision in room. Next door, in a single room, invited us in to slake our thirst, and shifting here. I began to have my was John Oakley, an older student beyond it the road rose as it passed doubts. During the last three who studied law. I was to see a lot a small clump of pines aromatic in months between dropping out of of him in the coming months. the afternoon sun. After Tekapo university and leaving for Welling Academically, 1945 was a good came the real mountain country. ton, I had begun to take writing year for m e. As a part-time student, The plain narrowed and was deeply verse seriously, and now in the tiny I passed English I and Latin I quite scored by rocky creek beds alive room in the old Boys Institute comfortably. My Latin teacher was with bustling, milky, glacier-fed building which I shared with two Professor Rankine Brown, a noted water The spell of the mountains others, and between the dusty racks but ancient classicist. You would was now pervasive, the air dry, of the Records Office of the Depart have thought he was gaga, but now sharp, and heady. ment of Health, writing was to and then he'd come out with a fl ash Perhaps the most beautiful place rescue me from loneliness and of wit that made you sit up and take we went through was the Lindis boredom. I was then reading notice. His body might have been Pass, which marked the end of the Byron's Don Juan, but I was still failing, but there wasn' t too much Mackenzie Country. I had always w riting verse that owed much to wrong with his mind. My English thought of tussock as pretty unin Keats. It was puerile stuff. Unlike teacher was Professor Ian Cordon, a teresting, but here it was a deep Baxter whose early development first-rate lecturer. golden colour gleaming in the hot showed extraordinary precocity, it sunlight like well-brushed hair. The took me a long time to get my At the end of the year, four Weir Hou se rocks too, the grass, the lichen, the bearings. I was like the skipper who boarders (Bob Barraclough, John Oakley, moss, with their rich texture of had to sail backwards and forwards Ray Dickson and Alistair Campbell) set out greens and browns, and greys
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Frie11ds n11d fellow Weir House boarders, 1945, clockwise from above, Geoff Dntso11, Cordon Orr, Roll Trotter, Bill 0/iver, Harry Orsmnn, and Pat Wilson.
completed the effect that was little Te Anau, the Eglinton Valley, Camp others wanted to go on, even short of magical. Marian at the head of the Hollyford though it was raining and close to Next day I climbed the moun Valley, and beyond to Milford nightfall. We were ill-prepared for tain again, and this time alone, Sound. Freezing cold air can have a such an expedition, and I can recall pausing halfway for a breather. It strange effect on the mind. our amusement at the incongruous was another beautiful day. The lake Camp Marian under Mt sight of John in a suit, hopping was placid, the mountains stood Christina was a collection of Public along a road as rough as a creek tall, competing with their reflec Works huts, unoccupied at the time bed, cursing the sole of one of his tions, then round the corner came of our visit. The mist was low, and shoes, which had become unstuck, the Enmslnw no bigger than a child's only the lower flanks of the moun and flapped when he raised his foot. toy. When she berthed at the wharf tain were visible, its granite surface The approach to the Homer below, I felt I could reach down and smooth and gleaming in the half Tunnel was awe-inspiring. Sheer pick her up. A little later I stood at light. From every side came differ mountains hung above us on both the summit. It was Christmas Eve. I ent sounds of water, splashing, sides. On our left a forest had been was looking across at the murmuring, singing- and the light laid waste by avalanches, leaving Remarkables, thinking about seemed to be dancing too, as it fell jagged stumps, while on our right poetry, when I had the feeling I had on rocks, tree trunks, and flowing the infant Hollyford River tumbled it in me to write good poems, water. noisily in its rocky bed. An ava although I had written nothing so A decision had to be made, and lanche cover-way that had pro far I could be proud of. It was as that snapped me out of my reverie. truded some distance from the exhilarating as taking in a lungful of Should we camp here for the night? tunnel mouth had also been swept cold mountain air. The feeling Or press on to Milford Sound fifteen away. stayed with me all the way to Lake miles away? I was for staying, the I suppose we were foolhardy to
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walk through the tunnel on which Art and Literature, and it was a Weir House, I had the good fortune all work had been suspended relief to have [my brother] Stuart's to get to know some of the best because of the war. It was unlined, gratuity, w hich enabled me to give minds of m y generation: P.S. and m urmurous with the different my mind to them without being Wilson, W.H. Mabbett, W.H. Oliver, sounds of water, and from the distracted by money worries. Of my G.E. Datson, G.S. Orr, A.C. Moore, rubble lying throughout on the floor University teachers, it is Professor and H.W. Orsman. it was prone to rock falls. But we H.A. Murray that I remember with got through safely enough, and special warmth. He wasn't an The old daemon s, however, returned and were lucky to find a hut near the exuberant teacher like his fellow Scot Alistair jettisoned his fo ur subjects one by tunnel mouth where we dossed Professor Ian Cordon. He was a one, leaving only Latin III. But even here down for the night. scholarly man, quiet and retiring, he was pursued and a few days before finals but there was never any question of fled to Ounedin: '1 couldn't explain to On n subsequent southern expedition Ray his ability to inspire in his students myself why I was there. Perhaps I was Dickson was to lose his life in tragic a love of the classics. He had his looking for the lost thread of childhood that circtwtstnnces . detractors who thought him sombre wo uld lead me out of the Minota 11 r's den'. and suspicious, but I never found Together with another student, he him so. He could be aloof and stiff, Still uncertain of my plans, I sought was swep t to his death by a snow because he was shy and even refuge in the Dunedin Public slide while climbing with a student diffident, but he would always Library where, as a high school boy party in the Southern Alps. As Weir unbend when I visited him in his and a university student, I had House had temporarily closed study after a lecture. These informal spent many happy hours browsing down over the Christmas break sessions, during which he talked among the romantic poets - because of staffing problems, I was freely about the Roman author we Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and staying in a bed-and-breakfast were reading at the time, Tacitus, Shelley- and it was there I sud private hotel in Boulcott Street, Virgil, Horace, and Pliny the denly came to my senses. For the when I heard the news. For months Younger, were among the most fi rst time in weeks the fog rolled off afterwards, the horror of his death rewarding of my university experi my mind, and I knew I had no a large rock had been driven ences. choice but to return to Wellington through his stomach - and the loss I was interested in his impres and face the music. With this of his bod y down a crevasse, as the sions of A.E. Housman, a poet I had decision came such a sense of relief stretcher party was bringing it out, long admired, some of whose that I became carefree and light haunted my dreams .... These are lectures he had attended as a young hearted. the events which led me to write my man. He told me Housman was a But there was no time to lose. If I 'Elegy'. It was to the Hollyford Valley demanding lecturer, and a great caught the next express to Christ my imagination turned first for classical scholar, feared for the church, which connected with the images to convey my sense of loss: ferocity of his attacks on slipshod Lyttelton ferry, I would arrive back work by his contemporaries in the in Wellington on the very morning The shattered cliff's sheer field of classical scholarship. One of of my first Latin paper. I reserved Face spurts myriads the mysteries about Housman is my seat on the train, then returned Of waterfalls, like tears that he spent almost 30 years to the library to review the state of From some deep-bowed head editing an incredibly dull poem on my studies. I had put a lot of work Whose colossal grief is stone . . . astrology by M. Manilius, an into the O des of Horace and the Douglas Lilburn later composed a obscure Latin poet. Professor A n nals of Tacitus, and if I were to fine setting of these poems. Murray didn't particularly care for spend the remaining available time, My subjects for 1946 were Latin Housman's poems. in the library, on the train, and even Il, English II, and Greek History, During the three years I was at on the ferry, on Terence's Phormia,
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which I had barely looked at, I with my poems. I had found no The clocks had ceased their chiming would have a fair chance of passing. model I could profit from. I had And the deep river ran on. But it wasn't going to be easy, read W.H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, When Auden wrote 'I think that because Phormia was a play, much Step hen Spender and Cecil Day poetry is fundamentally frivolity. of it in idiomatic language. Lewis, but I coU:!d never write like do it because I like it', he may have I found an edition in the refer them, although I tried to in a only been half-serious, but he could ence library upstairs, and was about number of unsuccessful poems. have cited this poem as an example to return to my chair when I saw a Politically conscious verse with its of what he meant. I consider 'The copy of WB Yeats's Last Poems on empty rhetoric, such as Spender Shield of Achilles' one of the great the display table. Yeats had never wrote, was not for me. He was a poems of the language. greatly appealed to me before. I had sensitive writer, but there was a Which brings me back to Yeats, made several attempts to get inside softness in him that was reflected in and my excitement at discovering his verse, and each time had been his weak rhythms, imprecise him. Here was a poet, I felt I could disappointed, I couldn't understand imagery, and self-pitying tone. learn from. It was poetry with sharp what all the fuss was about. I had MacNeice was altogether better, imagery that left clear pictures in encountered his poems mainly in although I wearied of his bright the mind, subtle rhythms, and the anthologies which leaned to the language, Irish wit, and sprightly language of everyday speech, earlier soft-centred favourites, like tone. But his 'Bagpipe Music' still heightened by powerful emotions. the ubiquitous 'The Lake Isle of remains a favourite. Day Lewis's For years afterwards Yeats was Innesfree' and 'The Man Who early verse, showing deference to to haunt my imagination, some Dreamed of Fairyland', which I had Auden 'Look west, Auden, lone times making it difficult to speak in studied in English I under Professor flyer, birdman, bully boy' -is my own voice- as some critics were Go· don, so I was curious to learn embarrassing, but his later poems only too happy to point out. how his last poems shaped up. I indicate he had learnt much from And so, with Yeats singing in picked up the book and began Thomas Hardy, as had Baxter some my veins, and my nose in the reading- and Terence was immedi years later. T.S. Eliot, whose verse I library copy of Phormia, I made it ately blown away. admired, clearly had no time for safely back to Wellington, not Lewis's verse, and this may have Who quarrels over halfpennies without some distraction from a been largely because he despised That plucks the trees for bread? couple of barmen on holiday, who him as a womaniser. What shall! do for pretty girls shared a cabin with me, as well as a Auden's verse I loved, especially Now my old bawd is dead? couple of cartons of beer and a the early lyrics, and this may bottle of whisky. I had been lying This was a new experience, passion surprise some readers familiar with on one of the upper bunks, trying to ate and direct. Where was the my poem, 'Memo to Mr Auden', in study by the rather weak light by dreamy Yeats of the Celtic twilight? which I attack him for his heartless my pillow, when one of the barmen As I read on, it seemed that Yeats ness. I particularly like the ballad, said, 'Shit, mate, you'll go blind was showing me how poems should 'As I Walked out One Evening' with readin' in the dark. Must be a be written, in a language that was its extravagant and playful imagery. cracker book'. bare and hard -edged as the hills of The years shall run like rabbits 'I've got an exam tomorrow'. Central Otago: For in my arms I hold 'A student, eh? Thought so. Why Because I am n1ad about women The Flower of the Ages, not take a break, and join us for a I am mad about the hills, And first love of the world drink?'. Said the wild old wicked man At first I refused, then I thought, Who travels where God wills . 'What the hell!'. I had made a lot of It was late, late in the evening headway with the Phormia, but I still Up till now I was dissatisfied The lovers they were gone
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had some distance to go. I can't without a word to my story, and in bookshops, and he never failed to absorb much more. I'll just have to then gently pointed out the great come up to me and inquire about hope that the questions are taken concern I had caused the matron my poetry. from the first half of the book. It's through my thoughtlessness, and In matters of poetry I was closer too late to worry now . So I joined made me promise to come and see to Pat Wilson than to any other the jolly barmen, and just before him if ever I needed help or advice. member of the Wellington group. midnight crashed into my bunk. He then wished me well in my We used to discuss poetry, in Next morning, elated and a little studies, and said he would look out particular, prosody until the cows tipsy, I sat my first came home, driving our paper, and over the girlfriends up the wall. I following fortnight the can recall Douglas other two papers as Lilburn's amusement well, and then put HILLTOP over the solemn way we them completely out of used to discuss the A Literary Magazine. my mind. I had mysteries of our craft. already passed my Fresh from my study of test, and success in the In the Tunnel P.J. Wilson ) Latin verse, the odes of Gicl• H~v• to Suffer Oavid Ballantyne 7 examination, which Maurkc Bagley 18 Horace, I had the simple In the Be~ti n n ing Frank McGorm H was published in due The God• Dunnd John Mano~cld 27 belief that a poet should Tra"'l.,ion course, could only Twenrie
I had never met the olrh~j!k pKblirhc
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In tile Sllllllller ofi948-49lze went with Back in Wellington, John M. international success: friends fruit picking in Central Otago: Thomson, Lorna Clendon, and Pat I travel'd thro' the Land of Men, Wilson were busy planning a A Land of Men & women too I was then working on my EleiJlj, a literary magazine, and John had And heard & saw such dreadful set of poems commemorating the w ritten to me at Clyde, asking me if things death of Roy Dickson, and I com I could suggest a suitable title for it. As cold Earth wanderers never posed some of the I yrics while Pat, who was working on his knew. picking fruit. I particularly recall doctoral thesis, on Blake, favoured 'Now He is Dead', the Christopher's Paper, second in the sequence, as a title, reflected Pat's because, when a storm puckish and rather caused work in the private sense of hu orchard to be aban mour, but it would have doned, I retired to my meant little to the hut, and w rote the uninitiated. For my part words down before I I could think of nothing forgot them. By then more resonant than the worst of the storm Notornis, from a bird had moved away, that had recently been leaving the gentle rediscovered, and was patter of rain as a much in the news. creative distraction. Sporting a beard and I have read that with a pocketful of Indian poets find the poems, I returned to monsoon season Wellington by way of especially congenial for Naseby, to find that the w riting verse. That's question of the title had how rain used to affect been settled - Hilltop. I me, and how it affected was appalled. For a the Welsh poet Edward magazine that was to Thomas: make a breakthrough for the rising generation of Rain, midnight rain, New Zealand writers, it nothing but the wild was singularly inept. Pat rain who was then in On this bleak hut, and Tile cover of Hilltop 2 (Vol11me 1 N 11mber 2), j11ne 1949, Tauranga disliked it as solitude, featllring a drawing by John Drawbridge. much as I. It was John and me who explained to me, in Remembering again that I shall die Christopher's Paper after the patron some embarrassment, how the title .. . and die he did, in the Great War, saint of travellers. I suspect he had come about. He had discussed a terrible loss to literature. Who identified the writer with the the problem with !an Gordon, doesn't like Iying in bed in the p rotagonist of Blake's richly Professor of English at Victoria, darkness, listening to rain on the symbolic poem 'The Mental Travel who thought Christopher's Paper roof, preferably a tin roof? It's like ler', which Joyce Carey had used to sounded too precious, and would being in the womb of mother such marvellous effect in his novel put people off. 'I want to see you nature. The Horse's Mo11th, then enjoying succeed'. He got up and took down
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a volume of Donne's poems, and this Day', and 'Easily you Move'). of the editorial committee interested quickly leafed through the pages. have never republished them. in a particular writer- John 'I think I have the very title for Our editorial policy was to Mansfield Thomson, for example, you,' he said. 'Listen to this. It's publish the best work we received. wrote a perceptive review of a novel from "Satire Ill'": Occasionally, we would solicit by a rising American novelist, certain established writers, such as Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other On a huge hill, Rooms. Cragged, and steep, Although Hilltop was Truth stands, and hee published by the Literary that will Society of Victoria Univer Reach her, about must, sity College, we wanted it and about must goe; to be known that it wasn't a And what the hill's student magazine. As we suddennes resists, put it in a brief editorial winne so. note, 'It exists for all writers 'Why not Hilltop?', he in New Zealand and said. And Hilltop it was outside'. I was perhaps the -God damn it! We least engaged of the editors, learned to live with it, and while I was happy to and even developed an offer an opinion on any affection for it, which work shown me, I tended to survived the first leave final decisions to the tentative issue, whose others. My shortcomings as appearance, as Roy an editor have always come Parsons unkindly from the priority I place on observed, was all too my verse. redolent of a parish Hilltop was to be an magazine. He little alternative to Landfall, knew that the galleys which we considered stuffy had been pasted up on and academic, favouring the pages of The New the work of the so-called Zealand Undertakers Caxton poets Curnow, Magazine which served Glover, Fairburn, and the as the dummy. By rest- whose preoccupation The cover of the new revised edition of Alistair Campbel/'s comparison James with what Curnow was to Mine eyes Dazzle, Pegasus Press, Christc11llrch, 1956, Bertram was generous describe as 'the New with jacket de sig11 by Geoffrey Nees. to Hilltop, describing it Zealand, the real thing', in his article 'Literary struck us as provincial and Periodicals' in Spike 1954, 'one of Baxter and David Ballantyne, for a limiting. To us the international the most interesting experimental poem or a short story, but generally scene was just as relevant as the journals put out at a university we let it be known that we were in local one, and to exclude it from our college in New Zealand'. Of my business, and were interested in concerns could only diminish us as own poems, which numbered eight, good original writing and wait for it writers. We looked on our seniors as four were of a poor quality to come in. As we had little money adversaries, determined to belittle ('Evening through the Gorge', 'The to pay reviewers, most of the our efforts, and bring us into Girl in the Library', 'I Remember reviewing was done by one or other ridicule by charging us with 'easy
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publication'. However, it was more lacked precision and incisiveness, have admitted that it was a feather than a clash of values or taste: essential in such writing. in one's cap to appear in Landfall. certain writers in the opposing Nevertheless, we didn't hesitate John Mansfield Thomson was a Auckland and Wellington camps to send Landfall some of our best slightly built, thoughtful young detested each other, and refused to work, for example, Bill Oliver sent man, with fair hair already thin concede that anyone who was not a his 'In the Fields of my Father's ning, a fine sensitive face, troubled personal friend could in repose, and a jolly sense produce work of lasting of fun. He was more Pat value. Wilson's friend than mine. What conclusions can But over the years we The Return have become close friends. one draw? The fault lay And again I see the long pouring headland, on both sides. Our And smoking coast with the sea high on the rocks, More recently he became The gulls flung from the sea, the wooded hills seniors lacked generosity Swarming with mist, and mist low on the sea. respected in the musical and we lacked respect for And on the surf-loud beach the long spent hulks, world as the founding The mats and splintered masts, and fires k.ind1ed what they had achieved. On the wet sand, and men moving between the fires, editor of the influential Standing or crouching with backs to the sea. It is a commonplace that periodical Early Music, Their bads finely shrunken to a skull, small young writers, hungry to And delic01.te, with small black rotmded beaks; London, 1973-83, and the Their antique bird-like chatter bringing to mind make their mark, tend to Wild locusts, bees, and trees filled with wild honey leading writer on New be dismissive of the -And sweet as incense-clouds, the smoke rising, the fire Zealand music. His Spitting with rain, and mist low with rain- previous generation, who Their great eye!!. glowing, their rain-jewelled, leaf-green numerous books, written Bodies leaning and talking with the sea behind them: in turn are equally in elegant prose, include Plant gods, tree god:s, gods of the middle world. Face dismissive of their efforts. downward The Oxford History of New And in a snull ~reek-mouth all unperceived, As the American novelist The drow· ted Dionysw, sand in his eyes and mouth, Zealand Music (1991). John In th •· , .1 tide lolling-beautiful, and with the last John Upu nites: 'I h~rsh was the most committed know now Ltat the Glare of divinity from lip and broad brow ebbing . of our editors. I sometimes The long-awaited I And the gulls passing over with literary scene is a kind of shrill crie!!.; had the feeling that he And the fire!!. going out on the thundering sand; Medusa's raft [Raft of the And the mist, and the mist moving over the land. was the on! y true profes Medusa, a painting by sional among us. Theodore Gericault], For the first issue, John small and sinking, and and the editorial commit one's instinct when a tee organised an impres newcomer tries to sive line-up of writers, clamber aboard is to including committee stamp on his fingers'. members and poets Pat Facsimile of 'The Return' as published in the But was Landfall as Wilson and Bill Oliver, new revised edition of Mine Eyes Da zzle, 1956. stuffy and academic as fiction writer David This 'final' version was further revised when republished in we claimed? Some of its Ballantyne and P.J. Pocket Collected Poems (Hazard, 1996!. leading reviewers and Wilson, and poets James critics were university K. Baxter and Louis teachers, who were stuffy when Youth', Baxter his 'Poem in the Johnson, a newcomer to our ranks. they wrote to impress fellow Matukituki Valley', and I my Baxter's arrival in Wellington in academics, or when they genu 'Elegy'. 1949 was especially welcome, flected too readily to the established Even Johnson, who did more because he was the one writer writers. Charles Brasch's editorials than any of us to encourage young acceptable to all sides. The maga sometimes fell short of being writers, and who jokingly spoke of zine was planned, edited, and effective, because his prose often Brasch as Auntie Charles, would prepared for the printer at 301
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Willis Street, which became for a Hilltop was first to read it, was Pacific islands', and so replacing while the group's headquarters. excited by it, as was Hubert 'the alien individualistic repre John shared the house with various Witheford after him. On publication sented in this poem by Dionysus'. people, including the painter Hugh it immediately became popular, and In his review of my collection of Mason, who had also been at has remained the most admired of poems entitled Wild Honey in Nelson College, and the historian my poems, overshadowing later Comment 6, No 2, 1965, James and 'King of Quiz' Jim Winchester. works some of which I consider as Bertram makes some interesting It was a meeting place, not only for good. Douglas Lilburn, New remarks on 'The Return': 'I don't Wellington writers, but also for Zealand's leading composer, set it think anyone could explain this writers passing through, such as to powerful and evocative sound poem, or would want to: it has Keith Sinclair. David Ballantyne imagery, which has been recorded something to do with migrations, once lived there, as did !an Cross. with Tim Eliot as reader. with men and gods, in a Pacific What is the poem trying to say? setting; the setting is clearly real In its second issue, Hilltop published Rather than reveal any secrets, I ised, the figures are figures in a Alistair's 'Landscape with Figures', later shall quote Baxter in his paper, dream?' re-titled' The Return'. 'Symbolism in New Zealand He continues: '"The Return" . Poetry': 'The images, like many of is a purely magical poem, which I remember the time I wrote 'The Camp bell's have an almost halluci (one is tempted to think) only Return'. It was a close rainy night. natory force. The Polynesian gods someone of mixed European and was coming off duty in the ward [at and demigods have returned from Polynesian descent could have Mowai home where he worked as the sea (Jung would say the collec written: the kind of poem these an orderly], when the first lines tive unconscious); the falling rain is islands had been waiting for'. came into my head. I sat at my a symbol of their regeneration; their table, and with the rain rustling on bodies are "leaf-green", a symbol of the roof, I quickly wrote the first the energy of the unconscious mind A LIST AIR TE ARIKI CAMPBELL was draft, which was published in ... Camp bell uses Greek mythology born in Rarotonga on 25 June 1925, the Hilltop 2. The final version appeared also- Dionysus (perhaps in another son of John Archibald Campbell, a in my first book of verse, Mine Eyes role, Eliot's drowned Phoenician third-generation New Zealander from Dazzle. sailor) lies submerged, a mysterious Dunedin who became secretary of the Many influences went towards figure in this con text, Cook Islands Trading Company, and the making of this poem: my own "unperceived" perhaps the Teu (nee Bosini), a Polynesian family of Polynesian roots, canoe voyaging Dionysiac self which must die in chiefly origins. Both his parents died remembered in the blood, the dark order that the gods may return'. early and the orphaned four children myths and sculptures of Egypt and Baxter often had recourse to spent several years of their childhood in Polynesia, the Bible, Greek myths, Jung in analysing poems, and here, a Dunedin orphanage. He attended certain poems by Keats, D.H. as so often, he is both tantalising Otago Boys High School where he Lawrence, Ezra Pound, and the and illuminating. J.E.P. Thomson, succeeded academically and in sports. wilder aspects of the New Zealand former university teacher, is also to Besides several volumes of poems he has coast. So much I can suggest, but the point in his 'Note on Alistair written four novels. His Pocket how or why elements from these Campbell's "The Return'" in the Collected Poems of 1996 is his most sources came together and fused Journal of New Zealand Literature 1, recent attempt at a complete survey of dramatically to become a poem is a 1983: 'The poem, I think we may his poetic oeuvre, and has an important mystery I can't explain. agree, embodies a vision of Polyne introduction by Roger Robinson. I was surprised and delighted by sian powers returning to take its reception. John, who as editor of possession again of these south
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