THREE MERIDIANS by Geoffrey DraytonReview by: R. B. LE PAGECaribbean Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1951/1952), p. 45Published by: University of the West Indies and Caribbean QuarterlyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40652495 .

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Reviews THREE MERIDIANS- Geoffrey Drayton (Toronto, Ryerson Press, 1950-51)

Geoffrey Drayton is the son of a Barba- dian sugar-planter. He graduated at Cam- bridge and is now a master at Ashbury College, Ottawa. This pamphlet, one of the Ryerson poetry chap-books, contains thir- teen short poems, many of which have already appeared in the West Indian maga- zine Bim, or have been broadcast by the B.B.C.

Th3 dominant note of the poems is that of exile, of nostalgia for the sights and sounds of boyhood. The dominant images are those which, in many West Indian poets and painters, epitomise the Caribbean - images of heat and flame, of vivid colour- ing, of blood, bright flowers and the sun. Are these images all a true reflection in the seeing eye of the poet? Or are they a half- conscious convention of revolt against the present conventional greys and sombre shades of the artists of temperate latitudes? The latter is to a certain extent true of the South African poet, Roy Campbell, whose violent colours and violent actions are part of a violent reaction against the tepid quality he finds in the work of his English contemporaries; a reaction also from over- subtlety to over-simplification.

Mr. Drayton' s dreams of his home are drenched with sunshine, they have the lyri- cal qualities of the travel posters, yet he himself half-formulates the question which occurs to the reader: "What other aspects of West Indian life might strike him more forcibly if he returned ?" :

At the rise of the summer I shall go back;

And I shall know again The places that my dreams keep

fresh- The faces wreathed in green shadows, Where the flowers flame and bleed in

the dark- The frangipani, harlot-scented. And scarlet hibiscus, drunk with

sun .... But the faces, the faces . . . Will they be warm to touch, And groping fingers find a grasp Sincere in welcome as goodbye?"

He himself is aware of the dangers of see- ing and accepting with an unseeing eye, of translating immediately all he sees into con- ventional imagery. In Letter from the Gati- neau he says:

... I sometimes think we look too often

And familiarly at nature's archi- tecture ....

Dismissing as a tree What, growing downwards from a

porcelain sky, Would gain particularity of shape

and hue.

There are occasional apparent confusions of thought, as in the second and third stanzas of the opening poem, To the Poets of the Caribbean, where the third stanza, forcibly recalling the second by similarities of reference, appears to contradict the advice it gives:

"Beware those lips hibiscus-stained With blood of her too-potent love; Fevered their touch, like desert suns, Yet thirsting where their lips make

drought. (In this first stanza also, the recurrence of their in the fourth line is confusing, since its subject, the desert suns, is different from that of their in the third line, the lips.)

No less her priesthood than her love Forswear. The moon of madness has Set seal upon her acolyte, And lipped his words with idiot

froth. Approach as to a throne, bend knee, Pay hooded compliment, perhaps Receive, in token of caprice, A flower, gaudily inscribed.

In general the poems are refreshing, descrip- tive of sights, sounds and emotions. The poet has considerable ability as a draughts- man in what is primarily a painter's mode of expression; his feeling for outline and rhythm is good. The fact that most of the poems remain pleasant trifles, well- sketched, well-executed, perhaps indicates Mr. Drayton' s limitations.

R. B. LE PAGE

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