the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Tom Scott : On my 21st Birthday

'Tom Scott came in, bringing a typed copy of his lengthy poem, "On my 21st Birthday". Much of this modern verse is unintelligible to me - and, naturally, much of this particular sample of it is too intimate in incident for general understanding. Scott also brought a couple of poems by his pal George Fraser. There is a ninetyish quality about the verse of these young moderns - but with a difference; the self-conscious daring is not in the carnality but in the technique: this gives their poetry a hardness which cuts through sentimentality but also shears away something of humankindness.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: William Soutar      Manuscript: Sheet

Tom Scott : [poems]

'At half past one Tom Scott strode in, having come home from West Africa: very little change in him after his two years in the tropics. Brought some poems for me to look over with a critical eye. Much experimentation in his verse in English; his solitary poem in Scots, and his first, exhibited the chief fault of all the younger school: many of the words haven't passed through the blood and imagination; they remain counters and are often set into the wrong context.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: William Soutar      Manuscript: Unknown

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