Un Refus. Poem by Michael Walker

Allen Curnow and James K. Baxter are two of New Zealand's best known poets even today. At first Curnow was like a mentor to the younger Baxter and they were close friends and colleagues. Then they quarrelled and fell out, permanently. Each was too proud to speak to the other ever again. That is why Allen Curnow refuses to give a reading of Baxter's poems at the Memorial Service in Christchurch. Curnow still uses the familiar 'Jim' to address Baxter but the last two lines are harsh indeed: 'Winged words need no crutch, / and I've none for you'.
Allen Curnow was one of my lecturers at Auckland in 1963. He lectured on Robert Browning's poetry, and I owe my lifelong interest in Browning to him. Although it some fifty years ago, I still remember Mr. Curnow very clearly.