The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-03-30
LONDON'S LATEST
LION IS HELSTON
Round of Dinners for Ex-
Mechanic, Now a Poet
TELLS OF FEELINGS
Goes Down to Oxford on Bicycle
Where College Youths Make Much
of Him-Writes Sonnet for
Their Paper

London. March %. Especial )-Since
London discovered and began TO lionize
it's new poet, John Helston, ex-mechanie,
has lived in whirl. A dinner was given
in his honor few days ago BY Austin
Harrison, editor of The English Re
view." to which many celebrities We're
invited, Including May Sinclair. Maurice
Hewlett, Arnold Bennett and others Of
London's innermost literary elect. Then
Hewlett carried him off to another din
ner at his own beautiful house. and then
Miss Sinclair took him in hand for a
little dinner at which the poet turned up
two hours late because he had lost the
address. BY the time there wasn't any
thing left except cold chicken and Ezra
Pound, the American poet.
It's like this" said the new lion in
recounting his experiences. It'll three
weeks, ago, when the newspapers began
to print articles about me-bally rot It
was, toe, most of it'll wasn't used to this
kind of food i was more used to heat
ing my dinner on shovel Kind, | call
it, awfully kind they all are to me. Lady
Margaret Sackville. she's read every line
I've ever done and a lot of 1t was rot.
and she said so, and | chucked it. But
some of the things they said was ro,
wasn't rot, and I knew 1t, and that part
wouldn't chuck, no not if Shakespeare
himself came up to me and said it was
rot
Last week Helston was invited to OK
ford. and it is to the everlasting credit
of the Oxford youths that they treated
| him like man and brother, and didn't
at all mind the fact that he came down
| all the way from London on his bicycle
and turned up wet and muddy. They kept
him for two days and gave him a royal
time, and in return he gave them SON
\ net to print in their university paper
Isis They knew he hadn't any money,
and they wanted to pay him for it. but
| he wouldn't accept it. They treated
him white he said, "and | wanted to
showNI could appreciate it," As it hap
pens, that sonnet was a radiantly lovely
| thing, that will probably make the March
number of '1sis" worth its weight in
silver, and maybe gold, to future collec-
| tors.
Helston is rather indignant at the
stories that have been told to the effect
| that he was a bricklayer and a day
laborer. Il was a mechanic he said,
| proudly, land there wasn't much of any
| kind of machinery / wasn't good at
from cutting screws to thousandth OF
an inch to working at locomotive build
ing. But / wasn't an educated man till
[ took myself in hand and educated my
self in the last three years. Even now
I haven't read more than third of
Shakespeare and not much Browning.
and not very much else in poetry. But
biology I'm keen on. You see [ trance
a parallel between physical and psychi-
cal evolution. Swinburne was one of my
idols. I never talked to the old chap, but
I used to see him most every morning
walking up Wandsworth common, and
just loved him. He was a poet, he
was, and SO was Keats. 1t would take
$1,000 Kiplings to make just one Keats.
Since the publication of his long and
gorgeous poem. "Aphrodite at Leather
head in the March number of 1.-The En-
glish Review Helston has been beset by
interviewers, and editors and publishers
His first volume of verse is to appear in
a few months, and his first novel is to
come out soon also. OF this novel he OBJ
serves "Crilkey, / used up a whole die
tionary writing that thing. BY the time
I'd finished it there wasn't enough left
of that old dictionary of mine to make
a decent grease spot Now he has a sec
ond novel nearly ready, and hopes to be
able to support himself on his pen in the
future.