As Andy Kenna points out in his excellent notes, Salt Water Ballads when it was first published in 1902 was received with mixed reviews. Some critics thought the poems were "...vulgar and lacked poetic quality while others commended them for their insight into the seafarer's life and a haunting quality which belied their apparent simplicity."

Kenna actually got permission to set the poems he recorded to music from the Society of Authors as Literary Representatives of the Estate of John Masefield. The Society maintains a website for John Masefield which I'll provide a link to later when I get my new computer tomorrow and regain control over important aspects of my so-called life.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble