Last night it was real honour to read poems as The Curnow Reader at the Going West Literary Festival. I also got to hear Charlotte Grimshaw give her eloquent key-note address. She managed to link the sewer pipe of her childhood, the architecture and complexities of Albert Speer and her fiction. The sewer pipe was not just a physical object cutting through the bay, something to walk and even ride a bike on, it was a bridge to an imaginative and psychological elsewhere as much as it was a bridge to a physical elsewhere. She used to go for long walks in the city when she was bored (from Parnell to Avondale say) and the buildings became not-buildings, but topographical markers that prompted different, psychological meanings. What I loved about this talk, is the way it opened up the Charlotte’s fiction; it cast it in a new light. It strengthened the sense of layers in her writing. Layers that draw in politics along with narrative (a novel, she says, must be colourful, a good page turner, but also have ideas buried down the engine room. It is also clear that her fiction, and fiction in general, must have some kind of empathy, and that is exactly what Charlotte delivers.

Bob Harvey drew us in to his autobiography with the help of a slide show. It was very moving, nostalgic even, as he drew you into the heart of his life and of politics. It seems to me that we have so much to protest about at the moment, so much that seems vulnerable (The School Journal, our private lives, our heritage, the freedom for children to learn through play and take risks, those that cannot afford to feed their families, the land and the sea). Charlotte also said that it is important that fiction asks the right questions (not necessarily providing answers). After hearing Bob I drove home wondering how our politicians are serving us today.

Today, at 11.15,  Peter Bland and I are conversing and traversing our topic: Here comes that childhood pond again. We are talking about the world of childhood and poetry in general.

Then at 5pm the magnificent Tusiata Avia will perform some of her poetry. I would love to see Auckland poets show their support of this Christchurch star and come and listen. She is worth hearing.