We, the poetry communities in Aotearoa, are heart-smacked, gut-punched, unbearably sad, at the news that Paula Harris is no longer with us. Poets and friends are sharing personal heartbreak and pain on social media. It is a time to remember a woman whose poetry touched us, whose ongoing struggles with depression touched us, who wrote and spoke publicly of her illness, whose wit and sense of humour touched us.

Paula won the 2018 Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize and the 2017 Lilian Ida Smith Award. Her writing was published in various journals, including Hobart, Berfrois, New Ohio Review, SWWIM, Diode, Poetry NZ Yearbook, The Spinoff and Aotearotica. Her essays have been published in The Sun, Passages North, The Spinoff and Headlands: New Stories of Anxiety (Victoria University Press).

Poetry Shelf is offering some of Paula’s poetry as a tribute. I hold out her words as a way to remember. I am mindful of a need to support each other, to open a space for connection, and it feels like poems have the power to do this. In 2019 I hosted an event at Palmerston North Library, where a bunch of local poets came together to celebrate Wild Honey, and more importantly, the writing of women across decades, across communities. It reminded me that poetry is always a cause for celebration. Even when it is laying down challenges, speaking of tough things, getting complex and difficult, opening up self. It is sound and it is heart and it is interlaced. Paula Harris was part of this poetry embrace. I am remembering this. Today I am holding her poetry close. In grief and in aroha.

everything changing

I never meant to want you.
But somewhere
between
the laughter and the toast
the talking and the muffins
somewhere in our Tuesday mornings
together
I started falling for you.
Now I can’t go back
and I’m not sure if I want to.

from woman, phenomenally

If you love me you’ll buy Bluff oysters and cook asparagus. Even though I don’t like either.

for Kirsten Holst, for feeding me many good things
and for Alison and Peter, for their Bluff oysters and asparagus

When I am no longer who I was
I can only hope that I will be loved by someone
so much that every day during Bluff oyster season
they will buy me a dozen Bluff oysters.

Even though they don’t like Bluff oysters
they will buy them for me
and every day I will exclaim
“I can’t even remember the last time I had Bluff oysters!”;
they will nod at the extreme length of time it has been.

When I am no longer who I was                                                                                      
and when Bluff oyster season is over
I can only hope that I will be loved by someone so much
they will cook me freshly picked asparagus every day.

Even though they don’t like asparagus
they will grow it for me and pick it for me
and lightly steam it
so that I can relish it served with hollandaise sauce
(although some days more lazily served with butter and lemon).

I will eat it with my fingers
and let the sauce (or butter) dribble down my chin;
no one will mind or tell me to be less messy
it will just be moments of edible joy.

In reality I don’t like Bluff oysters (or any oysters)
and I can’t stand asparagus (the taste and texture are disturbing);
I can only hope that maybe someone will love me enough
to buy and cook me the things that I love
even though they hate them, even though I won’t remember.

First published on Poetry Shelf

Our House

The roof drips rain beside my bed
The shower curtain hangs torn from a ring
The gate creaks unprotected from the wind

No drawers in the kitchen
A gap in the toilet window
A half-painted rainbow on my wardrobe

Our house is beautiful

First published in Spin 31 (1998)

Herakles phones the depression helpline at 1am, exhausted from crying and the inside of his head

it is easier to fold a fitted sheet than to get help from the depression helpline
easier to fold a fitted sheet with a partner who doesn’t listen to instructions
easier to fold a fitted sheet with one hand
easier to fold a fitted sheet made of damp tissue
easier to fold a fitted sheet while balancing one-legged on the end of a crocodile’s snout
easier to arrange finance and buy a fitted sheet factory and deal with the folding en masse of
   fitted sheets than to get help from the depression helpline

they tell him to take up a hobby
to have a cup of tea
to get some sleep

he folds into himself, holding the corner of a sheet in one hand
folds into himself and balances one-legged on the end of a crocodile’s snout

First published in Atlas Literary Medical Journal 3 (2018)

Marylynn Sitting Under The Apple Tree

The wise woman sits in the shade
With stuffing peeping out from her chair,
Looking like a watercolour of the writer
In her wide-brimmed straw hat
Dark glasses
And flower-laden dress,
While a black kitten plays
In her tossed aside straw bag.
Watching her through an open window,
With bees playing in the lavender bush
And spiders weaving their homes,
This is where she belongs
At the bottom of the garden
In full bloom.

First published in takahē 40 (2000)

today an editor told me that what I write isn’t poetry and so maybe I don’t know how to write a poem but I was thinking about you and wanted to write something; so here is your something

you are the bath filled with green marbles
I slip into at night to wash myself

you are the letterbox overflowing with sleeping ladybirds
I check compulsively for mail

you are the curtains of pink candyfloss
I pull closed after the moon comes up

you are the couch made of turnips
I lie on as I wait

you are the carpet made of ripe figs
I dance over on summer mornings

none of this makes sense so it’s possibly a poem
none of this makes sense so

you are the wheelbarrow full of silver bullets
I feed to the garden to make it grow

First published in Leon Literary Review 2020

2019 Palmerston North Library and the writers: Johanna Aitchison, Paula Harris, Thom Conroy, Paula King, Helen Llehndorf, Marty Smith, Hannah A Pratt, Jo Thorpe, Janet Newman, Paula Green and Tina Makereti.

2019 Palmerston North Library: Paula Harris, Paula Green and Paula King

sharing the good stuff

my mother always told me
i had to save my good stuff
keep it for another day

so my prettiest colouring books
went uncoloured
my toys sat on their shelf

her best dresses stayed in plastic
her engagement ring hidden
in its box

what my mother never learned
was that if you save your good stuff for too long
one day there’ll be no one to share it with you

First published in Spin 32 (1998)

chamomile and lemon balm

in need of some healing
i drive and drive
until i reach a brick pathway
lined with lavender
gently waving and bobbing
as i pass by.
i sit on a bench
resting my feet
on the chamomile floor
and i breathe.
a honey coloured angel
lays her head on my knee
while i scratch behind her ears
and i breathe.
and when i have breathed enough
i walk back
the sea of lavender
parting before me
my angel loping behind me
and i smile.

First published in Spin 33 (1999)
Also published in Poems in The Waiting Room (2012)

The Twelve Lightbulbs of Janet Frame

I saw her in the supermarket
driving a runaway trolley
that dodged and charged imaginary opponents

I wonder if she was writing,
paused in the frozen foods
between the chicken legs and the harassed mothers

people want to know
– what was she buying
microwave lasagna,
toilet paper,
mouldy French cheese,
canned spaghetti and sausages,
sugary cereal,
green tomatoes?

a dozen lightbulbs
was all she had;
maybe they were on sale
super coupon special,
maybe she only buys them once a year,
maybe they all just blew at once
like mine do

First published in takahē 37 (1999)

small signs of hope

after years of not quite
getting it right,
knowing that i can’t
eat hot cross buns
my father brought me
two kit-kat bars

First published in The Listener (2000)
Also published in takahē 41 (2001)

gifts of love

a husband will bring
his wife
a stolen lettuce

a cat will bring
its owner
a beheaded mouse

a pauper will bring
his queen
half a pebble

i chop up my heart
mix it with roasted vegetables
and rice

hoping you will notice

First published in learning a language – New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology (2005)

the weight of pain

in 1945 Dr Lorand Julius Bela Gluzek of Cleveland, Ohio
developed a dolorimeter which could measure pain in grams
so maybe the weight I gained on antidepressants
wasn’t from sadness and an increased appetite
but my organs and glands – thyroid, pancreas, lungs, 
adrenal glands, ovaries, stomach, hypothalamus – 
each getting heavier from the consumption of black bile

the weight of the water inside the mouth of a blue whale
can weigh more than the whale itself
so if I dive into the ocean and convince a blue whale to swallow me
I will leave my sadness on its tongue and be weightless

First published in Anomaly 2021

home

even though the sign says
there’s still 27 kilometres to go
on the horizon
i can see a halo
at the bottom of storm clouds

through the driver’s window
the halo spreads into
a line of orange light

closer now until
the line becomes disjointed
into orange street lights
and white house lights
and one of those is home

First published in takahē 41 (2001)

Listen to Paula Harris in conversation with Jesse Mulligan RNZ National. Great interview!

Paula Harris website

Poetic Short films by Paula

You can find a number of essays by Paula at The Spinoff

Paula’s friend Anna Sophia remembers her extraordinary talent, wit, bravery and heart at The Spinoff. 

Read this poem: “when I was fucking a lot of men when I was 19 and 20 (and 18, and 21) I was fully aware that it was partly because I love sex and partly because–having grown up being told I am unlovable–I crave that feeling of being wanted, even for a few hours” at Passage North 2023

Photo credit: Tabatha Arthur