It feels like a year ago we stood on the back deck and peered into the dark, bewildered, bemused, until our camera showed us this. I spiralled into thoughts on staring into the dark fruitlessly, and on how surprisingly, like a miracle, what I am reading, the poem, the novel, the essay, sometimes reveals what I couldn’t see.

It’s been a week of smash and uplift. Let’s focus on the uplift. Listening to Isla Huia read at the Ockham NZ Book Award ceremony (I live streamed it). I loved Isla’s book so what a treat to hear her read. It was indeed a treat to hear all the authors read, and to absorb the ongoing insistence on why books matter. Yes, we are all reading and writing and liking different things, but books matter. They can make a difference in our lives. Emily Perkins nailed it in her acceptance speech.

New books in the post: Meantime, Majella Cullinane (poetry, Otago University Press) Brown Bird, Jane Arthur (children’s novel, Penguin). A Bunch of Family Poems by Adrienne Jansen. Ooh! Exciting package from THWUP of books out in a few months: Slim Volume by James Brown, Tarot by Jake Arthur, Still Is by Vincent O’Sullivan.

The past weeks have been the toughest since my transplant for various reasons and I am so grateful to the nurses, doctors, and my dentist who, no matter how stretched or underpaid they are, are infinitely patient, kind and helpful. Why isn’t this a frontline issue for those in ‘power’? Why do I feel the gap between the privileged and the less so widens? I am sharing this with you because together we are imagining and working towards a country that is equitable, humane, welcomes all cultures, genders, disabilities, languages, is willing to share and support.

Sadly, I can’t accept poem submissions. I do accept books to review.

Week’s links

Monday: Poem: ‘Skeletal‘ by Megan Kitching
aga pukapuka pekapeka open for submissions
Majella Cullinane launches Meantime

Tuesday: book review and reading: Hopurangi -Songcatcher Poems from the Maramataka by Robert Sullivan

Wednesday: 5 Questions – Ian Wedde
Call for Papers – Reading Janet Frame (for) Today
Sweet Mammalian submissions

Thursday: Poetry Shelf celebrates the Book Awards

Friday: Couplets
Celebrate International Biodiversity Day at Tūranga – Foundation Cafe

A poem

Appointment

memorise the light breaking through dark clouds
memorise the wind surfers catching the storm

memorise the tattered jackets on the stooping man
memorise the island its arms outstretched

memorise the bread and pastries at Wild Wheat
memorise the soundtrack on my way home

Paula Green