an alchemy of distance:
your absence, sisters, stirs longing
your telephone talk/ raking
embers from the muses’s fire.
the spirit rises to the task, &
I from the couch/ awake now
to take up the story
where the last daughter left off/
giving voice to the silence/ inside
green mountains looming/ from a warm sea
& voice/ to the insides
of calderas/ cooled volcano’s tilted cup
half-sunken to carve harbor from expanse of ocean

 

Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard, from ‘soiree’
in Alchemy of Distance, Tinfish Press, 2002

As things tip and slide and the gap between the moneyed class and the disenfranchised widens, catastrophic wars continue to rage, our nurses and doctors are stretched to breaking, our founding treaty is under heartbreaking threat, the wellbeing of everyone is hijacked into the wellbeing of the elite ….

….. furnishing a hub for local writing, books and authors, with love and celebration, is so important. This is the imperative of Poetry Shelf.

A highlight: a poet whose debut collection I adore, Isla Huia, answered my ‘5 Questions’, and I was moved by her responses. So open and honest and thoughtful. So resonant.

“For my own writing, I aim more for heart, mind and wairua than ear or eye. I want my writing to physically move me back to the place, circumstance or perspective I was in when I wrote it. I want it to feel entirely tika, and raw, and I want to understand myself better for having written it. Sometimes, that doesn’t translate onto the page, or feel palatable or decipherable to an outside audience; but it’s always the place I write from, regardless. How my readers interact with my work is secondary to whether or not I feel like I am entirely, uncompromisingly myself, within it.” Isla Huia

A highlight: I spent much of the last few weeks reading my way through Vincent O’Sullivan’s poetry collections, and again, was moved and boosted by his writing. Various people selected one of Vincent’s poems that has touched them and wrote a few comments for my tribute post.

Today my heart goes out to all the friends, whanau, academics and writers who are mourning the death of Dr Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard, acclaimed poet, retired professor, environmentalist, historian, in tragic circumstances in Apia. She became a professor of creative writing and Pacific literature at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. In 2002, she published her collection of poetry, Alchemies of Distance and in August 2020, she was named by USA Today on its list of influential women from US territories. Selina Tusitala Marsh has written a piece and a poem for her beloved friend on The Academy of New Zealand Literature. You can read the piece and poem here.

“Sinavaiana fearlessly confronted the painful legacies of colonialism and diaspora that have shaped our communities. Her poetry wove together deeply personal reflections with sharply political messages, inspiring us to find courage and resilience in the face of adversity. With every line, she affirmed the beauty, strength and mana of our Samoan heritage.

‘Though we mourn Sinavaiana’s passing as a profound loss, her spirit and impact live on through the many lives she touched. She reminded us that we all have a voice to stand up for our beliefs, speak truth to power, and work towards a more just, equitable future for Pacific peoples everywhere.”

Community feels so important at the moment, and yes we must question and challenge our current government, but it is also vital to connect through self and mutual care. We need, more than ever, to cherish the daily miracles, the good in the world, to be kind to ourselves, and to say ‘no’ as often as we need to.

Weekly posts

Monday: Monday Poem – ‘Waiting’ by James Brown
– Caselberg Trust Margaret Egan Cities of Literature Writers Resident 2024
– Monica Taylor Poetry Prize opens for submissions June 1st
– Dan Davin Poetry Festival

Tuesday: Amy Marguerite reads a poem

Wednesday: A review and reading – Iona Winter
– Hector, by Cadence Chung at BATS Theatre

Thursday: 5 Questions – Isla Huia

Friday: A Vincent O’Sullivan gathering, a suite of poems with comments
– A reading to launch Still Is, by Vincent O’Sullivan, THWUP

A musing and a poem

Attention spans. I read an article in The New Yorker this week on our shrinking attention spans, our addiction to multi-tasking. It got me musing on rhythms of haste, on sound bites and headline snatching, on opting for playlists over albums. On how I keep questioning my penchant to post longer gatherings on the blog. To write a review of a book and add in an audio and a conversation with the poet. To create a gathering of voices for weekend sojourns. To offer poetry as a place to slow linger, accumulate ideas, feelings, sideweavings.

Not that I am not drawn to the snapshot. Heck! There was so much love for my couplet feature, by both poets and readers, I am working on a sequel.

I am also slow-pace working on a children’s book feature at the moment, and I am thinking a lot about working with children, sparking and holding their attention, and how our books, stories, poetry, can open vital portals on themselves and the world, whether imagined or actual. And how my primary aim as teacher and children’s author is to get the child to fall in love with learning, to want to walk over the threshold of the classroom, to itch to pick up a book and read, to hold a pen and write, to open mouths and speak or sing. In both sweet short snaps and in longer discovery-unfoldings.

This week, I had my specialist checkup at hospital, and we were early so had a coffee in the foyer. As we waited, a bloke picked up his guitar and sang a waiata; people joined in, people stopped in their tracks and sang. Faces glowed warm. It was a gift and I am still feel warmth from it.

Hospital

A dude guitar-strumming,
everyone singing sweet aroha
in the hospital foyer,
hands on hearts,
and it was the shuffle runner
running into the wind,
the gull atop the motorway lamp post
eyeing the slow traffic crawl,
the fickle flash of blue sky,
the news bulletin’s dark clouds,
the poster asking us to mask up
but not a mask to be seen,
the ‘no RAT tests needed anymore’,
everyone with back stories in their pockets
and noxious nettles stinging their eyes,
the oat milk latte hitting the spot,
the bloke on the radio telling me
Louis Braille invented his system
at the age of fifteen,
and I am on the hospital bench
listing ways to travel from A to Z,
as happy as Lucy and Larry,
the barista swaying to the waiata beat.

 

Paula Green