Stumbling into Li He
– for Mike Johnson

Reading Li He in your translation, somebody
threw me back on the Blaketown Tip, at
the moment a fishing boat was flipped.

Some people told me poetry was a waste,
but now, beneath their graves, they cry
for immortality.

What did I do wrong by writing?
I could easily have sold my spine
to industry and the chainsaws.

What have I done in my life,
but sung of the terror, when our
wooden bridge sailed downstream?

Let me tell you of my graduation,
the day I went underground with my father,
and saw the hell he risked, to feed me?

Now at life’s end, this mad president
and a vain, ambitious minister, seek me
out for my votes, to kill me.

War’s survivors raised me up
in the hemisphere of desolation,
shadowing us to the earth’s far end,
pretending, here, at last, was peace.

23.9.25
Jeffrey Paparoa Holman

Jeffrey Paparoa Holman writes poetry, short fiction, history and memoir. He has published seven volumes of poetry; Best of Both Worlds (history, 2010); The Lost Pilot (memoir, 2013); Now When it Rains (memoir, 2017). As Big As A Father (Steele Roberts, 2002) was shortlisted in the Montana Book Awards, Poetry, 2003. Best of Both Worlds: the story of Elsdon Best and Tutakangahau (2010) was shortlisted in the Ernest Scott Prize, History (2011, Australia). His most recent work, a family history, Lily, Oh Lily – Searching for a Nazi ghost, is published by Canterbury University Press.

POETRY SPEAKS OUT FOR TO WITH at a time when so many challenging issues in the world and at home need audible voices of dissent, vital spotlights, voice to voice connections. Intro