Work
(from ‘Lostling and Foundling’)

The most-asked question is do your cocktails have
umbrellas in them? It’s true that here we have learned
to make Pineapple Bombers. But no. That thing
on the rim of the glass is the sun going down
on America. When I first looked out from Waikiki
I thought I was seeing the Pacific Ocean
for the first time. People think we lie
under umbrellas at the beach all the time,

but no. Mostly life goes on just the same. I am
still planning my book, Talking Loudly: A Self-Help Guide
for Better Communication Between the Members
of Rock Bands. Seeing a need which has not diminished
with distance. I am reading narrowly just as I always did,
a sharp point under which there is no shade.

Anne Kennedy
from The Darling North (AUP, 2012)

‘About Work’

I wrote this poem, which is part of a sequence of sonnets, when we were living in Hawai`i in the late-2000s. I hoped I was writing a diary-esque account of how, when big stuff happens – when people are suffering in the face of oppression and corruption – most of us continue with our tiny little lives.

Worth noting: the ‘sun going down on America’ bit isn’t just metaphorical. It really does go down last on Hawai`i.

About the form: I was quite new to poetry when I wrote this, and I was experimenting – which sounds odd when talking about the sonnet, and is! I grew to love the idea of tipping contemporary ideas and words into an archaic form (although of course, it’s a more modern version). As a person who mostly writes by the yard, I found the concise form, its parameters and turn, helped me shape what I wanted to say. I realized, oh, that’s what poets do.

Anne Kennedy’s most recent books are The Sea Walks into a Wall, The Ice Shelf and, as editor, Remember Me: Poems to Learn by Heart from Aotearoa New Zealand. She is the current editor of AUP’s New Poets series. Awards include the Prime Minister’s Award for Poetry, the NZ Post Book Award for Poetry and the Montana Book Award for Poetry. Anne lives in Tāmaki Makaurau.