Vaughan Rapatahana is a terrific champion of poetry in Aotearoa – he shines a light on poetry and poets that deserve far more attention than they currently get, particularly in his articles posted at Jacket2. He has also edited multicultural books of poetry with poetry exercises for secondary schools (Poetry in Multicultural Oceania – Book 1 and Book 2); and he is a much admired poet in his own right.

Vaughan’s latest project is a much-needed anthology of poetry from the Waikato region. As editor his criterion for submission was that the poet had lived in the area for a minimum of one year. Themes are multiple but the river is a strong presence in the collection as a whole, while the 41 poets are stylistically and culturally, as well as politically and poetically, diverse. They range from our poetry elders (poets whose work we have loved across decades) and the electricity of emerging voices; from Bob Orr, Murray Edmond and Vincent O’Sullivan to Aimee-Jane Anderson-O’Connor and essa may ranapiri. There is an introduction by Dr Mark Houlahan from the University of Waikato.

Here is a tasting platter:

Stephanie Christie’s poem, ‘H-town’, is aware she lives on ‘land that was taken’, that like her parents she tried to leave but she has returned:

but here I am

writing poetry, prospering

in the city’s glittering vision

and the milk in my coffee

the twisting river –

O, jewel of the Waikato.

I’m the child of the future

in whose name the work

was done. History persists

in every one of us.

Many of the poems are home or origin anchors. Olivia Macassey’s is like a song, held together by the repeated line – ‘I am from’ – that opens each stanza, the physical detail gleaming:

I am from the dry hollows

below the cabbage tree and the mahoe

where other trees wait with us to grow up, the rātā

curling its thoughtful fingers;

and like the fat female eel,

I swim out and return.

Other poems evoke a sense of place to such a degree you become embedded in place as you read; the way a physical location reverberates with such intensity you are transported to a version that builds in your head. Again it forms a physical anchor. In ‘Frost’, a skinny backbone of a poem, Mohamad Atif Slim does just exactly that:

the river in

town

will be steaming

like hot soup.

the neigbour’s horse

grunts. his breaths are

puffs of

spun sugar.

a dog

barks.

inside my house

it’s still,

and still

dark.

For Bob Orr, in ‘Waikato karakia’, the river becomes glorious song, a chant, a loving homage that calls the river rhythm into being on the line.

Here is the river

here is sunlight on the river

here sunlight weaves harakeke patterns on the river

here by the unending course of the university of the river

I saw a broken branch waving a green leaf on its way down the river

Fairfield Bridge up to its concrete knees  in the river

a museum of dreams reflecting the mysterious fact of the river

Murray Edmond, in ‘Matakitaki, 1822’, draws back into the region’s heartbreaking massacres, a queen’s visit, a rugby club.

here was the place of our greatest slaughter

an old green shed in a field of grass

an old green shed in a field of grass

MUSKET OVERCAME THE MERE

bronze words on a monument

And some poems are fiercely political – shifting our view point so we may no longer carry disabling historical narratives. Reading the collection is like sitting by the river through all seasons, feeling the way it runs through the blood of the poet writing, a lifelong current, carrying anecdote, beauty, history. It is both the spine and heart of the collection that draws me in closer again and again. A Waikato treasure.

singing the old songs

This is the way the old story keeps passing though

Reihana Robinson from ‘O Moehau Mountain (How much can you take?)’

Applications open for the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship, with the successful fellow travelling to France in 2020.

Founded in 1970 it has been awarded to some of our most successful writers including Maurice Gee, Carl Nixon, Kate Camp, Anna Jackson, Mandy Hager, Greg McGee, Bill Manhire, Janet Frame, Witi Ihimaera, Elizabeth Knox, Lloyd Jones, Dame Fiona Kidman, Roger Hall, Marilyn Duckworth, Michael King and Allen Curnow.

Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship allows the successful fellow to live for up to six months in Menton, France with access to a writing room beneath the terrace of Villa Isola Bella, where Katherine Mansfield did some of her most significant writing.  They receive a $35,000 grant to cover all costs including travel to Menton, insurance, living and accommodation costs.

The fellowship is generated by a fund managed by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, which was made possible by generous donors including many individuals, the Winn-Manson Menton Trust, Creative New Zealand and the New Zealand France Friendship Fund.

Detailed information about the fellowship and how to apply is available at the Arts Foundation’s website:

Applications open Monday 27 May and close 5pm Monday 1 July. The recipient will be announced at new Arts Foundation event, NZ Arts Ball on Saturday 31 August in Auckland.

Details here

Auckland poet Kathleen Grattan, a journalist and former editor of the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, died in 1990. A member of the Titirangi Poets, her work was published in Landfall and other volumes including Premier Poets, a collection from the World Poetry Society. Her daughter Jocelyn Grattan, who also worked for the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, shared her mother’s love of literature. She has generously left Landfall a bequest with which to establish an award in memory of Kathleen Grattan.

This prestigious biennial poetry award from Landfall and the Kathleen Grattan Trust is for an original book-length collection of poems, by a New Zealand or Pacific permanent resident or citizen.

Individual poems in the collection can have been previously published, but the collection as a whole should be unpublished.

Entries are accepted until 31 July 2019.

The result will be announced in Landfall 238 (November 2019), and the winner receives $10,000 and a year’s subscription to Landfall. Otago University Press has the right to publish the winning collection.

For full entry details, and to learn more about Kathleen Grattan and the history of the award, go here

The judge for the 2019 award is Jenny Bornholdt, who has published ten books of poems, the most recent of which is Selected Poems (VUP, 2016). She also edited the 2018 anthology Short Poems of New Zealand (VUP).

Her collection The Rocky Shore was made up of six long poems and won the Montana New Zealand Book Award for Poetry in 2009. She is the co-editor of My Heart Goes Swimming: New Zealand Love Poems and the Oxford Anthology of New Zealand Poetry in English. Jenny’s poems have appeared on ceramics, on a house, on paintings, in the foyer of a building and in letterpress books alongside drawings and photographs. She has also written two children’s books.

Kāpiti poet Alison Glenny was the winner of the 2017 Kathleen Grattan Award with ‘The Farewell Tourist’, a poetry collection inspired by a visit to Antarctica.