Big Weather is back for National Poetry Day
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Author Archives: Paula Green
Poetry at the Fringe – Rachel McAlpine and Beantown
Jacket 2: Vaughan Rapatahana in conversation with Bob Orr
Full piece and a few poems here
Bob Orr has been a well-regarded New Zealand poet for several decades, having eight collections of poetry produced to date, with a new collection due out soon. He is also rather different to so many ‘modern’ poets, in that he has always paddled his own poetic waka (or canoe) in and through his own currents. Oaring across his own ocean, if you will.
Bob never completed any tertiary education. He never attended any university ‘creative writing’ classes in an endeavour to craft his poetry ‘better.’ Up until very recently, when he was the 2017 University of Waikato Writer in Residence, he eschewed any applications for literary grants. He rarely, if ever, uses a computer to write with or on — he doesn’t even have an email address. Indeed, he continues to write with an old style ribbon-fed typewriter. Bob Orr is a bit of a Luddite — all of which ensures that his stream of poetry flows deep from his heart and mind and is never obfuscated by the trends, tropes, and trivialities of the latest poetic fad. Like another key New Zealand poet, Sam Hunt, Bob Orr has always remained a people’s poet, by which I mean, a writer who keeps it simple, who never overreaches into pretentiousness and amorphous cleverdickism.
Visible Ink seeks submissions
full details here
Visible Ink wants your words, your art, and your hot take on Trace — the theme of our thirtieth edition. An annual literary anthology, we are accepting submissions of fiction and non-fiction, poetry and visual art. All published contributors will be paid — see below for rates.
The trace edition:
As both verb and noun, the word ‘trace’ invokes the dialectical nature of human connection. We trace the call, or we hang up. A trace is a mark of existence or passing. It is a harness-strap. It is a shadowed past tense that we cast unwillingly or pursue in search of the present. It is the memory of a thing, not the thing itself. A trace is scarcely discernible. It is latent, yet often imperative. We trace things to the fount, or wish the trail cold. A trace is a bullet whose course is made visible by a spoor of flames or smoke, used to assist in aiming. It is a warm gun: did you shoot or were you shot?
Rachel McAlpine: to take up writers in residence at Yeonhui Art Space in Seoul
Great news for Rachel McAlpine. Full post here
From Rachel:
I am excited and honoured to have been chosen as one of the writers in residence at Yeonhui Art Space in Seoul for the month of September. Everything about this residency gives me such a buzz.
- The programme is part of the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, a well organised government body
- The buildings look charming and so does the setting
- The thought of a whole month in which writing comes first thrills me top to toe
- Everyone says the people of Korea are super friendly
- I’m sure to be involved in some literary events
- It’s in Seoul! My first visit to a legendary city! In autumn!
- I will have time to explore the city including the famous flea markets and temples and daytime discos for old people.
Monday Poem: Anne Kennedy’s ‘One of My Baxter Poems’
One of My Baxter Poems
(from Moth Hour)
Coming down off the spine of the Botanical Gardens
onto the green flank of the dragon, shadows arch
under my feet. In the dell below, the shell-shaped stage
is strewn with red Camelias. November
and across the valley on the dense dark Tinakori hill
houses begin to light up like Guy Fawkes.
At the top of Patanga Crescent the pared-down villa
trembles with young men thinking,
pens lost in the wide sleeves of their dead uncles.
They are ecstatic and do everything extravagantly
in the last light: read, drink, fuck.
On the windowsill – a stone, leaf, a twig with buds,
and the black cat left behind mewling by the old lady
now in the Home of Compassion. No change.
©Anne Kennedy
Anne Kennedy’s new novel The Ice Shelf is due from VUP in October. She teaches writing at Manukau Institute of Technology.
Better Off Read: Pip Adam in conversation with Helen Heath
Wonderful conversation, wonderful book, plus the joys of reading Fleur Adcock.
‘This episode I caught up with poet, essayist and teacher Helen Heath. Helen recently published an astounding collection of poetry which poses the question Are Friends Electric? We got together to talk about Fleur Adcock’s poem ‘Gas’, first published in her 1971 collection High Tide in the Garden and it’s also available in Fleur Adcock Poems 1960-2000, and Helen’s exciting new book.’
Listen here
Poetry Shelf audio spot: Emma Shi reads ‘What comes after’
‘.
Emma Shi was the winner of the National Schools Poetry NZ 2013 and the Poetry NZ Prize 2017. She has also been published in literary journals such as Landfall and Starling. She writes at facebook.com/emmlexx.
You can read the poem at The Starling where it was first published.
David Eggleton launching new poetry collection
Time to enter National Schools Poetry Award
And the judge is Louise Wallace.
Louise Wallace‘s poems have been published in literary journals in New Zealand, Australia and the U.S., translated into German and Spanish, and anthologised in Best of Best New Zealand Poems, Essential New Zealand Poems: Facing the Empty Page, and Manifesto Aotearoa: 101 Political Poems. In 2015 she was the Robert Burns Fellow at the University of Otago, Dunedin. In 2016 she represented New Zealand at the Mexico City Poetry Festival. She is the author of three collections of poetry, all published by Victoria University Press, the most recent being Bad Things (2017). She is the founder and editor of Starling, an online journal publishing the work of young New Zealand writers
James Brown and Hera Lindsay Bird are this year’s masterclass convenors.
Details here
NZ Poetry Shelf 