I would be happy to post a piece if any one wants to write about this event.
Poetry and Prose at Pegasus Books in Wellington is a must-do
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Category Archives: NZ author
Reading Sport 44 on a wet Sunday keeps the blues away
The new edition of Sport includes 8 essays along with the usual spread of poetry and fiction. At the start of the book is an impressive advertisement for Victoria University Press’s forthcoming publications. This Press is a consistent and exemplary supporter of New Zealand writing whether poetry, fiction or non-fiction.
Why I am singing VUP’s praises:
There are 15 poetry collections in the offing (okay some might not appear until next year, but still!). We are going to see books by Tusiata Avia and Hera Lindsay Bird over the next few months.
Sarah Laing‘s new book is out in October (Mansfield and me: A Graphic Memoir).
There are 4 works of fiction (Catherine Chidgey has a new novel out in November!)
And I am looking forward to the collection of essays Ingrid Horrocks co-edited having tasted some in Ruapehu and Ashleigh Young‘s essays (November).
Sport 44
some preliminary highlights:
Usually, I read all the poems first but this time I was in the mood for a bite of fiction so I dove straight into Kirsten McDougall‘s ‘A Visitation.’ The story responds to the collapse of the internet and the arrival of Clarice Lispector to make a batch of eggs to tempt an indifferent palate. I adored this story so much it made me want to take up writing short fiction. It is sweet writing; warm, witty, funny, thoughtful, polemical. I do hope there is a new collection in the pipelines. I read this on a plane with two hours sleep and it was such an uplift. ‘I saw anew the detritus in the house I had allowed to build up like a plaque to the heart.’
The journal always puts in me in touch with writers I am unfamiliar with. This time a glorious suite by Oscar Upperton: ‘The ship is a sort of dark undoing.’
And Philip Armstrong‘s utterly inventive narrative, ‘Life of Clay,’ which keeps you on your toes as you read: ‘I can tell you it began with nothing/ but the wide white bare and empty endless plain/ but there was something there already there.’
I have already posted some of Rachel Bush‘s poems here. Movingly, achingly beautiful. Written when life has fingertips against death.
Jenny Bornholdt‘s exquisite haiku: ‘It is eight degrees/and the Thorndon outdoor pool/ is swimming with leaves.’
Ashleigh Young‘s ‘Process’ which is sad and happy and a little bit witty and a little bit true: ‘On this day our city is a perfect haircut, its losses gently layered/ and what is left, falling gracefully.’ Oh word shivers!
Tusiata Avia‘s ‘Gaza’ which brings heart and politics together and rips your easy Sunday slumbering with poetic teeth: ‘I cannot write a poem about Gaza because I cannot eat a whole desert.’
The stillness, the extraordinary image, the enigmatic bridge between title and poem in Louise Wallace‘s ‘The body began to balance itself’. You just have to read the whole thing!
Hannah Mettner‘s ‘The day Amy died’ that takes a moment that pricks with sharp detail and pricks even deeper when the moment is declared and time and noise go haywire.
Maria McMillan‘s ‘The Ski Flier’ is a whoosh of a poem that sucks you up into story and music and is so evocative: ‘And/ there is a moment when they pass,/ the snow and the ski flier,/ each taking on the character of the other.’
Harry Rickett‘s ’14A Esmonde Road’ exudes the mood of place, that historic property where Janet and Frank lived; and you can just feel the phantoms stalking the poem until you get to the perfect ending.
The first poem, ‘Falseweed,’ is by Bill Manhire and was published as a little pamphlet by Egg Box Publishing in Norwich. It has a different feel to some of Bill’s recent poems. The words are scattered like seeds on the expanse of white page. Or pebbles. But I like the idea of seed as they are so fertile. I can see the roots and buds bursting out. There is linguistic inventiveness that boosts both music and image, particularly in compound words:
leafcandle pencilheart wintertwig scribblegrass anchorwhite tongue-true.
I felt like I was following a dandelion kiss and pausing to see where it landed. The poem is about childhood and writing and a mind floating, roaming. Words floating, roaming. It is beautiful and mesmerising: ‘I began to recall/ how the words came knocking.’ ‘Oh pencilheart –/ oh smudge of lead.’
And still much to read; more poems, more fiction and the bundle of essays. This is a terrific issue.
The VUP ad:
Michaela’s poem for The Poet Laureate event
Local student, Michaela Tripp, was sick at The Poet Laureate event in Napier so her friend Sarah read the poem on the marae. We were so thrilled to hear it, I wanted to share the poem.I really like the idea that our New Zealand Poet Laureates have the freedom to do whatever they like during their tenure. They don’t have to write on particular topics. Thanks Michaela.
Score! I am on the hunt for books by early NZ women poets
I am in poetry heaven. At the moment I am delving into the poetry of Jessie Mackay.
These just arrived in my postbox today. I am hoping to get two more by Jessie Mackay at an auction next week but I guess that is only a faint chance.
If I do, I am still on the hunt for The Spirit of the Rangatira and other Ballads. If you stumble upon a copy in a second-hand book shop let me know!
Or if you have a copy you want to offload.
Yes! Tusiata Avia to launch new collection at Auckland Writers Festival
A Little Poetry Shelf Diary: A weekend at Matahiwi Marae to launch our new Poet Laureate, CK Stead
This weekend friends, family and poets gathered to join CK Stead celebrate his Poet Laureateship and the presentation of the tokotoko. It was a marvelous occasion that will stand in my memory for a long time. The weekend featured two key events. The formal and informal proceedings at Matahiwi Marae on the Saturday morning and a Poets’ Night Out in the evening.
With exemplary dedication to New Zealand poetry, Te Mata Estate’s Peter Buck and poet Bill Manhire established the award twenty years ago. In 2007, The National Library took over the administration, although the Buck family still remain involved, and donates a stipend of wine to the Laureates. Unlike most of the visitors, I got called onto the marae on the Friday evening with Chris Szekely and Peter Ireland from the National Library, and a number of their colleagues, including Oliver Stead and his son Isaac. Peter was the driving force behind detail of the weekend, and Ian Wedde’s moving tribute to him at The Circle of Laureates hit the mark. Thoughtful, attentive, committed to making a celebration fit for a Laureate. His back-up team are pretty special too (Joan, Cellia Joe, Lynette, Jason and Oliver).
Kaumatua Tom Mulligan and other members of the marae welcomed us with much aroha.
Joan, Cellia, Jason and I practiced some waiata back in the whare nui. CJ on ukulele.We crack up when CJ says all her family knows she can’t sing and she just fakes it. We are all fooled and I wonder what I can’t do but could fake and get away with.
On Friday night we hived off to Havelock North (one poet, five librarians) for dinner at Maine where the food was divine. We fell greedily into the comfort of the best hot chips ever and with that salty comfort digging deep into our bones were ready for whatever the weekend delivered. One plate of salmon with the best Niçoise salad and I was ready for a weekend of poetry and celebration.
Saturday morning
I got up early to walk in the near rain and saw a black cat stock still on a fence post eyeballing my lack of sleep. Not budging an inch until a car came down the gravel road and sent the cat sliding down like a snake into the golden corn. I had no idea what it meant. But it glowed with options.
CK Stead was called onto the marae with his whanau (around 20), poets Gregory O’Brien and Chris Price, her partner Robbie Duncan, and other guests. To have such family support felt very special. He is poetry but he is most definitely family. His daughter had travelled from London with her children.
After the formal speeches and the waiata exchanges, the tokotoko was presented to Karl by a kuia. She had such presence. Jacob Scott, who carves the tokotoko for each Poet Laureate said he had wanted to make a tokotoko for a gentleman and a scholar that could be used on a daily basis if needed. He had gained inspiration from Karl’s poem, ‘Scoria.’
Karl responded with a speech that mixed graciousness, humbleness, love. He said he was not only honoured by the role but honoured by the marae: ‘by being here, by your presence, by your aroha.’
Before he read a few poems, Karl talked about place, about the importance of one’s childhood occupation of place, and the way that place becomes one of return. He grew up with three maunga facing him whichever way he turned. He also underlined the primacy of poetry for him since his teenage days and the way he has ‘always come back to poems.’ With much humbleness, he added,’that’s why it is extraordinary at this late stage in my career as a writer to be honoured as Poet Laureate.’
Karl paused in his korero and then said; ‘I am getting advice from the tokotoko. We have to get used to one another.’
At that we all paused.
I am delighted that the Poet-Laureate role honours our elders, our writing taonga. It felt good to be part of the protocol. The talking. The listening. The exchange.
MC-ed by Marty Smith, the informal part of the morning was like a miniature poetry reading. As his invited poets, Chris, Gregory and I read a couple of poems and Chris sang a Bill Manhire song with her partner Robbie. What made this section special were the performances from local secondary students. One student used the analogy of a bird to explore the Poet Laureate’s original function to write poems on dictated subjects. She was keen to let a Laureate fly free! A student played a solo violin piece, one sang a Māori version of ‘Hallelujah,’ while another wrapped up the morning with Van Morrison’s ‘Moondance.’ Wonderful! I pictured us all dancing slow motion with the wind in our hair. Instead the wind whipped the music sheet up and away.
It was a morning of korero, waiata, music and poetry and it felt good to inhale both words and song. Nourishing. We moved to the whare kai where a tremendous lunch of fresh local produce matched the hubbub of conversation. You don’t get to experience many days like this in your lifetime. Such warmth, and connections.
Saturday night
Marty Smith was the MC extraordinaire in a poetry reading of two halves. It’s ages since I have heard Chris and Greg read, but to hear them read in this context was something special with poems handpicked for the Laureate occasion. Greg read a terrific poem now showcased in the selection of Best NZ Poems from 2015, while Chris confirmed that her new book is her best to date (we have an interview in the pipeline!). Three young opera singers from Project Prima Volta wowed us with two arias. The room befitted the occasion: white cloths on tables, astonishing flower/plant arrangements, platters of food, Te Mata wine. Karl started and ended the night and showed very clearly why he is Laureate. He read across his range and his last set gave me goosebumps. The clarity of voice, the poetic strata, the acute detail that makes you want to pick up your pen and write.
Sunday morning
Breakfast and poroporoaki for everyone on the marae. The goodbyes. At breakfast Karl and I talked about the weekend and how we both spent chunks of the night wide awake as though we had to rehearse the next day and analyse the day before. I probably had about two or three hours sleep a night and it seemed like a state of wakefulness that kept me on high alert. What had happened, what was about to happen. I had brought seven books to match most moods (everyone laughed at my big bag of duvet and books) but I only got to read snatches of The Lie Tree. The gap between YA fantasy and the marae was unbridgeable. I got up early and walked my way into wakefulness before Emma Scott, Jacob’s sister, took me out to the river mouth and then coffee at her brother’s house. To see the meeting waters, where river meets ocean, to soak up the gleam of sun on waves and estuary, felt like a poem on the surface of the world. We talked and we looked. Emma is a stone mason. We talked about poetry and we talked about stone. We talked about what holds things together. It matters that we hold up our treasured poets. Give them a place to stand and speak.
There was much korero after breakfast, and song. Chris and Robbie sang a mesmerising Bob Dylan number, almost lullabying me into necessary slumber.
Peter Ireland, running on empty after little sleep, spoke with characteristic thought and thanked everyone personally. It felt like a garland of words to wear out into the world of planes and trains and motorways. Or for me, a place of solitude and bush.
Jacob said it beautifully. He said that the Poet Laureate was significant for the marae. That it spread the hapu’s power and influence. That this is now Karl’s place as well. The undercurrent is that poetry matters. Jacob said it is significant ‘that the Poet Laureate can articulate the thoughts and expressions of who we are. Of what we can do. Of what we have got. And what we could do.’ Like a bird.
We all felt in debt to Tom Mulligan and his drawing together of this poetry clan. With much aroha and generosity of place, stories and a willing ear.
Our heads are full of days we cannot remember, but for many of us, this weekend will not be one of them.
Thank you. Especially Karl, The National Library and Matahiwi Marae.
The performances.
A quick trip into Havelock North to drink the best coffee and eat the best lemon tart in a cafe on the brink of closing for the day. Peter was a very good guide.
The writers, friends and family ate at Pipi Cafe, a cafe renowned for its love of poetry and its excellent pizzas in Havelock North.
Poets’ Night Out
The last morning.
A very special Poetry Book Launch: Rachel Bush
And some mornings seagulls fly
three or four over this house to say
something about grief and weather.
–from ‘Watch’, by Rachel Bush
Victoria University Press warmly invites you to a celebration of Rachel Bush and the launch of her new collection Thought Horses.
On Tuesday 19 April, 5.30pm–7.30pm at Vic Books, Kelburn.
This event will include readings of Rachel’s poems by Bill Manhire, Chris Price, Jo Randerson, Louise Wallace, Dinah Hawken, Louise Wrightson and Glenn Colquhoun.
Thought Horses will be available for purchase, $25, p/b.
Refreshments will be served.
Best NZ Poems now live
The 2015 edition of Best New Zealand Poems was launched yesterday, introducing both established writers and new voices to the wider public.
Best New Zealand Poems 2015 can be viewed here.
The anthology has been published annually since 2001 by the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) at Victoria University of Wellington.
Poet and academic John Newton had the task of sifting through the thousands of poems published in books and journals last year in search of 25 that delivered what he wanted.
“I was looking for an active jolt of pleasure,” he says. “That moment of finding something that really does it for you, when you can’t wait to get on the phone or on Facebook, or better still in person, hearing it echoed in the pleasure of the person you’re sharing it with.”
Best New Zealand Poems series editor Chris Price, a senior lecturer at the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML), says one of the contributions is from Selina Tusitala Marsh, who just last month performed for the Queen at Westminster Abbey. “Her poem describes watching The Vampire Diaries after a day spent teaching post-colonial theory,” Ms Price says.
Diverse cultures and forms of communication feature strongly in this year’s selection, demonstrating that our poetry is both rooted in the local and connected to the world. Sarah Jane Barnett’s beautiful and timely poem looks at the life of a refugee from Ethiopia. Gregory O’Brien’s poem attempts to gain the ear of the King of Tonga, and Alison Wong tries to decipher the language of match-making in Shanghai. Kani Te Manukura remembers Te Kooti’s last stand and thinks about Aotearoa’s race-time continuum. Ashleigh Young encounters a man in Reno with the voice of ‘Death’s personal computer’.
Readers of John Newton’s top 25 poems are also able to hear recordings of several of the poets reading their work.
Ms Price says there is a playful, wry tone to much of this year’s work.
“Hera Lindsay Bird announces that ‘It’s a bad crime to say poetry in poetry’ but she does it anyway. Alexandra Hollis reminds us that Rihanna is as profound as the stars, and Bryan Walpert’s title, ‘This poem is conversational’, might be a comment on the very nature of contemporary New Zealand poetry.”
Best New Zealand Poems is published by the IIML with support from Creative New Zealand, and is hosted by the New Zealand Electronic Text Collection.
Louise Wrightson farewells Rachel Bush
The Strong Mothers
Where are the mothers who held power
and children, preserved peaches
in season, understood about
greens and two classes of protein
who drove cars or did not have a licence
who laughed, raged and were there?
Take Mrs Russell who rode her irate bike,
an upright fly that buzzed
with a small engine on its back wheel
up South Road past the school football field
on her way to the hospital. Consider
the other Mrs Russell, drama judge, teacher of
speech and elocution in a small front room,
part-time reporter on The Hawera Star.
And Mrs Ellingham who had an MA in French,
ah, the university. Or Mrs Smith, one knee stiff
with TB, her tennis parties on Saturdays, adults
on banks and we smoked their cigarettes in the bamboo.
Her legs shone, their skin in diamonds like a lizard’s.
Then Mrs Chapman who sang in the church choir,
formed brooches from fresh white bread,
made you look for a needle till you found it,
heated records and shaped them into vases for presents
who did a spring display in the window of Gamages Hats.
They have left the vowels uncorrected, the stories unproofed.
They have rested their bicycles inside their garages,
looked up the last word, la dernière mot, in Harraps Dictionary,
let needles lie in the narrow dust between verandah boards.
They have tested the last jam on a saucer by a window
comforted the last crying child they will ever see,
and left. How we miss them and their great strength.
Wait for us, we say, wait for me.
And they will.
Listen to the poem on Best New Zealand Poems 2002 here
I was sorry to miss the launch of Chris Price and Lynley Edmeades new books at Unity, Wellington, last week. It was the same day as the celebration of poet Rachel Bush’s life at Old St Johns in Nelson. The event was part celebration, part concert. I’ve never been to an occasion like this where spontaneous applause followed the many performances. Rachel would have enjoyed every moment.
I met Rachel in 1996 when we were on a writing course run by Bill Manhire. I loved her the moment we met. When Bill set the group the task of writing a pantoum—a verse form that by its nature leans toward the serious and contemplative—Rachel’s first line was an accusatory “You offered to make the lasagne” which had us all laughing.
Another member of the group of ’96 was at her farewell too; Ingrid Horrocks, whose mother, Ginny, led the order of service. It’s usual to learn more about a friend’s past on occasions such as this and it was enlightening. Ginny traced her early relationship with Rachel at Canterbury University when they were junior lecturers, their planned trip to visit Tierra del Fuego (which didn’t happen because Rachel met Richard Nunns and fell in love), their shared ‘earth mother’ time bringing up children and their abiding friendship.
Rachel’s recorder group—she favoured the bass recorder—played a few of the same 16th century pieces they had performed for her while she was in the Nelson hospice.
Mary Ayre played ‘Songs without Words’ (Mendlessohn) on the piano and later accompanied Jo Hodgson when she sang ‘Ave Maria’ (Bach/Gounod) and ‘Sleep My Little Prince’ (Mozart).
Late last December I spent a week with Rachel and we went to her singing group run by the talented Pam Sims. Rachel liked German lieder and sang them beautifully in her husky voice. Her voice will always stay with me. It comes through the poems in her three Victoria University Press books: The Hungry Woman (1997), The Unfortunate Singer (2002) and Nice Pretty Things (2011).
Her fourth book, which Rachel saw before she died, thanks to VUP, will be launched at Vic Books in Wellington, 19 April, 5.30pm and at Page and Blackmore in Nelson later in the month.
There were many compliments about Rachel, the person, the writer, the singer, and musician. Peter Speers spoke about how she made ordinary things spring into life and how perceptive and gentle a critic she was. Other speakers mentioned her courage and loyalty to family and friends.
Rachel was a contained, thoughtful, loving friend. Underneath her considered surface I sensed a constant hum as she interpreted what was happening around her. She was wired for observation. This private alert woman was generous with her concern for the well being of her friends and family when they rang or called in to Napoli Way to check her health and lift her spirits. They bought all manner of delicious food and flowers. I remember a huge rich Christmas cake, pale blue eggs, shortbread, sweet peas, date loaves, crispy biscuits, orange roses, frittatas and cheese scones. If food and love could have beaten her cancer Rachel would be with us now. The phone rang often with friends calling from all over New Zealand.
Rachel’s poems featured at the service; her friend Robin Riley read ‘The Strong Mothers’, her lovely grand-daughter Jessica Moser read ‘The Song of Miss Gotto”, one of Rachel’s two daughters, Lucy, read ‘Birthday’. Molly read a poem called ‘Our Mother’ that the sisters had written together. It will appear in a Penguin book called ‘Thanks Mum’ which will be published this Mother’s Day.
Rachel had been cremated before we gathered to farewell her. As Pachelbel’s Canon played, her husband, Richard, carried the box that held her ashes out of the church followed by her family, including her five grandchildren. Rachel has gone and we have lost a wonderful woman and a lively poet. It’s a great comfort that she knew how very much she was loved. And it’s a bonus that we’ll have another opportunity to enjoy Rachel’s whimsy, gentle backslaps and interesting spin on life when her new book, Thought Horses, is released by VUP mid-April.
Louise Wrightson, April 2016
Fergus Barrowman has kindly granted Poetry Shelf permission to post two poems from the new collection (thanks to the latest issue of Sport online).
‘All my feelings would have been of common things’
All my feelings are of common things
of the clock going on, of the next
meal or the last one, of the washing
on the line and if there’s enough heat
to dry it, of how to clean a lawnmower
just enough to make the Salvation Army
man want to take it away, with old grey
grass stuck to the blades, the tyres that hold
dirt, like cleats in walking shoes. Also
a dryer I bought forty years ago,
I stick the manual and the expired
guarantee inside the metal drum.
All those clothes it turned and churned, the lint
that it trapped in its door. I once thought
many things would make my life happier
and now one by one I will let them go.
Stepping out
If you would open your curtains,
if you could just go outside.
But you don’t
you can’t.
If you could step out
of your own house
your own skin,
lay your accumulated habits
and personality on the floor,
say of a hotel foyer,
for someone else to find
after you have gone,
light and lithe, into what
ever’s there, perhaps a spring
morning, pink trees surprised
by blossom. The best spring
is in your own high
free step.
For the rest of the Sport selection go here.
I got to meet Rachel for the first time when she read at the Nelson leg of my Hot Spot Poetry Tour a couple of years ago. Having been attracted to the warmth and detail of her poetry, I was instantly drawn to the warmth and detail of Rachel Bush in person. Her voice. Her smile. Her engagement with the children on the carpet. She was a special person. I wanted to hug her. To read Louise’s moving account of the memorial service is a way to take stock, to sit quietly, to say goodbye. I won’t get to have that coffee on my next visit to Nelson, but I will get to have ‘afternoon tea’ with Rachel’s poems for many years to come. I treasure that one meeting. Thank you Louise for drawing us closer.
Paula Green
NZ Poetry Shelf 