Poet Laureate David Eggleton is curating a series entitled Six Dunedin Poets (with the work of one poet being posted on Mondays weekly), that he ids currently running on the National Library’s Poet Laureate blog as part of a bigger programme called The Situation, which he initiated last year on the blog.

So far he has posted work by Ruth Arnison, Richard Reeve and Alan Roddick, with Carolyn McCurdie, Sue Wootton and Peter Olds to follow over the next few weeks.

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Fox and Hounds

1.

In the summer you might end up going for a lager

at a pretty beer garden named for the slaughter

of the endangered red fox by marauding dogs

followed by boomy packs of rich folk on horseback

who own the dogs, the horses, the land where the fox

lived its short life. You might be interested to know

that in the UK it is no longer legal to let the dogs

tear the fox to shreds. It must be killed humanely

whereby the hunters dismount, walk towards the fox

in their high brown boots and shoot it in the head.

Meanwhile hunt saboteurs lay citronella to put the dogs

off the scent, and wires to trip the horses (poor horses).

You may end up wanting to tripwire the property

market because you hate the property market.

2.

You end up at an auction where young people bid

astronomical amounts for dumps in outer suburbs

which they could make into a home with a bit of work.

But the investor in the corner walks over in their boots

and bids and bids until they own all the houses. They

can’t live in all the houses, they don’t need all the houses

but they want them, and they can have them because

the policy-makers say that they can. They say, one day

we’ll build more houses, we’ll limit investing, and also

young people like flatting, they like houses the size of

a cupboard. Not us, but then, we’ve always had a house

we’ve always had a house with two bathrooms, a garden

and a garage in a nice street. Oh, and we have another

house, in the country, and the fox is already dead.

Anne Kennedy

Anne Kennedy is a poet, fiction writer and screenplay editor. Her most recent books are Moth Hour (AUP) and The Ice Shelf (VUP). Awards include the NZ Post Book Award for Poetry and the Montana Book Award for Poetry.

Having read the book, listened to Tusiata Aviaperform, and seen one of the theatre performances I recommend this astonishing play.

Listen here

You can listen to ‘Letters to Ōtatauhi’, ‘Wild Honey: A Celebration of NZ Women’s Poetry’, ‘Remembering Ralph Hotere’, Landmarks: Sydney, Marshall,Turner,’ ‘Ko Aotearoa Tātou | We Are New Zealand’, ‘Going Viral’, ‘Finding a Place’, Farid Ahmed: Hasna’s Story’, Dear Katherine’, ‘Adventurous Women’, ‘An Hour with Vincent O’Sullivan’, ‘Poet Laureate’s Choice’, ‘An Evening with Witi Ihimaera and Kingsley Spargo’, ‘Pip Adam: Nothing to See’, ‘Bill Manhire Wow’, ‘Elizabeth Knox and The Absolute Book’, ‘Talking Animals: Laura Jean Mckay and Philip Armstrong’ and much more.

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Ten things I love

1. A photograph: The photo is of Sepela – exactly 10 years ago, a week after the big earthquake when we escaped to Hinemoana’s who lived in Kapiti then.

2. A poem by someone else: ‘All they want is my money my pussy my blood’ by Morgan Parker (and pretty much anything from her book, There are more beautiful things than Beyonce.

3. A song: ‘Back to Life‘ by Soul II Soul

4. A book: Hurricane Season, Fernando Melchor, trans. Sophie Hughes, New Directions, 2020 (my favourite book of 2020)

5. A movie: My Neighbour Totoro

6. A place: South Sinai coast, Egypt

7. A meal: taro (cooked in the umu) and palusamu

8. A poetic motif: Can’t think of one, but I can think of a form I love – the pantoum.

9.  A place to write: Where ever the ‘thing’ is happening (see Five questions below)

10. A poem from my book:

250th anniversary of James Cook’s arrival in New Zealand

Hey James,

yeah, you

in the white wig

in that big Endeavour

sailing the blue, blue water

like a big arsehole

FUCK YOU, BITCH.

James,

I heard someone

shoved a knife

right up

into the gap between

your white ribs

at Kealakekua Bay.

I’m gonna go there

make a big Makahiki luau

cook a white pig

feed it to the dogs

and FUCK YOU UP, BITCH.

Hey James,

it’s us.

These days

we’re driving round

in SUVs

looking for ya

or white men like you

who might be thieves

or rapists

or kidnappers

or murderers

yeah, or any of your descendants

or any of your incarnations

cos, you know

ay, bitch?

We’re gonna FUCK YOU UP.

Tonight, James,

it’s me

Lani, Danielle

and a car full of brown girls

we find you

on the corner

of the Justice Precinct.

You’ve got another woman

in a headlock

and I’ve got my father’s

pig-hunting knife

in my fist

and we’re coming to get you

sailing round

in your Resolution

your Friendship

your Discovery

and your fucking Freelove.

Watch your ribs, James

cos, I’m coming with

Kalaniōpu‘u

Kānekapōlei

Kana‘ina

Keawe‘ōpala

Kūka‘ilimoku

who is a god

and Nua‘a

who is king with a knife.

And then

James,

then

we’re gonna

FUCK.

YOU.

UP.

FOR.

GOOD.

BITCH.

---

Tusiata Avia

Five questions

Is writing a pain or a joy, a mix of both, or something altogether different for you?

A mix, for sure. Often, I don’t feel like writing – unless I have an experience (internal or out in the world) that I feel the need to write about immediately. At times like that, I feel a sense of urgency, sometimes verging on desperation, to stop whatever I’m doing and write. I have pulled the car over on a busy motorway and searched for a piece of paper to scribble it down . I’m not great at the discipline of writing every day.

Name a poet who has particularly influenced your writing or who supports you.

I don’t read her so much these days, but I love Sharon Olds. She helped me to write more openly – to be honest and vulnerable.

Was your shortlisted collection shaped by particular experiences or feelings?

Colonisation, racism, illness, a bit of Covid – all the relaxing stuff.

Did you make any unexpected discoveries as you wrote?

The whole book was unexpected. I was writing another book called Giving Birth To My Father, which took ages. After a while (quite close to my deadline) I realised it wasn’t ready for the outside world. The Savage Coloniser Book had to come together really quickly, if I wanted it published for 2020. I knew I had a few poems that were very ‘2020’ lying about. I wrote to those poems in a short amount of time.

Do you like to talk about your poems or would you rather let them speak for themselves? Is there one poem where an introduction (say at a poetry reading) would fascinate the audience/ reader? Offer different pathways through the poem?

During poetry readings/ performances I used to think the poem should speak for itself but many poems really need an introduction, particularly when people are not experiencing them on the page.

Tusiata Avia, The Savagae Coloniser Book, Victoria University Press, 2020

Tusiata Avia is an acclaimed poet, performer and children’s writer. Her previous poetry collections are Wild Dogs Under My Skirt (2004; also staged as a theatre show, most recently Off-Broadway, winning the 2019 Outstanding Production of the Year), Bloodclot (2009) and the Ockham-shortlisted Fale Aitu | Spirit House (2016). Tusiata has held the Fulbright Pacific Writer’s Fellowship at the University of Hawai‘i in 2005 and the Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence at University of Canterbury in 2010. She was the 2013 recipient of the Janet Frame Literary Trust Award, and in 2020 was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to poetry and the arts.

Poetry Shelf review

Selina Tusitala Marsh’s review at ANZL

Poetry Shelf: Tusiata‘s ‘Love in the Time of Primeminiscinda’ (The Savage Coloniser Book)

Tusiata reads ‘Massacre’ (The Savage Coloniser Book)

Leilani Tamu review at KeteBooks

Faith Wilson review at RNZ National

Victoria University Press page

Ockham NZ Book Awards 2021shortlists here