Lesson
When was the last time you
washed a green apple – peeling
off the irksome sticker – and
quartered it on a chopping board?
Then sliced the quartered cores out
with two fine v-cuts
and threw them onto the lawn
for the birds? Then cut the quarters
into eighths and passed the eighths
around, eating two yourself
– the sharp fresh taste sweeter
than you’d expected?
James Brown
James Brown’s Selected Poems will be published by VUP in 2020.
Great news for this Seraph Press poet.
Nina Mingya Powles has been announced as the winner of the inaugural Nan Shepherd Prize for her submission Small Bodies of Water which explores growing up between two different cultures.
The literary award, run by Canongate Books, was formed to discover and nurture underrepresented voices in nature writing.
Powles receives a publishing contract with Canongate and the book will be published in hardback in August 2021. She has already signed an agent in Kirsty McLachlan at David Godwin Associates.
The book’s synopsis reads: “Home is many people and places and languages, some separated by oceans. In experimental and lyrical prose that blends personal memories and dreams with nature writing, Small Bodies of Water examines a girlhood spent growing up between two cultures.
“From the rainforest waterfalls of Borneo to the wild coastline of New Zealand and the Ladies’ Pond in Hampstead Heath, this book explores migration, food, family and the bodies of water that separate and connect us.”
The idea for the prize came from Canongate’s rights manager Caroline Clarke and assistant editor Megan Reid, who said. Launched in May, it included a partnership with the Nan Shepherd Estate and the University of Aberdeen. It was inspired by, and in memory of, writer Nan Shepherd, whose book The Living Mountain remained unpublished for almost 40 years before being published in 1977 and selling 90,000 copies.
Reid said: “We were delighted to see such a warm response to the prize, and were blown away by the number and quality of the entries we received. We saw entries from all across the UK, from those already active within the nature writing community, to those who had never shared their writing before.”
Throughout the call-in period, Canongate offered online resources to help break down the publishing process, and discuss nature writing books by underrepresented writers. Each of the shortlisted and longlisted writers will receive feedback on their entries.
The winning entry was picked from a judging panel of Amy Liptrot, bestselling author of The Outrun (Canongate); Chitra Ramaswamy, award-winning journalist and author of Expecting; Nick Barley, director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival; Jenny Brown, literary agent and chair of Bloody Scotland Festival and Francis Bickmore, publishing director at Canongate Books.
Powles said: “It has been so wonderful and enriching to get the opportunity to take part in the Nan Shepherd Prize journey alongside so many talented shortlisted writers. I’m grateful to the judges for believing in my work, and feel completely overwhelmed that they have selected my submission. I can’t wait to start working with Canongate to bring my book out into the world.”
McLachlan said of Powles: “Her writing is exquisite and I’m so excited that Canongate will be publishing such a talented writer.”
“Everyone who read Small Bodies of Water – from Canongate readers to the judges – loved Nina’s wonderful, lyrical and poetic writing,” Reid said. “This is a beautiful first book that really captures the spirit of The Living Mountain, and I’m so excited to have found such a brilliant winner of the first Nan Shepherd Prize in Nina.”
Powles is a writer, editor and publisher of mixed Malaysian-Chinese heritage. She is the author of the poetry pamphlets, her essays have been published in various literary journals and she was joint winner of the 2019 Landfall Essay Competition and the 2018 Women Poets’ Prize. She was also a finalist for the 2019 Sarah Broom Poetry Prize, one of New Zealand’s richest poetry awards. She is the founding editor of Bitter Melon 苦瓜, a small press that publishes limited-edition poetry pamphlets by Asian diaspora writers. Her pamphlet of essays on food is forthcoming from Birmingham-based indie The Emma Press. Powles was born in New Zealand, partly grew up in China and now lives in London.
Clytemnestra Takes a Bath
Woman — cast your tyrannical spell upon the water,
heart of red dwarf star, fizzing wonder,
and to the seething foam pour your oils, aromatic offerings,
libations of rose petals. Let candles blaze in the dark,
a ring of ensnaring flame.
Woman — run the bath red,
drop by crimson drop, let the red tide flow
unsheathe the cold steel, let it slide in long strokes
and when it nicks it oozes,
draw it quick down beneath the scarlet waters,
and keep it there.
Woman — I know you,
you own the distant scream or two of flesh
dragged against white marble,
the sound behind the door of a call:
in another life, you betrayed a kingdom of nothing,
wrenched off an eagle’s wings, sprayed its black blood wide,
assumed the form of a snake.
Clytemnestra — in this life, relax;
the day is beginning.
Untangle the net of your dressing gown from the bathroom floor,
wrap your blushed flesh in silk,
apply a plaster to that bright-ooze, shaving cut,
and let the crimson bathwater all the way out.
Breathe deep, dry off, moisturise.
Fish the rose petals from the teeth of the bathtub’s drain
with your hands.
Hebe Kearney
Hebe Kearney is from Christchurch but now calls Auckland her home. She is currently studying to complete her Honours in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Auckland. She couldn’t stop writing poems if she tried, and her work has appeared in Starling, The Three Lamps and Oscen.
I am off on a Storyline’s National Festival Tour of schools on the East Coast of the South Island with Eileen Merriman, Vasanti Unka and Phillipa Werry. We are doing ‘What’s My Story?’: an evening event in Christchurch where we discuss our work. Come and say hello!
I wish that trapdoor to Wellington was still working – VERB’s LitCrawl has the most eclectic and appealing range of poets I have seen in eons and if I could be there in a flash I would. On Saturday night the range of voices is stunning. But it starts now!
This WOW! is on today:
Otago University Press media release: Unpredictable powers of non-human world inspire winning collection
Lyttelton poet Philip Armstrong has won the 2019 Kathleen Grattan Award with his poetry manuscript ‘Sinking Lessons’.
‘Sinking Lessons’ was described by judge Jenny Bornholdt as an ‘accomplished, engaging collection of poems that displays literary skill and a sharp intelligence at work.’
‘There’s great affection for life of all kinds – human and the natural world – coupled with an awareness of the fragility of existence,’ she says.
Philip Armstrong says the poems in his collection are shaped by two main themes: the sea and the agency of the non-human world in general.
‘I grew up in a house beside the Hauraki Gulf, and for the last two decades I’ve lived within sight of Lyttelton Harbour, and the sights and sounds and smells of salt water make their way into my poetry whether I intend it or not’.
‘The other theme linking these poems is my attempt to recognise the active, mobile, lively, unpredictable capacities of the non-human world, from animals and plants through to waste matter and refuse, through to land forms and weather patterns.’
The biennial poetry award from Landfall and the Kathleen Grattan Trust is for an original collection of poems, or one long poem, by a New Zealand or Pacific permanent resident or citizen. Landfall is published by Otago University Press.
Philip Armstrong receives a $10,000 prize and a year’s subscription to Landfall, and Otago University Press will publish his collection in 2020.
For more information about Kathleen Grattan and the history of the award
About Philip Armstrong
Philip Armstrong works at the University of Canterbury, teaching literature (especially Shakespeare), human–animal studies, and creative writing (including poetry).
He has written a number of scholarly books (two on Shakespeare, and two on animals in literature) as well as a book for a general audience (about sheep in history and culture). In 2011 he won the Landfall Essay Prize for a piece about the Canterbury earthquakes, entitled ‘On Tenuous Ground’. ‘Sinking Lessons’ is his first collection of poetry.
NZ Poetry Shelf 