Poetry Shelf noticeboard: Gail Ingram launches new collection
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Contents Under Pressure a new poetry collection by Gail Ingram illustrated by Rata Ingram published by Pūkeko Publications 5.30-7.00pm Spark Room, Ground Floor at Tūranga New Central Library, Christchurch.
Poetry Shelf noticeboard: Tracey Slaughter launching debut poetry collection
You are warmly invited to the launch of
Tracey Slaughter’s debut poetry collection
Conventional Weapons
on Thursday 9 May at 5.30pm
at Poppies Bookshop Hamilton
307 Barton St, Hamilton
Free event. All welcome.
Conventional Weapons, p/b, $25
Victoria University Press page
Poetry Shelf Friday talk spot: Jeffrey Paparoa Holman and ‘Normal Service’
Normal Service
It feels like months since I’ve come near to anything like writing poetry. Sometimes it just happens like that: there’s a season, not that the well is dry, just that the bucket hasn’t been lowered. The first few months of this year have been taken up with getting myself ready to leave my position at the University of Canterbury, deciding not to re-apply for another three years as an adjunct. Time to go, after nine productive and stable years.
I tell people, “I’m not retiring, just moving offices”, which is true, but it is a major change. Every weekday morning, Jeanette and I have cycled out to the Ilam Campus, stopping off for a coffee most days near Hagley Park. Now, I don’t have to go anywhere, which is different from having nowhere to go, but it will take some getting used to.
What I won’t forget is that in the last two weeks of my tenure, all has been overtaken and devoured by what happened on the afternoon of the fifteenth of March when the whole campus was locked down as a result of what we were first told was, “ a firearms incident at the Al Noor Mosque”. It soon became obvious it was a fatal shooting, there had been many casualties, that some were dead, and as the afternoon wore on, the numbers climbed as the scale of the tragedy was revealed.
So much has happened in this city since that day, on a public stage and in private places, that don’t need any reminders here. The stories, the narratives of grief, shock, anger and even a kind of numbness are all being woven together, in a community that knows disaster, that must now confront terrorism and its aftermath at our very heart – a place of worship.
I had no intention, no inclination, to write anything resembling a poem. It was enough just to try and get my head around what was happening and as well, carry on clearing my desk, saving files, changing email addresses and saying goodbye to good friends on the staff of Canterbury.
Jeanette and I sometimes go for breakfast at Under The Red Verandah, a famous city eatery reborn after the poet and publisher Roger Hickin’s original establishment was wrecked in the earthquakes. While we were there on Thursday morning, my wife asked me if any poetry was there in the wake of what had happened, and I recall saying, no, I couldn’t even contemplate writing a poem.
But as I walked around afterwards, I heard a line, an insistent phrase, quite clearly: “Normal service will not be resumed”. It just sat there. Then another: “There has been a slaying”. It isn’t often I feel I must obey an instinct as strong as this, but started to write what was really a form of litany, compressing the underlying horror I felt. The poem came in couplets that began with what sounds like a public service announcement, which the next line undermines. At least I hope that is the effect.
I worked on it during the day, and on Friday I took it out to Christchurch Mens’ Prison, Paparua, where every week, three Christchurch poets – Bernadette Hall, Jeni Curtis and I – run a book group in the library overseen by Susan, our wonderful librarian.
There was a security lockdown that day and we had no prisoners turn up. We all sat around and shared our lives, and the poem was read. Susan took a copy for the prison’s monthly library magazine. Whatever it is worth, a silence for me was broken and some of the men in that jail will get to read it, maybe even give a response at a later group.
W. B. Yeats once wrote, “…but all that is personal soon rots; it must be packed in ice or salt”. For Yeats, style, form – made new – was vital in preventing the poet from lapsing into subjective egotism. A disaster like this is not about me, but the victims.
Normal service
mō ngā mate Mahometa e rima tekau i hinga ki Ōtautahi 15 Māehe 2019
Normal service will not be resumed
There has been a slaying
Normal service is impossible
Children executed
Normal service disconnected
Mothers slaughtered
Normal service is terminated
Elders eliminated
Normal service makes no sense
Terror is walking
Normal service is banned for life
Blood on the welcome
Normal service is now shut down
Thank you for weeping
Jeffrey Paparoa Holman
4 April 2019
Jeffrey Paparoa Holman writes poetry, memoir and history. His most recent work is Now When It Rains: a writer’s memoir, published by Steele Roberts (Aotearoa) in 2018.
Rob Stowell, the videographer at Canterbury had recorded this reading of the poemW
Poetry Shelf noticeboard: Murray Edmond launching collection
Dear friend,
We hope you can join us at Strange Haven, 281 Karangahape Rd, around 6:30pm on April 30th, to celebrate the publication of a new book of poetry by Murray Edmond.
You’ll be able to have a drink on us, buy a book from the handmade edition of 200, and even hear it from the pigeon’s mouth.
Aroha,
Compound Press
Poetry Shelf noticeboard: Verb Events in May
We have top international authors visiting Wellington with us in May: Take time to come along and listen live to conversations and performances that will inspire and buoy you, the perfect antidote for Autumn …
Luke Wright (UK): Monday 13 May, 7.30pm
Funny, erudite and inventive poet Luke Wright performs a best-of set.
Information and tickets on our website here.
Presented in association with Auckland Writers Festival
“One of the funniest and most brilliant poets of his generation” – The Independent
“Cool poems.” – Patti Smith
John Boyne (Ireland): Tuesday 14 May, 7.30pm
Internationally acclaimed Irish novelist (Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Ladder to the Sky) is speaking with our own acclaimed writer Pip Adam. Information and tickets on our website here.
Presented in association with Dunedin Writers Festival with the support of Culture Ireland
“…one of the most assured writers of his generation.” – The Guardian
Graeme Simsion (Australia): Monday 23 May, 7.30pm
Acclaimed author of The Rosie Project, The Rosie Effect and the latest, The Rosie Result speaks about this phenomenally successful series with a profound message at its heart.
Information and tickets on our website here.
“Incredibly funny, life-affirming and warm-hearted” Heat
Poetry Shelf audio spot: Hinemoana Baker reads ‘Aunties’
Hinemoana reads ‘Aunties’
Hinemoana Baker, of Ngāti Tahu, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Toa and Te Āti Awa along with English and Bavarian heritage, currently lives in Berlin. A poet, musician and playwright, she graduated with an MA in creative writing from Victoria University of Wellington in 2002. She was the 2009 Arts Queensland Poet in Residence, a writer in residence at the University of Iowa International Writing Program (2010), Victoria University Writer in Residence (2014) and held the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writer’s Residency (2015–16). She has published three poetry collections and several CDs of sonic poems.
Poetry Shelf noticeboard: a reading with Jo Thorpe, Reihana Robinson and Elizabeth Welsh
Jo Thorpe, Reihana Robinson and Elizabeth Welsh are reading at The Fringe in Wellington (26 AllenStreet) this Sunday 14 April from 4-6pm. They would love to see you all there! — with Mākaro Press.
I love the books these three poets published last year in the HoopLa series.
Poetry Shelf noticeboard: The Wellington Feminist Poetry Club at The Fringe
Poetry Shelf classic poem: Vana Manasiadis picks J. C. Sturm’s ‘The last night at Collingwood’
The last night at Collingwood
No moon and a black sea,
The daytime birds have flown
To their night time places,
The incoming tide creeps
Over Farewell Spit.
Soon waves will wash the rocks
Outside our windows,
Spraying the glass with salt.
Twenty-four hours from now
Birds, land and sea
Will repeat it all again
We’ll be gone by then
Back to that northern
Beach across the Strait
With far fewer sea birds
But Kapiti close at hand.
There we watch the sun go down
Where the Spit lies out of sight,
Believing love, like them
Returns again and again.
J C Sturm from Postscripts, Steele Roberts, 2000
(posted with kind permission from J C Sturm estate)
From Vana Manasiadis:
Dear Jacquie
Postscripts was the first poetry collection I cared enough about to steal from my sister and stash in a ring-binder. It was the first poetry collection I read and reread until I could say aloud the lines that made me cry. Repeat it all again, Beach across the Strait: I pinned your ‘The last night at Collingwood’ over Arnold’s ‘Dover Beach’ once I got over men with rights and titles; once I was on the other side of the Entitled Man, the White Supremacist man, the Drunken Father-Husband man. Jacquie, there’s been a lot of pain. Jacquie, we really need the sea. Island Bay, Gouves-Crete, Piraeus, Collingwood followed all these peak-and-trough waves meeting; immigrating. So thank you for not bordering up the sea. Thank you for your black sea (our big fish tīpuna), your Farewell Spit-salt-glass sea (our headings off and back), your Kāpiti close at hand (where Alia lives, who healed our sudden schisms, and Nadine and Alex, their mana wāhine seeing). I believe you Jacquie. I believe that there are shared ways and still ways and noticing ways. I believe you Jacquie that there’s a clear and certain way to wash the rocks.
Vana Manasiadis has published two collections of poetry, with a third, The Grief Almanac: A Sequel, to be published by Seraph Press in 2019. She co-edited Tātai Whetū: Seven Māori Women Poets in Translation (2018) in the Seraph Press Translation Series, and edited and translated from Greek Ναυάγια/Καταφύγια: Shipwrecks/Shelters: Six Contemporary Greek Poets (Seraph Press, 2016).
J. C. Sturm (Jacqueline Cecilia) (1927–2009), of Taranaki iwi, Parihaka and Whakatōhea descent, was born in Opunake and is thought to be the first Māori woman to graduate with an MA from a New Zealand university (First Class Hons, Philosophy, Victoria University of Wellington). She initially wrote short fiction, and her work was the first by a Māori to appear in an anthology. Her debut poetry collection, Dedications (Steele Roberts, 1996), received an Honour Award at the 1997 Montana New Zealand Book Awards and she published further collections of poetry and short stories. Her poetry appeared in a number of anthologies and journals. Her collection, Postscripts (Steele Roberts, 2000), includes images by her son John Baxter. She received an honorary doctorate from Victoria University of Wellington, worked as a librarian, was married to James K Baxter and had two children.
Te Ara page on J. C. Sturm by Paul Millar
NZ Book Council page
NZ Poetry Shelf 