Poetry Shelf noticeboard: Book School launch party
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Poetry Shelf noticeboard: submissions open for Geometry
Poetry Shelf Monday Poem: Charlotte Simmonds’s ‘Kirsten’
Kirsten
Says she has a small dog.
You would like a small dog.
Will Kirsten let you walk her small dog?
Will she let you play with it?
But what if Kirsten’s small dog doesn’t like you.
What if it rejects you.
Rejection is so painful and hard to bear.
It feels like you are dying.
You are dying.
If you were in ‘the wild’, ostracism would mean certain death.
If you were in ‘the wild’, it would be hard for you to feed and shelter yourself adequately.
If you were in ‘the wild’, and then you got an injury, you would be really screwed.
If you were in ‘the wild’, no one would be able to help you.
If you were in ‘the wild’, you would be dead by now.
If you were in ‘the wild’, wild dogs who were in the wild would feed on you.
If you were in ‘the wild’, you could productively give back to the wild.
If you were in ‘the wild’, you could help everyone.
You could help everyone except the runt of the litter.
The runt of the litter is too small to feed on you.
His elder siblings shove him rudely out of the way.
His mother no longer loves him because she does not buy into that sunk cost fallacy.
The runt of the litter is excluded, cast out, ostracised, just like you.
He never meets another runt of the litter.
They never hump, conceive, give birth to even runtier runts.
All the small dogs of the world die out.
In the wild, all the small dogs are dead because your body was too small, there was not enough to go round, they could not feed on your body.
You’d think Kirsten’s small dog would like you, because it, too, in the wild, would know the pain of rejection, like you.
But it doesn’t. It blames you.
Kirsten’s small dog thinks this is all your fault.
©Charlotte Simmonds
Charlotte Simmonds is a (currently) “autistic” Wellington writer, translator, sometime researcher and intermittent theatre practitioner. Her fiction, non-fiction and poetry has appeared on stage at BATS Theatre in Wellington, in New Zealand podcasts, on New Zealand poetry blogs The Red Room and Poetry Shelf, in New Zealand literary journals Landfall, Hue & Cry, Sport, Turbine and JAAM, in Usonian literary journals The Iowa Review, Mid-American Review, Painted Bride and Broad Street, and in the UK journal Flash. She is the author of one published collection of poetry and lyric prose, The World’s Fastest Flower, a finalist in the Montana Book Awards in 2009, and was more recently shortlisted for an Australian short story prize.
Poetry Shelf noticeboard: at Jacket 2 – Vaughan Rapatahana on Kiwi Asian women poets
in a few months, i will fly
away from these streets, out of
skin. in a few months, i will spend
two new years in vegetable markets
and watching lazy susans
spin our chipped china plates around.
from ‘Ancestors’ by Joanna Li
This is an excellent post (part one of two) by Vaughan on a cluster of Kiwi Asian women poets: Vanesssa Crofsky, Wen-Juenn Lee, Joanna Li, Renee Liang, Aiwa Pooamorn and Nina Powles.
Here is a taste of the introduction:
I was completing a chapter in the forthcoming 2019 book, English in the South, edited by Kyria Finardi and published by Eduel, Brazil, when I thought that I really must write a commentary regarding the influx of young Asian poets, who were born in Aotearoa New Zealand, or have arrived to live here for long periods. Why? Because my chapter is entitled Confronting the English language Hydra in Aotearoa New Zealand and bemoans the lack of recognition given to Asian languages in the country because of the domination of English language exponents and their monolingual expectations, and the concomitant definite lack of deference to Asian peoples per se — despite the fact they will be the second largest cultural demographic here by 2026.
This resolve further strengthened when I read poems in a chapbook provided me by Renee Liang, and entitled Tasting Words (2017) — in which there was considerable strong emotion displayed by these younger New Zealand women poets, of Asian heritage. The excellent Poetry Shelf postings, which Paula Green so wonderfully provides, further highlighted other poets, whom I had not been aware of, or insufficiently aware of. This is no arbitrarily superimposed grouping either, because their voices and verse are distinct. They need to be heard.
More than this, my own family, which is Asian (Chinese and Filipina), was forced to learn English — or not (!) when at school in both Hong Kong SAR and Philippines — while I have observed them somewhat caught between cultures at times. When they came to live in this, the skinny country of New Zealand, they were compelled to adjust. (Just as I tried to do when living in Brunei Darussalam, PR China, and Hong Kong SAR for so many years, in a sort of reverse diaspora. In fact, I spend considerable time in Asia nowadays and feel more comfortable there, by the way.)
Full post here
Poetry Shelf noticeboard: Sargeson Prize
Sargeson Prize
Short story competition
New in 2019, the Sargeson Prize is New Zealand’s richest short story prize, named for celebrated New Zealand writer Frank Sargeson and founded by Catherine Chidgey. Entries open on 1 April for the 2019 (and inaugural) Sargeson Prize and close at 11.59pm (NZST) on 30 June 2019. There is no entry fee, and entries are limited to one per writer, per division.
Open Division
The Open Division is open to New Zealand permanent residents writing in English. Published and unpublished writers are welcome to enter. Entries must be a single story of no more than 5000 words. It must an original, unpublished piece of work.
- First Prize: $5000
- Second Prize: $1000
- Third Prize: $500
The winning story will be published in Landfall and, at least three months later, in Mayhem. The second and third placing stories will also be published in Mayhem.
Secondary Schools Division
The Secondary Schools Division is open to students enrolled at a New Zealand secondary school and aged between 16 and 18 years on the date that competition entries close. Entries must be a single story of no more than 3000 words. It must be an original, unpublished piece of work.
- First Prize: $500
- Second Prize: $200
- Third Prize: $100
The winning story will be published in Mayhem.
The winner of the Secondary Schools Division will also be offered a one-week summer residency at the University of Waikato, to be taken up in January or February of the following year. The residency will include accommodation and meals at one of the University of Waikato Halls of Residence, a writing space in the School of Arts, and mentoring from postgraduate students and/or academic staff in the Writing Studies programme. If the winner is under 18 years of age, parental consent will be required.
Judging
Each year we will invite a successful New Zealand writer to judge the Sargeson Prize. This year we are delighted to announce that international award-winning author Catherine Chidgey will be Chief Judge. Catherine’s numerous achievements include being awarded the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize at the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for her fourth novel, The Wish Child.
Judging will be conducted “blind” – i.e. without the writer’s name attached to their submission. Entries may be subject to a pre-judging screening process by a panel overseen and moderated by the Chief Judge.
Details on how to enter here
Poetry Shelf noticeboard: Book launch – novel by Vaughan Rapatahana
BOOK LAUNCH
NOVEL BY VAUGHAN RAPATAHANA
2.00 pm SUNDAY 10 MARCH, 2019 @ Nectar Lounge, Kingslander Hotel, New North Road,
AUCKLAND
FREE ADMISSION Live band Any Day Now MC is Roger Horrocks
Performance poetry – Michael Botur
Full restaurant and bar facilities available.
NOVEL by Vaughan Rapatahana
Published by Rangitawa Publishing, 2018.
ISBN 9780995104662
320 pages trade paperback or on Kindle.
The rapidly developing action in ‘Novel’ straddles Aotearoa New Zealand, Hong Kong SAR, Philippines and beyond. In our contemporary world of increasing electronic surveillance from hegemonic national administrations, several diverse characters struggle to survive to resist in a variety of ways. At the same time the so-called established methods of writing fiction undergo deconstruction.
“With its range of exotic settings and even more exotic characters, ‘Novel’ is a switchback ride written in Rapatahana’s inimitable switchblade prose. A violent murder in a rural New Zealand meat works is the catalyst for a series of fast-moving events that ultimately have geopolitical consequences involving the struggles of dispossessed people and the shady efforts of the powers that be to thwart them.” James Norcliffe.
“A blazing tale of international politics and murder, and the people entangled in it, by design or accident, told in a style that detaches the reader from comfortable reading and a comfortable world, or even a comfortable reading of the world.” John Gallas
“Novel is an innovative and complex creation, both a thriller with fast-moving pace and a meditation on today’s and tomorrow’s world. It is an absorbing read, a journey to diverse cultures…The story weaves back and forth through a multiplicity of unfolding situations both gripping and thought provoking. Be afraid. Or not.” Alan Chamberlain
“The novel has a highly visual cinematic quality to it, cutting quickly from scene to scene while letting the action speak for itself. Its uncluttered narrative held my attention to the last page. It deserves a wide readership.” Bob Orr
“I’ll see you at the launch, eh.” Vaughan Rapatahana
Poetry Shelf noticeboard: Geoff Cochrane launch
Unity Books & Victoria University Press warmly invite you to hear Geoff Cochrane discuss his new poetry book ‘The Black and the White’ with fellow author Carl Shuker.
‘The Black and the White’ is a new work – witty, fearless, formidably concise – from one of the most distinctive voices in New Zealand poetry.
Geoff Cochrane is the author of seventeen collections of poetry, two novels, and Astonished Dice: Collected Short Stories (2014). In 2009 he was awarded the Janet Frame Prize for Poetry, and in 2010 the inaugural Nigel Cox Unity Books Award. Geoff received an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award in 2014.
Poetry Shelf Friday talk spot: Leilani Tamu on the departure of poetry
About eighteen months ago, poetry deserted me. I had just emerged from a period of deep grief, where the shock and trauma of losing a loved one was just beginning to ebb. And yet, at a time in my life when I needed the words more than ever, they were gone. I remember reaching out for them, initially tentatively, carefully. And I remember that first initial deep feeling of shock – and grief – at finding: Nothing.
It felt like an injustice, like I’d been robbed of something precious and irreplaceable. I reached for those same words again. I scoured the cognitive neuron-scape of my mind, and while tattered images and scattered thoughts were found here and there, the raw content – the stuff that had always been there when I needed it and wanted to transform it into poetry – was gone.
I didn’t realise it then, but reflecting on that time now, I understand it to be both beginning and end. Few people get to witness a momentous shift within and across a season in their cognitive evolution with such clarity. Most of us experience seasonal changes that shape our brains as surprising, often gradual, incremental observations that suggest change has occurred. Yet for me the change has been absolute. In a very strange way, writing about this helps to shape up the relativity of that loss; helps to put words to what I have known for eighteen months and been unable to share.
I will always be a poet, but the season in my life within which I wrote poetry, has ended. And within this new beginning, something beautiful – that I could never have dreamed of or fathomed – shaped from the humus of the cognitive tatters of the little that has been left from that season in my life – is just starting to emerge….
Leilani Tamu lives in Aotearoa with her husband and two children. Her first book of poetry, The Art of Excavation, was long-listed in the 2015 Ockham-NZ book awards.
Poetry Shelf audio spot: Johanna Emeney reads ‘Favoured Exception’
Photo credit: Bronwyn Lloyd
‘Favoured Exception’ previously published in Poetry NZ 2017
Johanna Emeney has a background as a senior school English Literature teacher — a vocation which she enjoyed for thirteen years. She is the author of two books of poetry: Apple & Tree (2011, Cape Catley) and Family History (2017, Mākaro Press). In 2017, she also wrote a nonfiction book called The Rise of Autobiographical Medical Poetry and the Medical Humanities (ibidem Press). Jo is currently a senior tutor at Massey University, and she co-facilitates the Michael King Young Writers Programme with Rosalind Ali. She is married to David, with a demanding family of two goats and six cats.
NZ Poetry Shelf 