Nelson’s Volume Bookshop runs a deletion poetry challenge for Poetry Day
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Poetry Shelf Audio Spot: Louise Wallace reads Darling-
Louise Wallace, Bad Things, Victoria University Press, 2017
‘Darling—’ from Bad Things—
Louise Wallace now lives in Dunedin and is the author of three collections of poetry, the most recent being Bad Things (Victoria University Press, 2017). In 2015 she was the Robert Burns Fellow at the University of Otago. She is the founder and editor of Starling, an online journal publishing the work of New Zealand writers under 25 years of age.
Victoria University announces Emerging Pasifika Writer’s Residency
Victoria University of Wellington’s International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) is delighted to announce a new Emerging Pasifika Writer’s Residency for 2019.
The Residency, supported by Creative New Zealand, runs for three months and includes a writing room and a stipend of $15,000. A member of the Pasifika arts community will mentor the Emerging Pasifika Writer-in-Residence.
The Residency was one of several ideas proposed around supporting new Pasifika writers at a Talanoa—a process of inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue—hosted by the IIML and attended by Pasifika writers and theatre-makers. Maualaivao Albert Wendt, whose ground-breaking fiction, poetry and teaching has influenced generations of writers, says emerging Pasifika writers need funding, “and the IIML offers a supportive, established and nourishing environment in which new writers can flourish”.
“This is a fabulous opportunity for a new Pasifika writer to work on a creative project in a stimulating and supportive environment. I am very excited,” says Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Pasifika) Dame Luamanuvao Winnie Laban.
The IIML welcomes applications from writers at an early stage of their careers, with a growing body of work. This Residency is unique in that applications are invited from writers in all areas of literary activity, including drama, fiction and poetry (page and performance), devised performance, creative non-fiction and graphic novels.
“There are so many exciting things happening in Pasifika writing and we’re thrilled to be involved with this residency,” says IIML Director, Professor Damien Wilkins.
Applications close 31 July 2018. Apply here, or for further details please contact modernletters@vuw.ac.nz
For more information contact Emily Perkins on 04-463 6905 or emily.perkins@vuw.ac.nz.
Pip Adam talks scintillating poetry with Jesse Mulligan
Pip Adam talks poetry with Jesse Mulligan
at RNZ National
Therese Lloyd’s The Facts Check out my review
Helen Heath Are Friends Electric? Check out Helen reading 2 poems and our interview
Helen Rickerby‘s poem ‘George Eliot: A Life’ Check out Helen reading an extract
Wonderful! and thanks for the Poetry Shelf plug
Monday Poem: Fiona Farrell’s ‘Photo opportunity’
Photo opportunity
As we approach the river of
forgetfulness, you will notice a
slight acceleration. On your left,
the garage and the motorcamp.
On your right, a thicket of
blackberry. (The berry’s blood,
thorn under the skin.)
Do not adjust your headset.
Do not open the windows.
(Grey braid of river silt, the
lupin’s yellow throat.)
Take out your cameras now.
There will be an opportunity
as we cross the river of
forgetfulness. We will pull
over. On the south bank,
shadows cluster. On the
north bank, bone and
rubble. Upriver, the lips
of the gorge, the narrow
source. Downriver is
dispersal and the dump
and seabirds weeping.
There are exits here.
And here. They have been
sealed for your security.
Do not adjust your aperture.
And now we are on our way.
We have crossed
the whatchamacallit
and we are heading
fast toward
thingummiebob.
©Fiona Farrell
Fiona Farrell writes poetry, fiction and, occasionally, fact. After 25 years living in a remote bay on Banks Peninsula, she moved last year to Dunedin.
National Flash Fiction Day Celebrations
National Flash Fiction Day Celebrations
22 June 2018
in
Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland and Kawakawa
Guest speakers include Sue Wootton, Vaughan Rapatahana, Patrick Pink, Tim Jones, Jac Jenkins, Jennifer Lane and Wellington Mayor, Justin Lester
Flash fiction and micros
NFFD Awards – Regional Awards
Spot prizes
Listen to the winning stories from the 2018 NFFD competitions.
All welcome.
Find an event near you
A terrific new Emma Neale poem at HeadStuff
Poetry Shelf audio spot: Helen Heath reads two new poems from Are Friends Electric
‘Greg and the bird’
and the bird’
‘A rise of starlings’
Helen Heath’s debut collection, Graft, won the NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book for Poetry Award. It was also shortlisted for the Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize (the first poetry or fiction shortlisted). Helen has a PhD in Creative Writing from Victoria University of Wellington’s IIML. Her new collection, Are Friends Electric, is a poetic smorgasbord that offers diverse and satisfying engagements.
Paula Green and Helen Heath in conversation
Victoria University Press page
In the hammock: reading Mimicry IV
Holly Hunter has edited the latest issue of Mimicry. She has drawn together an eclectic package of art and writing that will place your finger on the pulse of emerging (well mostly!) voices. The magazine is devoted to poetry, fiction, nonfiction, comedy, music, art, photography and design. It is slim but is abundant in reading currents.
You even get a mix tape at bandcamp to listen to as you read.
Often when I pick up a poetry journal I gravitate to the familiar poets whose work I already love – like a music hook. I will share my initial hooks with the rain thundering down outside. In this case Morgan Bach because I haven’t read anything from her for awhile and I just loved her debut book, Some of Us Eat the Seeds. Her two poems here are honed out of cloud and snow and blood because they are light and airy and serious.
Looking for balance to the red interiors
in a calm sea of grasses, the dull love
of dust on a hillside, the caress of each
muscle as it contracts and expands
to pull me to a summit. That place
I would reuse to leave if I could,
but the hours have me by the ankles.
from ‘Terrific’
After hearing Emer Lyons read in Wellington last year, I jump to her poems in an instant. She is nimble on the page and in the ear, and tacks in fresh directions that retune me as poetry reader.
i talk too much at parties
every bee i see is dead or dying
people set fire to the sky
set the dogs howling
record themselves singing the same thing
on repeat
repeating
(and The Fish goes
A A X B B X
1 3 8 1 6 8)
from ‘strays’
Chris Tse’s latest book, HE’S SO MASC, is a sublime read. I love this book because it risks and it opens. The poem here is ultra witty but dead serious.
20. It’s the way we step out of a burning theatre as if nothing’s wrong.
21. As if the smoke in our eyes is a lover’s smile caught in sunlight.
22. An uncontrollable fire is perfectly fine, given the state of the world.
23. Then why do I feel so angry?
24. Are you angry?
25. I’m angry.
from ‘Why Hollywood won’t cast poets in films anymore’
Essa Ranapiri was a highlight for me at Wellington Readers and Writers week this year. Their poem, ‘her*’, catches the way they make words ache and arc and slip between your ribs. You need to read the whole thing. To quote a glimpse is barely fair (two lines out of thirteen).
i left him wrapped in curtains
to stall the acid action of my stomach
from ‘her*’
I have only just discovered Rebecca Hawkes on The Starling. She is so good. The poem here is a linguistic explosion on the page: like an intricate and lush brocade that amasses shuddering detail and smatters expectation. You want to spend the weekend with this poem. (I want to hear her read so will be posting an audio clip of a Starling poem soon)
I ask their name and they make an unpronounceable sound / like the
curdling clink of cooling obsidian / so I call them the ultimate war machine
/ they hurl rocks into my enemies and when they beat the earth with their
fists / I feel the world quake under me / this is how I know I have fallen in
love / but also onto the ground
from ‘Crush’
We are served well with fresh young literary journals at the moment (literary doesn’t seem to catch what they do). They keep you in touch with poets that continue growing on you but also take you into new zones of reading, with unfamiliar voices making themselves felt. Indelibly! I have just read Sophie van Waardenberg’s three poems and they touch me, make me want to write with their viscosity and tang.
my girl becomes a calendar and I curl up inside her
my girl becomes a tongue twister and I curl up inside her
my girl lets the spring in through her hands
she puts her hands over my ears and I remember how it feels
from ‘schön’
Cheers to a well-stocked journal to keep you going through wet wintry days. I am saving the rest of the journal for the next wild weekend. First up Louise Wallace (author of much loved Bad Things), Aimee-Jane Anderson-O’Connor (the winner of the Landfall Young Writers Competition 2018) and Rachel O’Neill (who was recently awarded a NZ Writers Guild Puni Taatuhi o Aotearoa Seed grant to develop her screenplay).
The pleasure of good writing journals is that keep you in touch with what you know and catapult you into the unfamiliar where you accumulate new must-reads. Mimicry does exactly that.
See Mimicry on Facebook
Enquiries: mimicryjournal@gmail.com
When Poets Write Novels: Caoilinn Hughes picks a few favourites for Granta
Caoilinn Hughes, Orchard & the Wasp, PenguinRandomHouse, 2018
With her new novel just out, Caoilinn Hughes selects some poets who have written novels, including Janet Frame and Keri Hulme.
I grew up reading poetry and plays because that’s what was in the house. Once I’d become accustomed to density and concision, the novel seemed a baggy, watery, laborious, unapproachable thing. Nancy Drew was intimidating. The Hobbit was a lumbering, heaving giant. Yevtushenko – conversely – was slim, lithe, safe and succinct. There was space on the page for the reader. He spoke directly to me, a small, trusted audience. He didn’t ask me to remember any details, nor did he play tricks or engineer twists. Everything included was essential. Concentrated. Neither that chair nor this reader could be done without. Each moment was self-contained, earnest, self-supporting.
As the years went by, I found my way into the novel form, first as a reader, and later as a writer. I began to see that the distance between the two forms doesn’t need to be vast, and sometimes it isn’t – it was a matter of finding the right novels. A novelist can share a poet’s sensibility, precision, generosity, slant, view, broodiness, relationship with language, imagery, metaphor and the visual. But what about the novelists who are poets? Do their novels betray them as such? If so, how? I began to compile a list of my favourite contemporary novels by poets. To my eye, all expose their authors as poets, but this is no failing. Quite the opposite.
Full piece here
