Over the summer months Poetry Shelf is hosting a series of readings from the incredible range of poetry collections published by mainstream and boutique presses in Aotearoa in 2024. You can hear David Gregory read here.
anthology (n.) a collection of flowers is like an ode to nature, a rich illustrated compendium of native flowers, that is encyclopedic, poetic, personal and that reaches out scented tendrils and draws nourishment from other poets, history, music, symbolism, myth, eco-fragility and wide ranging experience. Each poem is labelled with English, Te Reo and botanical names, a few facts and a photograph. The poetry is as multi-hued as the flowers, presenting a seeded and blooming meadow of past present future.
Gail reads two poems
‘They is gender diverse’
‘Grandmother and granddaughter choose a tattoo’
Definition of a buttercup
It’s easy with one word: buttercup but difficult with many: it equals the sun, each calling to the other; yellow shining like melted butter in a porcelain cup under your chin do you like butter? grows using photosynthesis and “water” (see later poem); hairy leaves as described by alpine botanists with microscopic vision; it roots itself to earth in a goldilocks position between rocks, in bogs; the chance that you stumble across one looking up between milky 500-million-year-old karst under the giddy sun this new year’s day in some new millennium, spinning outwards in an ever-expanding universe with other star-spiralling galaxies is so immeasurably small.
Gail Ingram (she, her, they) writes from the Port Hills of Ōtautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand and is author of three collections of poetry. Her latest collection, anthology (n.) a collection of flowers (Pūkeko Publications 2024) weaves poetry and botanical and mountain art. Her second and third collections Some Bird (2023) and Contents Under Pressure (2019) were published by Sudden Valley Press and Pūkeko Publications respectively. Her work has been widely published in local and international journals and anthologies, such as Poetry New Zealand, Landfall, Atlanta Review, The Spinoff, Cordite Poetry Review and Barren Magazine. Awards include winning the Caselberg (2019) and New Zealand Poetry Society (2016) international poetry prizes. She has edited for NZ Poetry Society’s flagship magazine a fine line, Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction and takahē. She teaches at Write On School for Young Writers and holds a Master of Creative Writing (Distinction).
The Central Otago Environmental Society, COES, has awarded Brian Turner the NZ Poet Laureate of Nature for his lifetime’s work in poetry and activism, fighting for and celebrating the natural world. This is a new national award in New Zealand, and is backed by the National Library of New Zealand and by former sponsors of the NZ Poet Laureate Award, John and Wendy Buck of Te Mata Wines.
Brian Turner was appointed the fourth Te Mata Estate NZ Poet Laureate in 2003-2005.
“During his tenure and in the following years, we formed a strong friendship with many shared interests, growing to admire him as an outstanding New Zealander,” says John Buck. “His myriad achievements justify the title of Poet Laureate of Nature, which we fully support.”
Peter Ireland spoke on behalf of the National Library, home to the New Zealand Poet Laureate Award. “Brian’s whakapapa in terms of speaking to and of the environment in New Zealand is founded on a lifetime’s presence in our landscape, both the physical and literary forms of it. He is much loved, respected and recognised in these spheres and to acknowledge that with this honour is apt and fitting.”
As part of the award, there will be a sculpture of one of Brian’s poems in his loved landscape of Central Otago.
“It’s remarkable and warming to be given this award,” Brian said. “New Zealand has had the means to work hard to protect nature. Instead we’ve often cruelly damaged a lot of our forests and our lands and waters. It was important I was a supporter of environmental concerns, taking part and drawing attention to the respect required for our natural world.”
Brian came to know the land and waters of New Zealand intimately. Now 80, he was a national sportsman, an offshore sailor, a fly fisherman, a road cyclist, and and a mountaineer, climbing several major peaks including Aoraki/Mount Cook. He traversed the land and the rivers and wrote of them and for them; his environmental activism extending for over fifty years. There is much wisdom in his observation that “an attack against the Body of Nature is an attack against oneself”.
As well as the NZ Poet Laureate award, Brian Turner has been awarded numerous awards, including an Hon D Litt from the University of Otago, an ONZOM for his services to literature and the environment, the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry, the Commonwealth Poetry prize and several national book awards for poetry. Much of his writing has been in service to the natural world.
To celebrate this much deserved award, Jillian Sullivan, Peter Ireland and Paula Green have each picked a poem of Brian’s to share.
3 poems
Taieri Days
How far off those days, never mine and never not mine, when the only poems I knew were the bursting greens of willows by the Taieri in spring, greens of cress and water weed and the grass that sheep grazed incognito because they all looked much the same.
But the sky never did, the clouds never did shaped like tubes, plates, slats, piles of rubble, knucklebones and bunting streaming before the stars.
The river sprang and shone, had a shifty and open arrangement with skies arcing and stretching over the Maungatua and Rock and Pillar ranges.
I didn’t want to own or sell anything so grand and communal as land; all I needed was the right to belong, one’s spirit all the colours of the spectrum, like the sky.
Brian Turner from Quadrant, v 42, 1998
I love this poem, imagining Brian in the hills and by the river, only needing to belong. A year ago when I asked him how he finds contentment, he said straight away, “I like the formation of the clouds,” and here they are in this poem, first published in Quadrant in 1998.
Jillian Sullivan
Just This
Find your place on the planet, dig in, and take responsibility from there. _ Gary Snyder
Affecting without affectation, like these sere hills then the early evening sky where Sirius dominates for a time, then is joined by lesser lights,
stars indistinct as those seen through the canopies of trees shaking in the wind. There’s this wish to feel part of something wholly explicable
and irreplaceable, something enduring and wholesome that supresses the urge to fight … or is there? Ah, the cosmic questions
that keep on coming like shooting stars and will, until, and then what? All I can say is that for me nothing hurts more
than leaving and nothing less than coming home, when a nor’wester’s gusting in the pines like operatic laughter, and the roadside grasses
are laced with the blue and orange and pink of bugloss, poppies and yarrow, all of them swishing, dancing, bending, as they do, as we do.
Brian Turner from Just This, Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2009
It is hard to settle on one poem by Brian, but the heading quote by Gary Snyder tipped my choice in favour of ‘Just this’, the title poem of the book published in 2009. It has been lovely returning to Brian’s poems, though it’s not as though they ever leave you. To his voice – bardic, truly wise, looking at the world through the eye of the world, and the heart. Helping us to accept and to enjoy our predicament.
Peter Ireland
Deserts, for instance
The loveliest places of all are those that look as if there’s nothing there to those still learning to look
Brian Turner from Just This, Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2009
I cannot think of a more apt poet to be the inaugural NZ Poet Laureate of Nature. Brian’s poetry has provided paths and windows that enrich our connections with nature. In every book. In myriad ways. His poems sing with the music of Central Otago, they glimmer with the light and beauty of skies mountains plains. Poetry that brings nature to life within poetic forms is a vital aid, not just today in these toxic planet and human depleting times, but across the centuries. Like Peter, Brian’s poetry sticks with me, as a tonic in the difficulty of a day, as a way of breathing in what matters, what is important. I have lived with an artist for eons who is known for his Central Otago beehive works, so the southern landscapes resonate deeply for me. Perhaps this adds to the incredible effect Brian’s poetry has upon my heart. The poem I have chosen shows how a handful of words can unfold into so much more. Sublime.
Brian Turner was born in Dunedin in 1944. His first book of poems, Ladders of Rain (1978), won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and was followed by a number of highly praised poetry collections and award-winning writing in a wide range of genres including journalism, biography, memoir and sports writing. Recent and acclaimed poetry collections include Night Fishing (VUP, 2016), and Just This (winner of the New Zealand Post Book Award for Poetry in 2010). He was the Te Mata Estate New Zealand Poet Laureate 2003–05 and received the Prime Minister’s Award for Poetry in 2009. He lives in Central Otago.
Based on a True Story, David Gregory, Sudden Valley Press, 2024
Over the summer months Poetry Shelf is hosting a series of readings from the incredible range of poetry collections published by mainstream and boutique presses in Aotearoa in 2024. I begin with David Gregory. I have dipped in and out of this glorious book over the past months. It has haunted me. It has delighted me. It has moved me. Now I get to hear him read two of the poems. Listening to him read this, I want more! Now I get to read the book again in his voice.
Here’s to a festival of summer readings on Poetry Shelf. Thanks to all the poets who are contributing.
a reading
‘Half a moon’
‘Half a Prayer’
David Gregory arrived in Christchurch NZ from the UK on a three year contract in 1982 and found a supportive literary community here. In spite of spending a year back in England on a job exchange, the pull of NZ was strong for him and his family. That whanau has grown to include four grandchildren.
He has worked on coastal environmental issues for most of his working life. He has combined this with establishing his reputation as a New Zealand poet with three books to his credit and a fourth due to be launched soon.His poetry has appeared in many NZ publications and a number of anthologies and has been performed at venues in NZ and overseas.
David is a founder member of the Canterbury Poets Collective. With the late John O’Connor, himself a noted poet, he established Sudden Valley Press (SVP). SVP has published over thirty well-received poetry books. He is the current Manager and one of the editors for Sudden Valley Press.
Houses are likened to shoeboxes but shoeboxes are not likened to houses. A car is likened to a heap but a heap is not likened to a car. A child is a terror but terror is not a child. A business might be a sinking ship but a sinking ship is no business. A bedroom is a dog’s breakfast but a dog’s breakfast is not a bedroom. A bad review might be a raspberry but a raspberry is not a bad review. A haircut is likened to a disaster but a disaster is not a haircut. Books can be turkeys but turkeys are never books. A holiday might be a riot but a riot is not a holiday. A garden might become a headache but a headache is not a garden. I dream about you but you are not a dream.
Gregory O’Brien from Beauties of the Octagonal Pool, Auckland University Press, 2021
Over the coming months, the Monday Poem spot will include poetry that has stuck to me over time, poems that I’ve loved for all kinds of reasons.
I have loved Gregory’s poetry across every collection, from Location of the Least Person (Auckland University Press, 1987) to House and Contents (Auckland University Press, 2022). He writes with sweet wit, word agility, sonic attention, across roving subject matter, and with deep-seated heart. I am always moved, surprised, in awe, nourished. The humour in ‘Love poem’ gets me every time, and then, when I reach the end, and the world stalls, I take a long inward breath, and say, yes, this is what poetry can do.
So let’s do poetry!
Gregory O’Brien’s recent projects include an exhibition of poems and paintings at the Manchester Poetry Library, U. K., Jan-Feb 2024, and ‘Local Knowledge’, an exhibition of collaborative paintings made with Euan Macleod, which is at Te Manawa, Palmerston North, until March 2025.
Inside the city a house Inside the house a room Inside the room a cupboard Inside the cupboard a drawer Inside the drawer a box Inside the box a necklace Inside the necklace a story Inside the story a city home
Ah, I woke up before the birds and began to build a list of things I love and am grateful for. I increased my donation to The Spin Off. Their commitment to political analysis, celebrating the arts, writing that upholds planetary wellbeing, that values our cultural differences along with our connections, is exemplary.
I tuned into the BBC podcast People Fixing the World and am reminded that behind the toxicity of leaders hellbent on destroying this planet and its people, there are those who work selflessly to mend, repair, heal, nourish.
I am mindful that so many people are on rocky roads, weathering health challenges, family and personal tragedies, violence, poverty, hunger.
These are tough dark times. For the past months, I have been weathering my own rugged track, with a zillion appointments, and my daily energy jar shrinking. Poetry Shelf holds on by a whisker because, for me, it is an essential place of connection and aroha. It is an energy booster. A joy.
Whatever I do, I do out of love. I write out of love, I read out of love. Cook, bake bread, garden, walk. When my energy jar shrinks, I think self doubt amplifies and I question my ability to review books or write posts! But I keep hold of my tool kit and take another little step. Mistakes and all.
Ah. I have stack of poetry books on my desk to review – a towering pile because some days all I can do is listen to music or watch UK detective shows or bake Morning Glory Muffins (riffing off Harvest Wheat) or make sough dough bread with red quinoa (my latest version so yum!!).
And yes, I am deeply committed to Poetry Shelf, to upholding and nurturing its role as a hub for poets, readers and writers. Now more than ever it feels important – and I can’t wait to post more series next year.
In the meantime, I will be posting a 2024 highlights collage mid December and I am hoping to post reviews and more poems I love in the Monday spot.
an invite
This morning I was wondering if you would like to review a poetry book published in Aotearoa in 2024 that you have loved?
Saying no is important! This is just in case it is something you would like to do and share.
I would have six $50 book vouchers to give as koha. I could also give someone a bundle of my poetry books. I would post the reviews in December.
email me: paulajoygreen@gmail.com
I would gift six book vouchers – one per person.
And this is just if you have read a nz poetry book and loved it – I am holding onto my copies to read and review and keep in my poetry library for further use on blog.
If you are keen, let me know the name of the poetry book you would review.
Landfall Essay Competition judge Lynley Edmeades has announced the joint winners of this year’s competition: Franchesca Walker for her essay ‘Unsteady ground’ and Hannah August for her essay ‘Response to a restructure’.
Franchesca Walker’s essay explores her whānau’s history, uncovering new stories about her great-grandfather following her grandfather’s passing.
‘The essay is about secrets and it is about stories. But I don’t for a minute think that these experiences are unique to my family,’ Walker says. ‘In fact, a lot of the essay’s themes, including violence, alcoholism and intergenerational trauma, are unfortunately shared by many whānau. I actually think ‘Unsteady ground’ is an essay about the enduring impact of colonisation on Māori, although viewed through the lens of a single family.’
Walker describes writing the essay as an act of love for her tīpuna, whose resilience she admires. ‘Despite having the odds stacked against them, they kept their heads above water, kept food on the table, and kept going even when things must’ve seemed pretty bleak. Our tīpuna were heroes, but occasionally they were also villains. They were victims and perpetrators and lovers and fighters and every embodiment of humanity in between. Recognising this reality does not weaken us—on the contrary, I believe it empowers.’
In her judge’s report, Lynley Edmeades praised Walker’s essay for showing ‘what happens when a culture is silenced, when emotional and psychic lives are repressed.’ Edmeades also commended Walker for her ability to weave together fragmented memories, apocryphal stories and journalistic interpretations to create a valuable mosaic of a man who was subject to the many overbearing powers of his time. ‘With the lightest of touches, she prompts the reader to think about how the fragments of our ancestors live on within us and how the fractures and fissures might play out in our waking life.’
Hannah August’s essay critiques the recent cuts to humanities programmes in universities across Aotearoa, challenging the prevailing neoliberal societal framework that prioritises financial returns. ‘It’s still worth pointing out that there are alternative types of value that cannot be easily measured – the value of learning without a clear end goal, the value of emotional connections to works of art or literature, the value of intellectual communities that consist of diverse individuals with diverse spheres of knowledge and diverse levels of expertise. My essay seeks to explore these other types of value, and to remind readers that they exist.’
August’s essay is also a tribute to those affected by university restructures, particularly friends and colleagues in the humanities across Aotearoa, Australia and the United Kingdom. ‘Some of them have lost their jobs; some of them are still employed but with vastly increased workloads as they try to fill the gaps left by departed colleagues. I wanted to capture and pay tribute to that ubiquitous experience, and to articulate what is lost in the aftermath of a university restructure that involves staff redundancies, as well as some of what has been lost more generally in our understanding of what a university is and should be following the Covid-19 pandemic.’
Edmeades commended August’s essay for its insightful exploration of ‘the act of silencing by institutional power in the interest of profiteering models.’ She added, ‘It also makes a superb argument for the place of the public intellectual, which we need now more than ever before. Her writing is gentle and affective, authentic and unashamedly subjective.’
Edmeades noted that both essays, when considered side-by-side, revealed ‘threads of connective tissue,’ which made it impossible for her to pick between the two pieces for a single winner.
‘In their different ways, both essays suggest that manipulating ideologies for the purposes of expansion and control—either colonial or capitalist—will always have an effect. The more we can attune to the voices of our past—both collective and individual—the more fight we might have in us to endure the weight of the present and to effect positive change in the future.’
‘Unsteady ground’ by Franchesca Walker and ‘Response to a restructure’ by Hannah August will be featured in Landfall 248: Spring 2024.
Landfall is Aotearoa New Zealand’s longest-running arts and literary journal. This taonga is published twice a year and each issue features two full-colour art portfolios, fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, essays, reviews and cultural commentary. Landfall is an exciting anthology that has it’s finger on the pulse of creativity, providing a snapshot of Aotearoa’s unique literary landscape today.
Landfall 248: Spring 2024 is dedicated to the late Vincent O’Sullivan, one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most influential writers. This issue also announces the joint winners of the 2024 Landfall Essay Competition, a landmark annual essay competition. This exciting new issue will also include essays from the 2024 collaboration with RMIT University’s nonfiction/Lab and will announce the winner of the 2024 Caselberg International Poetry Prize.
On the Friday night of Wellington’s 2024 Verb Readers and Writers Festival, award-winning poet and publisher Always Becominging seeks answers from Adrienne Jansen, Ruby Solly, Josh Toumuʻa and Brooke Soulsby about The Secret Art of Editing Poetry.
Adrienne is a writer, editor, teacher, and co-founding publisher at Landing Press, who brings a wealth of experience to the subject of editing and being edited. She has also brought a visual prop in the form of an old poem draft of her own, which poet and poetry teacher James Brown had liberally marked up in pen, to prove she was no stranger to being on the receiving end of the process.
Brooke Soulsby is a writer and publishing professional. She did the Whitireia publishing course in 2021. She is one of three founding co-editors of circular. Brooke’s work has been published in Salient, bad apple, circular, and 4th Floor Journal.
Dr. Ruby Solly (Kāi Tahu, Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe) is a musician, taonga pūoro practitioner, music therapist and writer. She co-convenes the CREW Māori and Pasifika Creative Writing Te Hiringa a Tuhi CREW 260 at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters with Victor Rodger.
Joshua Toumu’a was the winner of the 2022 Schools Poetry Award, and a finalist in the 2023 Mansfield Short Story Competition. His work has been published in Starling, Symposia Magazine and The Spinoff.
Always kicked things off, seeking definition around the question: What is poetry?”
Ruby said: “It’s me at 2.30 this morning. Poetry, or toikupu, as it can be referred to in Te Reo Māori, can be translated as ‘art words’ in that language, which I think is a really beautiful way to explain all of what poetry can do without restricting what we think of it in terms of what it looks like on the page or what the length is. It can also be used as a technique within other writing, as well as being a thing on its own.” Ruby’s book The Artist demonstrates the former point; her book Tōku Pāpā the latter.
Brooke said: “I think poetry is a way of expressing particular emotions or capturing certain images or experiences with words and sharing them.”
Josh offered: “Poetry is an expression of the love of language.”
Always turned the question to defining editing.
Adrienne suggested: “Editing is about letting the work be the best it can be, and being itself; strengthening the work. For the editor, it’s actually about paying attention to the work, to what the writer wants and intends, and their voice.”
Brooke said: “Finding a balance between the house style of where it’s going and the intentions of the poet, helping them to bring it out. Grammar and syntax doesn’t always apply with poetry.”
Joshua said: “Find what sings in a piece and make it scream.”
Ruby said: “I was a session musician for quite a long time, and there’s a saying in session work that your job is to make the music more of itself. I think that’s a really good thing when you’re editing – instead of making it what you want it to be, bringing out what it already is.”
Always asked: “When a poem comes to you to edit, how do you ‘make it scream’ or make it more of itself?”
Joshua said: “It depends on the piece, and on what the person is asking of you. If you’re editing pieces other than yourself, you need to know what they’re asking, and if you’re editing your own work, you need to know what you’re asking of yourself. You can’t just look at this and think, Okay, how can I make this better? You need to really think, I’m gonna fix it.”
Always asked, “Adrienne, how about you? What’s your responsibility?”
“To absolutely focus on that poem,” Adrienne said. “Only ever make suggestions, then give the writer the time to think about them. I often find our first reaction is quite defensive, and then with time, we come to our own agreement or disagreement.
Brooke said: “For circular, I think that sometimes poets think they have to accept all of our changes, even though we’ve already accepted them, and you really don’t. So, I it’s about making it really clear that they are suggestions.
“I think it’s also really important to see the potential in a piece. But asking them what their intention was is really important as well, just being really open about it, because it’s a two-way relationship.”
Joshua said: “You have to be sort of passive with your language, and very deliberate with what words you choose. If I say, ‘I think that this part needs improvement,’ people would be less open to hearing my thoughts on this, because I am imposing it, that I am right and you are wrong about your art. That is not the approach you want to take when editing.”
Always suggested presenting questions is a good way of doing it.
Joshua agreed, suggesting “the compliment sandwich” approach: starting with praise, followed by constructive criticism, followed by more praise.
Brooke acknowledged one error an editor can make is thinking they have to find a mistake in every poem they are given. “Some of the poems I have accepted don’t need anything, they are just great as they are,” she said. “Perhaps all they need is a bit of support in getting it out there. You don’t need to be too heavy-handed.”
Always asked: “How is editing poetry different from editing other things?”
Ruby said: “One way is that poetry is often all about the moment. The ‘Friday Poem’ on The Spinoff, for example; it’s like, something big has happened this week that affects somebody in the community. So, the person who is editing that needs to be the thinking brain, not the lizard brain, and be like, ‘Hey, this sentence here might get you in trouble this way.’ And that is a big difference than, say, editing a whole novel that could be inspired by an event that happened now, but you won’t see that book for another five, six years. I think the timing is everything.”
Brooke referred to advice Adrienne brought to her Whitireia cohort when she visited them in 2021, which Adrienne credits to two-time US Poet Laureate Billy Collins. Collins has said it’s important for a poem to know which cards to turn over, and which to leave face down. The idea being, in impenetrable poetry, too many cards are face down.
Always asked the panellists how best to approach editing a piece that isn’t necessarily written for you?
Ruby’s answer was firm: ” You don’t edit it,” with Brooke and Adrienne supporting her stance.
“Ask for another opinion,” said Brooke.
Ruby expanded on what this requires: “I think the wider part of that conversation is that we need editors from all backgrounds. Jasmine Sargent [(Ngāti Porou) Editor (Māori) at Te Herenga Waka University Press] edited my second book. She’s absolutely incredible. She works really hard. She’s passionate about it, about the kaupapa and about the writers, but she’s also one person in that space, and we need more people, so I can write something where I don’t have to explain everything, because it’s it’s already understood, and it’s already going to go to an audience that’s like us anyway, and that’s who it’s for. So, yeah, that’s not a problem that we can solve easily without solving all of the problems. But it’s also important to mention that.”
Always asked: “I’m wondering how you all manage the different power imbalances that often come up in publishing between editor and poet, and publishers. Obviously sometimes the editor has more power and sometimes the writer has more power.”
Ruby said: “My whole life is a power imbalance. It’s funny, but it fucking sucks. I just have to deal with it. I’ve got nothing else I can do. And yeah, it’s exhausting and it’s constant.”
She gave the example of being asked to remove the entire first section of The Artist. “It’s 13 poems, but it took me a year because I had to go and talk to everybody to write the history of Te Wai Pounamu, from the beginning of creation to settlement. I had to really fight to get that kept, which was totally worth it, because it’s used in kura kaupapa Māori now to teach the history of the South Island. But the thing is, somebody has to do the big fight for stuff. Sometimes people are doing the big marketing, but not having to do the big fighting. And that’s one of the things that makes me cry when I wake up.”
Adrienne took the question, and the light Ruby had shed on it: “I so deeply believe that we’re all in it together, you know, the writer and editor and everybody else, and I suppose it is a power imbalance that I need to be aware of, that, you know, I have some power suggesting things, but it’s not the way I operate.
“I worked for about 10 years at Te Papa writing, and there’s a great head writer who said…” She pauses to consider the job title ‘head writer’; “See, that’s kind of a contradiction,” she said. “But he took the view that what we were about was just refining the text. All of us were just refining the text, which is great in that context. If you have that philosophy that really you’re just all refining the text, you all just want it to be the best that it can be, then I hope that those kinds of inequalities don’t exist so much. But maybe I’m being naive about that. Maybe I believe that, but it doesn’t happen in practice. Maybe I’m aspiring to something.”
Joshua said: “I think that is a really interesting take on it. I think that’s a really good start on history and historical writing, but poetry has a person, a single person, behind it, and when you consider the act of editing as refining, it feels like it is taking emphasis away from the original object, which is the piece, and this is where I feel the poetry power imbalances of editor versus poet, because it’s an incredibly intimate act showing someone a poem, let alone one they consider unfinished. It’s sort of unclothing a story that they are sharing. And they’re asking for advice on how they can communicate their own story. This is where the importance of the language that you use is used to support language, because you need to present yourself not as someone who’s trying to reinforce this power imbalance.”
Ruby said: “I think a refusal to acknowledge the power imbalance is a big part of the problem. So, when I mark my students’ work, I say, ‘Yes, I am in charge of you right now. I have this power. I can fail you or pass you. I’m not going to do that over these comments. However, here’s what I think, here’s where this fits in the wider thing.’ But you do have to acknowledge it, or else, it’s not that it doesn’t exist, it’s that you are refusing to see it. It’s not cute to be, like, ‘I don’t see race.’ None of those things work because it just means you get a choice, but I don’t get a choice. We don’t get a choice.
“So, I think there’s a really important point where you have to say, ‘Hey, I’m offering you an opportunity, and I have been dealt a card of hands where I have a handful of cards, and you have nothing. Am I going to let you see them or not?’ You’re not just collecting somebody’s work, like you do with bugs. You’re trying to build whakawhanaungatanga.”
Brooke agreed: “You have to respect the poet.”
The conversation circled back to Adrienne, who returned to Josh and Ruby’s points about power: “I thought about what I just said, Josh. Because refining has a lot of connotations. Refining isn’t the right word, you’re quite right,” she said. “It’s a bad word, and we’re talking about language. Let’s say you write a poem. You bring what you bring to the table your experience, knowledge, you bring all that to the table. And I [as the editor] bring something else. We both bring different things to the table. And I do see the editing process like that. But for all that, Ruby, I absolutely take your point that we have to be aware of what can happen in a relationship, because editing is all about relationships.”
As for creating the poetry that leads us to those relationships, Joshua’s advice to himself, regarding editing, offered some great instructions for the writing life in general. “I wrote a lot of really bad middle school poetry because I didn’t really know what I liked. I didn’t read nearly enough,” he said. “You need to read to be a good writer. And you need to write to be a good editor.”
Bee Trudgeon
Bee Trudgeon is a writer and children’s librarian previously published in RipItUp,The Sapling, The Spinoff, Audioculture, A Fine Line, NZ Poetry Box, and NZ Poetry Shelf. She recently completed the IIML CREW Poetry course. She lives with her whānau in a haunted house in Cannons Creek, and on the Patreon page of her alter ego, Grace Beaster.
Their names and fates were spoken. The lands and seas of the voyage were spoken. Calls of the stroke at times were spoken. Celestial guidance, sightings, were spoken. Prescriptions – medical and spiritual – were spoken. Transactions – physical and emotional – were spoken. Family (of), leaders (to), arguments, were well spoken. Elders (of), were well spoken. Burials were spoken. Welcomes at times were spoken. Futures lined up by pasts, were spoken. Repeating the spoken were spoken. Inheritance, inheritors, were spoken. Tears at times were spoken. Representations at first were spoken. The narrator wrote the spoken. The readers saw the spoken! Spoken became unspoken. [Written froze spoken.]
Robert Sullivan from voice carried my family, Auckland University Press, 2005
Over the coming months, the Monday Poem spot will include poetry that has stuck to me over time, poems that I’ve loved for all kinds of reasons.
When Robert Sullivan’s poetry collection, Star Waka, entered the world in 1999, it felt like a significant arrival. This was a poet who sang from his past present future, his ancestors friends loved ones. His collection voice carried my family particularly resonated with me, and it is a book I draw from my shelves when I crave nourishment.
This poem. This poem in particular, that speaks even more deeply to me today, when voice brings us together across the motu, bringing us together through stories, songs, history, aroha and the respect that matters.
This poem that reminds me, so acutely, so vitally, how much voice matters, how much a poem can matter – when the world our nation and our people hang by a fragile thread. When I hang by a fragile thread.
Today this poem, this precious poem, is a poem to hold close.
Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi, Kāi Tahu) is the author of nine books of poetry as well as a graphic novel and an award-winning book of Māori legends for children. He co-edited, with Albert Wendt and Reina Whaitiri, the anthologies of Polynesian poetry in English, Whetu Moana (2002) and Mauri Ola (2010), and an anthology of Māori poetry with Reina Whaitiri, Puna Wai Kōrero (2014), all published by Auckland University Press. Among many awards, he received the 2022 Lauris Edmond Memorial Award for a distinguished contribution to New Zealand poetry. He is associate professor of creative writing at Massey University and has taught previously at Manukau Institute of Technology and the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. His most recent collection is Hopurangi / Songcatcher (Auckland University Press, 2024).
NZ Poetry Shelf 