Slow Fires, Leonard Lambert, Cold Hub Press, 2024

At the far end of autumn,
the very edge of winter,
the last of the leaves are a-skelter—
a horde of panicky late-goers
some aloft and wind-mad

 

from ‘Leaving’

Leonard Lambert’s new poetry collection is a beautiful and wry contemplation in late afternoon light, a slow-paced wander through the nooks and niches of old age. The poetry travels through the physical shift in seasons, things that come to the fore and matter, things that slip away and matter so much less. As we move through the poems, wander becomes wonder, and living each day so very precious.

At the core are recurring thoughts and motifs of home, whether fugitive or regained, whether the figure caught by the camera panning finds his way home, or the ghost, or the good luck called to the discharged patient. In ‘Karrinyup Optical Clinic’, Leonard muses on his British parents relocating to New Zealand and Australia, yet never successfully transplant. The poet muse poignantly switches back to himself:

How far-flung & scattered it all now seems,
and you listen for the tribal drum,
the home-song, and wonder if anywhere,
or everywhere, is where you belong.

The title poem, ‘Slow Fires’, resists the magnetism of extremes, ‘Love-Hate, Despair-Delight’, suggesting that in ‘Like & Quite-enjoy’ slow fires are more enduring. And yes, the warm embers are here, in memory retrieval, in the fickle movement of time, in the image of a past self, for example, when the ‘elderly artist returns to his studio after a prolonged post-exhibition break’ in the moving poem, ‘Freeze-frame’:

Old clothes (not so old) are thinner

than I recall, and leather,

so long to last, frays.

Cobwebbed overnight,

I watch this man in his shed

spinning out wonders, and wonder

to myself: was that ever me?

There is a musicality of reflection, the way lightness and seriousness (ah, two extremes with a prismatic bridge between?) overlap. Horizon lines shimmer, haunt and draw closer. Fears and hopes range from intense to faint. This slender chapbook will linger and settle in your inner poetry room long after you put the collection down.

Leonard Lambert (1945) is the author of seven collections of verse spanning almost as many decades. His Selected Poems, Somewhere in August (Steele Roberts) appeared in 2016, and his most recent publication is a chapbook, Winter Waves (Cold Hub Press, 2018). He is a full-time painter who lives in Napier.

Cold Hub page

‘Lost Summer’ on Poetry Shelf

Everything That Moves, Moves Through Another, ed. Jennifer Cheuk 卓嘉敏
5ever Books, 2024

Everything That Moves, Moves Through Another is a mixed medium anthology edited by Jennifer Cheuk. The contributors are of mixed heritage and the work includes photography, multi-media art, poetry, prose, essays and comics. The evocative title is taken from Cadence Chung’s poem cycle, ‘Visitations’.

In her introduction, Jennifer talks about her own mixed-heritage experience, the joy of meeting other creatives from mixed-heritage backgrounds, and the resolve to edit an anthology that both celebrates their experiences and highlights corrosive assumptions. Jennifer underlines how important the project is in view of connections and community building. I carried the word ‘connections’ with me as I read, along with the word ‘conversations’. This is an oasis of vital conversation, between the artists and between the works they have produced. It is also a result of community building, as we see in the list of people that supported Jennifer and its arrival in the world.

How timely and important this multimedia multi-heritage conversation is, crossing place and time, autobiography, epiphanies, challenges.

The cover image, ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’, is an evocative artwork by Harry Matheson, and like other examples of his work in the anthology, the rock is layered in poignant meaning: I see boulder, weight, screen. I am reminded of poetry collections by mixed-heritage or non-Pākehā poets that reference the plague of questions the writer endures. More than anything, ‘where do you come from?’ and ‘no, but where are you actually from?’, even when the poet is born in Omarama or Ōtautahi or Tāmaki Makaurau.

At times, creating work, whether visual, textual or aural, is a matter of navigating ‘who am I?’, across bumpy terrain, down side alleys and along flight paths, drawing upon precious experience and soaring imagination. It might draw upon what we speak, what we eat, the stories we inherit. These creative works speak to and for and with and of the creators’ mixed heritages.

The opening comic by Kim Anderson shares the experience of growing up Asian Māori by collaging family scenes, graphics, real photographs, self reckonings. Entitled ‘Kim Anderson’s Museum’, it works as a map of the museum and it is so cool, so affirming, it makes me hope every secondary-school library orders a dozen copies of the anthology.

Cadence Chung, a poet whose work I have long admired, has created a sequence of poems, poems that address visitations, from Chinagirl to Scheherazade, Penelope, an unnamed beloved, a dead grandfather. The sequence presents variations on perfection and failure, self doubt and self resolve. The poems stand as vessels to hold close.

Maybe one day the ride home
will not feel like an ending; it will be
another night in the grand progression
of all things. Yes, I cannot paint myself
as beautiful and chinoi, even though

I try. I cannot sleep without trying just
a little, deluded prayer. I cannot even
tell a thousand stories, like the woman
I crave to be. I have not written a thousand
poems. I have only ever written one.

 

from ‘VISITATION (myself)’

Jefferson Chen’s sequence of photographs entitled ‘blending in standing out’ juxtaposes arresting images (a photograph of a windowed wall, grey, with a mirror image bird and occasional bar codes) alongside text that edges between postcard and poetry. And in the seams of writing and imaging, the plague of corrosive questions throb.

Nkhaya Paulsen-More’s ‘Walking Between two Worlds’ builds a personal lexicon of words that bridge two worlds, South Africa and Aotearoa, a glossary, a guide, links edges harmonies.

Everything That Moves, Moves Through Another is an essential anthology that underlines the strength of conversations that promote connections, diversity, that lay down challenges, that make personal experience count, that encourage us to review who and where and how we are. Today, in this toxic corrosive world, it is so very important. This book is a rich gift indeed.

Jennifer Cheuk, Hong Kong Chinese, Welsh-European is an editor, researcher and curator. She is the founder of Rat World Magazine and is highly involved in the theatre scene as a reviewer and writer. Her interests lie in community arts practices, alternative forms of storytelling, independent publishing and creating more accessible spaces for people to experience the arts.

5ever Books is an underground publishing house based at Rebel Press, Trades Hall in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. They are committed to honouring Te Tiriti O Waitangi in Aotearoa.

AUTHOR AND CONTENTS LIST:
Nina Mingya Powles – a creative response
Kim Anderson — Where r u really from?
Cadence Chung — Visitations
Kàtia Miche – What melts into air?
Damien Levi — Ngā mihi
Jefferson Chen — blending in standing out
Ivy Lyden-Hancy — te manu and the sky waka
Jessica Miku 未久 — What Kind of Miracles
Ruby Rae Lupe Ah-Wai Macomber — My Moana Girls
Ying Yue Pilbrow — Wayward
Emma Ling Sidnam — Sue Me
Jimmy Varga — The Asian
Jill and Lindsey de Roos — What are you?
Daisy Remington — What Makes Up Me
Chye-Ling Huang — Black Tree Bridge
Evelina Lolesi — Self Portrait: Mapping Tidal Whenua
Eamonn Tee — Innsmouth
Emele Ugavule — For Ezra
Harry Matheson — Between A Rock And A Hard Place
kī anthony — Never Quite Home
Maraky Vowells — Created Communicated Connected
Dr Meri Haami and Dr Carole Fernandez —
Kechil-kechil chili padi: Ahakoa he iti, he kaha ngā hirikakā
Nkhaya Paulsen-More — Walking Between Two Worlds
Yani Widjaja — Oey黃 is for Widjaja
Chyna-Lily Tjauw Rawlinson — My Whānau
romesh dissanayake — A Remembered Space
Jake Tabata — STOP FUCKING ASKING ME TO WATCH ANIME WITH YOU

EDITED BY: Jennifer Cheuk 卓嘉敏
PUBLISHED BY: 5ever books (see here)

Check out a terrific review by Hannah Paterson at The Spin Off

My Season

A winter walk puts me on a path with peers and their
              dogs, kids, or other reasons to be there

I breathe purposefully like a mountain or a train

Last night I dreamt about my love who always a dream, he bought a house at                      twenty-four and I’m in it again, after a family party, after we’d broken up
              his mother is sorting out junk
              somebodies’ kids ask if I want to play but I’m already hiding from him

As I leave he turns me by the shoulder, weeping 

              He is a water balloon and I hold him like a child who won’t throw
              He is a red coat and I am his horse charging        

              My impossibility is as inevitable as spring
              My body as helpless as a magnolia tree in bloom
              Elegant pink, magenta, and fierce white organs facing the sky  
              and slowly unpeeling
              My fist clenched so tight every cleft and knuckle blushes

The future is in it. My love is in it

I wish to open, for everyone who passes
             to open, and shed our isolation
             like waxy, lemon-scented petals
             like dead skin from angel heels

Simone Kaho

Simone Kaho is a Tōngan / Pākehā writer and multimedia journalist who creates work at the intersection of politics, art, and storytelling. She has a Master’s in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters and has published two books of discontinuous narrative poetry, Lucky Punch in 2016, and HEAL! in 2022.

I have been thinking a lot about the place of poetry in global catastrophe and the incomprehensible leadership in Aotearoa. How do we write? Read? Do we need comfort or challenge or both? This week Liz Breslin.

5 questions

1. Has the local and global situation affected what or how or when you write poetry?

Thank you for having me as part of this series. I’ve been thinking a lot about the place of poetry too, or perhaps more precisely about showing up in a specificity of words. Reading the words ‘comfort’ and ‘challenge’ above made me think about how, personally, there are times when I feel comfortable and need challenging and challenging times when it would be OK to let myself have some comfort. And in political terms, how those of us who have a relative level of comfort ought to be challenging ourselves pretty much constantly at the moment, and thinking about how we can bring comfort for people facing challenges. But then I think those two words or the alignments I’ve made aren’t quite specifically right enough for my thoughts about any global and local situations. I’m situated in a place where I want to use very specific words including ‘genocide’, ‘tino rangatiratanga’ and ‘colonisation’ and ‘what the actual fuck’ on the daily.

My writing and my reading right now is shaped by a can’t-look-away-ness of the wide and deliberate use of words to uphold a white supremacist worldview. Like the vast disparity between how people write about Palestine and Ukraine. Like David Seymour condemning ‘political violence in all its forms’ after Trump getting shot at while pushing through multiple egregious political violences here in Aotearoa. It’s so disgusting and it makes me want to take language apart and shake it.

2. Does place matter to you at the moment? An object, an attachment, a loss, an experience? A sense of home?

I’m currently doing a PhD which is a queer exploration of settler coloniser stories of gender, space and violence in the rural south of Te Waipounamu. So I think that’s probably the place that I’m spending most head space in at the moment, even when sitting at my desk in Ōtepoti. As a sense of place, it gives me more ‘challenge’ than ‘comfort’, because although I am getting so much out of the opportunity to explore the stories, it’s also a place I am very uncomfortable in as there are a lot of reminders of my abusive marriage there. What I am loving is finding and cutting and pasting stories from the area that challenge the she’ll-be-right Southern Man patriarchal stronghold, and even working out some of my own stories. My notes app is my best friend and constant confuser in this regard.

3. Are there books or poems that have struck a chord in the past year? That you turn to for comfort or uplift, challenge or distraction.

O gosh. What even is a year? Noreen Masud’s A flat place for really particular and thoughtful takes on trauma and landscape. Lots of Mary Oliver, which is a constant. Local reads include Robert Sullivan’s Hopurangi Songcatcher, Majella Cullinane’s Meantime and Ash by Louise Wallace. I absolutely can’t wait to read Whaea Blue by Talia Marshall. Also I’ve been consuming and consumed by a lot of Alexis Hall books. And I wanted to like The Priory of the Orange Tree but, no thank you to a book that says it’s queer but is super based on women existing to reproduce and none of the queer characters getting a happy anything. Poems by Mosab Abu Toha. He had one called ‘The Moon’ on the New York Review of Books a few weeks ago that I couldn’t stop reading. (https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/03/21/the-moon-mosab-abu-toha/) Something Nathan Joe said a while back made me determined to be a more conscious consumer of words and media  – the exact quote is probably somewhere buried in the aforementioned notes app. But then I go and ruin it all by hammering whole seasons of shows like ‘I kissed a girl’, ‘I kissed a boy’ and ‘Are you the one?’ (Season 8 is the queer one).

4 What particularly matters to you in your poetry and in the poetry of others, whether using ear, eye, heart, mind – and/or anything ranging from the abstract and the absent to the physical and the present?

I wish I knew how to answer that. I think it would make me more in charge of my ability to craft. I spend a lot of time on the edge of unsureness but I love the catch of a true word group feeling thing that is a poem.

5 Is there a word or idea, like a talisman, that you hold close at the moment. For me, it is the word connection.

I’m always obsessing over words and recently one of them is ‘manifest.’ Rooted in the French word for ‘hand’, it’s also a ships list and a kind of magical thinking. Which is maybe a joining of hands. I think that thinking about the possibilities of ‘manifest’ was sparked by something I read in Living a feminist life by Sara Ahmed. I’m obsessed with her queer and particular style and also I’m prone to hand-thoughts anyway. I had a quick look just now and found them in nine recent poems.

Two unpublished poems though the first is on my Instagram… @liz_breslin.  I chose them because one is the very cutting up of language and the other is all about the hands, in this case the hands of a specific settler coloniser woman I’ve been studying but that’s another story.

two poems

The ABCs of Don’t say gay
All the words from Mount Aspiring College’s ‘Pride video’ 2024

a a a a a a a a a a a about about about about about about about about about acceptance accepting accepting after all all allows also also and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and any anyone applied are are are are around as as as as as awareness

be be be be be because because because been being being but by by

celebrate celebrate celebrating celebrating character colourful come coming community community community community community confident content creating

despite differences different diverse diversity doesn’t doesn’t don’t

each embodies encouraging environment equality equity everybody everyone everyone everyone everyone

fairness family faster fear feel feel feel feel flag flag for for for for for for fostering free friends friendship from from fun

great great great

hard has have honour how how how

I I I I I I if important important important importantly in included inclusivity inclusivity initiative involved is is is is is it it it it it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s

judgement judging

kindness King kura

let looking louder love love Luther

make make making manaakitanga Martin matter matter may me me me me me me me means means means members members most much

near not

of of of of of of on only or other others others others otherwise our our our our

peers people people people person person place positivity Pride pride pride pride pride pride pride pride pride progress

really really really recognise reflect remember reminder respect respectful right

said school school sense sense should show show show show show show so so society speaking support support

tell that that that that that that’s that’s the the the the the the the the the the the their them then there there’s these they they they things things think think think think think think this this time time time to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to tolerance towards towards treat treat treated

up us

valued video wanna watching way way we we week week week week week weeks welcome what where which who who who whole with with within within within without workers write

you you you you you you you you you your your your yourself yourself

Acceptable notions

Ecclesiastes 3:7
A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent and a time to speak

 

A time to smooth your hands on the rough of your skirt
A time to feel the fibres of your fingers curl

A time to count the callouses for all they are worth
One a penny two a penny three a

time to watch your palm as it strokes against hers
A time to make light of the shift of the day past your window

A time to swallow your emotions
A time to

swallow
you’re

A time
A time

                  to stare at the hills and think the word horizon
Like it does not shift as you shifted as you

Liz Breslin is a tangata Tiriti writer, editor and performer of Polish and Irish descent, living in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Liz’s poem collections are In bed with the feminists (Dead Bird Books, 2021, 2023), winner of the Kathleen Grattan Prize for A Sequence of Poems 2020, and Alzheimer’s and a spoon (OUP, 2017, 2021), one of the NZ Listener’s Top 100 books of 2017. Liz is a creative critical PhD candidate (and recipient of a City of Literature scholarship) at the University of Otago Ōtākau Whakaihu Waka, making zines and poems and sewings about cycles of settler coloniser violence in the rural south of Te Waipounamu.

Tidelines, Kiri Piahana-Wong, Anahera Press, 2024

Near the end of my
days, I knew.
Timer moved through
me like the wind.

With every outbound tide
I felt my breath receding,
my life running from me
like the river feeding
the bay. And the
longing,
I was tired.
I longed to merge my voice
with the world-song, become
a single drop in the ocean,
be everywhere and nowhere.

 

from ‘Hinerangi’

Kiri Piahana-Wong’s new collection, Tidelines, is poetry of weaving, waiting, water. She interweaves the tragic story of Hinerangi with her own personal challenges. Hinerangi married a young chieftain who drowned while fishing off the rocks at Te Unuhanga-o-Rangitoto (Mercer Bay). Consumed by grief, she kept vigil on the rocks, and eventually died there. The headland, where her face is said to be outlined, is known as Te Āhau o Hinerangi (The likeness of Hinerangi).

Kiri weaves patterns of grief, worry, emptiness, a self in pieces, aloneness, leaving, staying, happiness, suicidal tugs and, as she weaves, water permeates, there in the ebb and flow of grief: Auckland’s west coast, the falling rain, the falling tears, floating in the sea, swimming in the sea, Tāwhirimātea lashing the Laingholm Bach with storm, seagulls standing in tidal mud, not trapped but grounded, ready for flight.

The poet’s pain and circumstances are an outline traced in the coastal setting, in the persistent or fickle birdsong, in the vases of freshly picked flowers, the pōhutukawa flowing, a message in a bottle, a frost departing, and in the voices of of her tūpuna tāne arriving, as she is perched on a rock, a precipice, the ragged edge of living.

This is a precious poetry collection, both moving and lyrical, that lets you feel the sting of salt and despair, fragility and resolve, and you know you need to hold life and loved ones very close. I love it.

And with their coming, a mighty
gust of wind blew me back
from the edge of the cliff
and away until the forest
swallowed it from sight.

 

from ‘On the day I died’

Kiri Piahana-Wong is a poet, editor and publisher. Her previous publications are Night Swimming (Anahera Press, 2013) and (as co-editor) Te Awa o Kupu (Penguin Random House, 2023).

Anahera Press page

POETRY TAKES OVER: A NATIONWIDE CELEBRATION OF WORDS IS SET TO SWEEP ACROSS THE COUNTRY IN LATE AUGUST

Get ready to celebrate the power of poetry, Aotearoa! Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day 2024 is scheduled for Friday 23 August, and a packed programme of close to 100 official events is revealed today, showcasing the nation’s love of poetry.

“At Phantom Billstickers”, says CEO Robin McDonnell, “National Poetry Day is a celebration that reminds us of the power of words to bridge gaps and touch hearts. In a world often divided by uncertainty, poetry stands as a beacon of unity and hope.”

“As we unveil this year’s exciting lineup,” Robin continues, “let’s come together to experience the joy, reflection, and connection that poetry offers. In these times of change, let poetry be our constant – a force for good that unites us as a community.”

You’ll find poetry everywhere in late August: on buses, written on pavements, displayed on projected screens, and even emerging from typewriters. This vibrant annual celebration of words and creativity offers something for everyone. “You don’t have to be a literary scholar to write or recite a poem,” says Richard Pamatatau, poet and spokesperson for programme coordinators, the New Zealand Book Awards Trust Te Ohu Tiaki i Te Rau Hiringa. “On Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day, we are all invited to share our joys, fears, and challenges by expressing what often comes to mind, and to share our emotions in a way that resonates with everyone.”

You can immerse yourself in the rhythm and energy of hip-hop poetry, contribute your own verses to an endless poem, or dive into the excitement of a poetry slam. There are also numerous workshops available, where you can hone your craft and connect with fellow poetry enthusiasts.

Among the many events, one standout opportunity is a special workshop hosted by Red Room Poetry with Grace Yee, winner of the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. This webinar, set for Thursday 22 August, continues the collaboration between Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day in New Zealand, and Australia’s Poetry Month. It offers an excellent chance for established and aspiring poets alike to learn from Grace Yee’s distinct voice as she explores characterisation and voice, scene-setting and polyphony in poetry.

New Zealand Poet Laureate Chris Tse is embarking on an exciting poetry tour with multiple events lined up, including a stop at Hamilton Book Month, an appearance at the Ōrongohau / Best New Zealand Poems event, and a special National Library event on National Poetry Day, chairing a lively session featuring international poet Jean Chan.

The NPD Competition Calendar has opportunities for both children and adults to showcase their talents on a grand stage. Some competition favourites are back: Poets XYZ invite adults to write children’s poetry, and the beloved Given Words competition offers five new words chosen by schoolchildren in Andalusia. Auckland Libraries invite you to submit ‘blackout’ poems and in the Bay of Plenty you can enter the Cringefest Poetry Hall of Shame with your most cringeworthy poetry.

The full programme of Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day events can be found on the website, but some other highlights include:

International/Nationwide: Berlin joins the celebration with a vibrant evening of poetry readings, music, and open mic excitement. David Merritt’s iconic Poetry Bricks will make a splash nationwide.

Northland: Kahui Ako’s Be Published event gives kids the thrilling chance to craft their own poetry and see it transformed into a real book!

Auckland: Glenbrook Poetry Week energises students with open mics, recitations, slams, and workshops. Wordcore: Micromegas fuses spoken word, music, visual art, and digital storytelling for a unique collaborative performance. All Tomorrow’s Poets marks its 10th anniversary with a mix of past and new performers at Time Out Bookstore. Projection Poetry dazzles with a city-centre poetry projection show; Books on the Bus celebrates National Poetry Day with poetry books on buses; and Albert Park and Waiheke will come alive with poetry on the pavements.

Bay of Plenty: Join the Kupu Waiata, Singing Word event in Tauranga for a lunchtime open-mic jam session and a fun workshop. In Katikati Gaye Hemsley spreads joy with humorous poems at a local retirement home and invites poetry lovers to The Arts Junction for a lively discussion.

Hawkes Bay: Haiku in Hawke’s Bay turns local cafes and restaurants into poetry hotspots for National Poetry Day, challenging everyone to craft haiku on ‘hope & promise’ with standout pieces set to be featured in Hawke’s Bay Today.

Wellington: Poems Against Sustainability challenges students to pen poems on environmental issues; Studio Kiin launches the debut poetry collection Kalokalo by Arieta Tegeilolo Talanoa Tora Rika; Wai–te– ata Press invites you to dive into the art of hand-setting and printing; Rangituhi: Writings Across the Sky brings an open mic event to the great outdoors in Tawa; and Peculiar Letters showcases local queer poets reading and analysing their work on the big screen.

South Island: NOLA’s Progressive Poem evolves throughout the day in an Oamaru café, with contributions from passersby. Words Without Borders in Queenstown offers inclusive poetry workshops, spoken word events, and open mic nights in various languages. The Canterbury Poets’ Collective showcases the top under-25 poets. Dunedin comes alive with poetry, offering a vibrant and diverse lineup: From the Hills to the Harbour: A Poetic View of Our World celebrates 10 years of

Ōtepoti as a UNESCO City of Literature with poetry, music, art, workshops, and a city-wide poster series. Experience the magic of personalised poetry with Spontaneous Poetry, where poems are typed on a typewriter while you wait! And don’t miss Speakeasy’s Poetry Swap, inviting participants to trade and read each other’s work.

Kia ora e te whānau,

Please join us for the launch of Whaea Blue, the debut book by Talia Marshall.

Thursday 8 August
6pm
Meow
9 Edward Street, Te Aro, Wellington
View more info on our Facebook page.

Nau mai, haere mai!

Te Herenga Waka University Press

“Tempestuous and haunting, Whaea Blue is a tribute to collective memory, the elasticity of self, and the women we travel through. It is a karanga to and from the abyss. It is a journey to peace.”

Please join us to celebrate the launch of The girls in the red house are singing, the new poetry collection by Tracey Slaughter, to be launched by New Zealand Poet Laureate Chris Tse. As part of a dedicated evening for poetry during Hamilton Book Month, Ashleigh Young and a group of local poets will also share some of their work.

Friday August 16
6:30pm
Te Whare Tāpere Iti
The University of Waikato, Hamilton.
View more info here.

All welcome! Drinks and refreshments provided.

Slim Volume, James Brown, Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2024

A chair is a good place to sit.
You spend a week with a poem.

Then another week. Not your poem.
Somebody else’s.

 

from ‘Love Poem’

Ah. After a string of days watching the rain fall, Lake Fog slowly melt, the sour dough rise, what better delight than to open James Brown’s eighth poetry collection, Slim Volume. The blurb on the back provides a perfect invitation to enter the collection’s cycling trails, its widening itineraries: ‘A slim volume of verse, like a bicycle, offers us fresh and joyful and sometimes troubling ways of seeing the world.’ In a nutshell, it’s why I love turning to poetry in states of emergency or dillydally and seek the electric currents of words.

Begin with notions of travel, the ever-shifting multifaceted view from cycle saddle, train window or pedestrian stroll. Whether cycling or walking, things catch the eye and ear, thoughts compound and connect, disintegrate and startle, and you move with the hum and whizzing wheels of memory and anticipation. Similarly poetry, whether reading or writing, is an exhilarating form of travel. Especially reading James Brown, especially savouring the sweet whirr of the line, the turning back for a second look to see things afresh, the unmistakable accumulation of physical joy.

Slim Volume draws you into the intimacy of letting things slip, of layering and leavening a collection so that in one light it is a portrait of making poetry, in another light the paving stones of childhood. The presence of people that matter glint, and then again, in further arresting light, you spot traces of the physical world. Try reading this as a poetry handbook and the experience is gold. There is an invitation to see any subject matter as ‘worthy’ of poems (for example, cheese in pies), musing on who wants to read angry poetry or wayward words or making poems your own. And am I stretching the communal art of making sandcastles to consider poetry as a communal art (oodles of theory on this)? Perhaps the poem that stuck the firmest is ‘Love Poem’ (posted on Poetry Shelf, extract above). It’s the best ode to reading a poem I have read in ages.

And that is exactly why I love this book so much. I am sitting back in the chair of reading and taking things slow, and then whizzing in downhill glee, and then it’s back to travelling slow. Savouring the wit, the power of looking, listening. Take ‘Green and Orange’ for example, and track the loops and latches as a sideways glance becomes so much more. Sheez I love this poem. Just want you to read it for yourself. Here is the opening stanza:

The trees bend in the window frame.
Outside, I barely give them a glance,
but framed, each leaf has its own geometry,
anemone fingers in a green sea.

Or take a young lad on his milk run (‘it’s more of a milk walk’) in ‘One Thing Leads to Another or / My Part in the Dairy Industry’. And again I am sitting in the chair of poetry reading and it is description and it is wonder and it is different forms of loops and latches. Try these middle stanzas:

I get slower and slower
like the music box
in our kitchen.

People always startle.

A standing man
on the brink of his
water feature.

A hesitation in a
dressing gown.

The poem’s ending knocks me off my poetry chair and it is ‘Back home, a glass of cold milk / trickles into my account / from three or four hills / beyond my understanding.’

Like any satisfying form of travel, the collection offers diverse mood keys. There is a childhood anecdote of (slightly creepy) The Magic Show at a school fair, a defiant and much-missed Allegory hiding up a tree outside the classroom, and then ‘Bad Light’, an unsettling poem of uncertainty and impending disaster involving a boy on a red bicycle. Phew. Wow.

I keep coming back to two mother poems. ‘Evening’ frames a sharper-than-real scene at the kitchen table, mother with pen in hand, the son pulling the string of an odd musical instrument. The room fills: ‘The melancholy song / we think of as Russian // waltzes slower and slower / around the room.’ And then it fills and refills, these moments that have stuck and replayed. Yes, it’s the music box we meet in the milk-run poem.

The poet cyclist is mindful of pulling over on the edge of the road to absorb the view or take a break. To atone for seemingly no section breaks (think poem clusters), James inserts intermissions laced with witty invitations: ‘I like sections because they give you space to have a breather, to pause and think about things . . . like what brought you here and what you are doing with your life.‘ Don’t get me started James. But I will take this moment to make an espresso and heat a scone and ponder on potholes and war. The second-section break ‘marker’ invites me to take further time out:

So take some time out.
Look around the room.
Look out the window.
What do you focus on?
Is the view so familiar
you’ve stopped seeing it?

Again I am switching back to open-poem travel, to how we may become immune to the views and reading trails, as much as when we stroll down the road or gaze out the kitchen window. Ah, always the kitchen.

I thought I would try writing what I think of my latest poem travels on the back of a post card and sending it to a friend: Stunning scenery, sublime food, every mood under the sun, utterly refreshing, unforgettable.

I would like to gift this book to one reader. Let me know here or on my social media feed.

The first time I saw the sea,
I was completely enchanted.
I’d always known it existed, I’d just
never really noticed it before.

I hadn’t even gone to see it, I’d more
stumbled across it accidentally
between Foxton and Himatangi.

 

from ‘You Don’t Know What You’re Missing’

James Brown‘s previous poetry collections are The Tip Shop (2022), Selected Poems (2020), Floods Another Chamber (2017), Warm Auditorium (2012), The Year of the Bicycle (2006), which was a finalist in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2007, Favourite Monsters (2002), Lemon (1999), and Go Round Power Please (1996), which won the Best First Book Award for Poetry. James works as an editor and teaches the Poetry Workshop at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.

Te Herenga Waka University Press page