Sarah Broom Poetry prize Announcement December 2013
Sarah Broom Poetry Award 2014
Leave a reply
Elizabeth Smither’s Ruby Duby Du deserves to be under the pillow of every new mother and father
Elizabeth Smither, Ruby Duby Du, Cold Hub Press, 2013
Elizabeth Smither is an award-wining poet and novelist. She was named New Zealand Poet Laureate in 2002 and was awarded the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry in 2008. On the back of her new book, Ruby Duby Du, Elizabeth says, ‘None of these compares to being a grandmother.’
This delightful book signals the burgeoning output of small presses –- handcrafted books with smallish print runs, scope for new poets to emerge, and established poets to publish miniature gems or take sidestepping risks. Elizabeth’s book, published by Dunedin’s Cold Hub Press, is a gold nugget of a book and deserves to be under the pillow of every new mother and father, and in the gift box of every newborn child. It is an utter delight from curling fingertip to wriggling toe.
The new collection, with delicate illustrations by artist Kathryn Madill, is a book of poems dedicated to Ruby (born 2011) from her grandmother, Elizabeth. It begins with the announcement of a pregnancy, and ends with Ruby in her father’s arms and the counting of stars. Love is both the movement and the anchor that holds Elizabeth’s poetry in warm embrace. These poems are intimate, personal and captivatingly real.
I was taken back, convincingly, mesmerisingly to the birth of my daughters — to a time when the world moves into acute and breathtaking focus (as though you have a new pair of glasses). To a time when certain things matter so much less and fade into pale.
Each poem resonates with a particular moment — measuring Ruby in the womb (‘the height of a tall vase/ a blue iris’); cleaning windows for Ruby’s visit (‘Your grandmother/ had clean windows for her first granddaughter/ and everything glowed from then’).
There is tenderness and charm, but there is also wit running through the veins of these poems — the cheekiness of the grandmother along with the deep love. In ‘The grandparents intervene’ (a terrific poem!) the grandparents await news of the birth in their separate houses (‘In two separate houses broken sleep/ and then you broke into the world, Ruby’). The poem ends on the two clocks (his ‘from a ship’ and hers ‘from a shop that sold antiques’). The clock is resonant of time to come and time past but is also enriched by these divergent origins.
Elizabeth’s wit is sparkling in ‘Ruby and the mock-rivalry.’ The baby (that can’t yet speak) tells the grandfather she wants to captain an ocean liner. The grandmother knows the only reason Ruby might want to go to sea is ‘to write a book in which case/ the breath of the sea might come in handy.’
More than anything, these poems are songs to Ruby. Elizabeth has drawn upon her craft as a poet, found the music in a line, the detail that you want to hold onto and share (let’s take a photograph and preserve this moment), the way the movement in a new life can generate delicious movement in a poem (what poem can survive without this). There is thought (the way some occurrences can be slipped through a philosophical filter) and there is heart (the way some things are steered by gut and intuition, along with love).
In ‘Ruby and the vegetable rockery,’ Elizabeth aligns silver beet and Ruby (‘Though they are unacquainted at present/ each is pulling itself up by the roots’). I have never read a poem where a baby and silver beet are poetic companions, but Elizabeth’s collection is full of surprises. The poem, like the book as a whole, is layered like the vegetable rockery – the poet has planted herself and Ruby in every nook and cranny, and you will brush against the sheer joy of new life. Elizabeth shows that poetry can put the world (in this case, Ruby) in loving focus. It is a gift to read. It is a gift to share!
New Zealand Book Council author page
University of Auckland author file
Auckland University Press author page
Bernadette Hall’s Life & Customs giveaway copy
Thanks to Victoria University Press, Kiwiskan will receive a copy of Bernadette Hall’s Life & Customs. Please note: I don’t send giveaway copies overseas (several people who liked and commented live off shore — thanks for commenting!).
Read my review here.
Bernadette Hall’s Life & Customs– such readerly movement is a like a breath of fresh air
Bernadette Hall, Life & Customs, Victoria University Press, 2013
Bernadette Hall is an award-winning poet, mentor and anthologist living on the coast north of Christchurch. She has published numerous collections of poetry including the terrific The Lustre Jug (2009). She edited Like Love Poems: Selected Poems of Joanna Margaret Paul and The Judas Tree: Poems by Lorna Staveley Anker (see my review of the latter here). She has held a residency in County Cork, Ireland and has visited Antarctica courtesy of Antarctica New Zealand. Both those experiences have found their way into her poetry. You can read my interview with Bernadette here.
Bernadette’s latest book, Life & Customs, is a substantial collection that draws upon the layers of the world with such poetic finesse it is impossible not to fall in love with it. The book is in two parts with a ballet interlude. Bernadette opens with a quote by Wallace Stevens (this bit stood out for me: ‘Life’s nonsense pierces us with strange revelation’). It seems the perfect epigraph for the collection, as the poems enact moments of ‘life’s nonsense’ (you could say — strangeness, surprise) along with those ‘revelations’ (also unexpected, nourishing).
This is a book of home, of shifting geographies and roots laid down, of memory flashes and of loving attachments (‘this is all part of the long slow plunge into memory’). So it is no surprise the first poem, ‘how lovely to see you,’ is like a welcome mat. More than any other book I have read in an age, Bernadette welcomes you into a nook of poetic warmth. This book exudes warmth, there is no extravagant game playing or showing off – instead you get led into the heart of living and life. Such readerly movement is like a breath of fresh air.
The first joy of this collection is the simplicity. I am not going to use the word plainness but opt instead for a word that registers beauty, stillness, contemplation, attentiveness and a zen-like deportment. Take these lines for example: ‘the sea comes in and kisses my feet/ then it goes back out again.’ This line appears after a small list of strange and not so strange things (like kinks in the day): ‘the little boy has swallowed/ a sadness bean.’
The second joy is the music, something that I have written of before in my appreciation of Bernadette’s poetry. Take any poem in this book and you will discover its musical contours – the way each line is pitch perfect in its undulating sounds and tones (‘We don’t need the pucker and slip of a tablecloth’). There is delicious assonance (tick clicky kids drift); there is heavenly rhyme (father/ harbour); there are words that coo on the ends of lines (plunge Mamaku); there are sharp words that sound off key (fatal); there is silence breaking into a line; there are sounds scattered like aural glitter or glue (‘m’ sounds in ‘The view from the lookout’).
The third joy is the humour. There is chuckle and body mirth in many of these poems. In ‘The day Death turned up on the beach’ the narrator invites Death over for scones with jam and cream. There is the book you can borrow but you can’t open to read. ‘In Search of Happiness’ humour mixes together with the surreal in a fablesque poem. There are two islands – one goes up in smoke and one drowns.
The fourth joy is the use of memory that takes you to and fro in nostalgic movements. ‘The Grinder’ takes you back to ‘way back when’ and there you are winding wool and making mince out of cold roast meat. There are things we take for granted that suddenly pulse on the page.
As I read the ballet interlude, I wondered who could turn this into ballet, but as I read, I choreographed the lines into a visual feast in my mind.
Bernadette writes with the poetic poise and insight of Dinah Hawken. To read these earthy and heavenly attachments is to fill with joy at what poetry can do. This is a marvellous collection.
Thanks to VUP, I have a copy of the book to give to someone who likes or comments on this post.
Victoria University Press page
New Zealand Book Council page
New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre page
Canterbury University Press page
Best NZ Poems edited by Bernadette Hall here
My review of The Lustre Jug in The NZ Herald
Starlight: A poetry reading with John Tranter Michele Leggott Anne Kennedy and Robert Sullivan
 |
John Tranter reads with Michele Leggott, Anne Kennedy and Robert Sullivan
John Tranter is Australia’s most awarded poet and the author of more than 20 books, including the recent Starlight: 150 Poems. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear John read his work, joined by local poets Michele Leggott, Anne Kennedy and Robert Sullivan. Join us at the Auckland Central Library for a welcome glass of wine courtesy of Glengarry at 5.30pm. Readings start at 6:00pm. This reading is hosted by Auckland City Libraries and the NZ Electronic Poetry Centre. http://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/EN/Events/Events/Pages/starlightjohntranter.aspx |
NZ Poet Laureate, Vincent O’Sullivan’s blog is worth following
As the current NZ Poet Laureate, Vincent O’Sullivan is following in the footsteps of his predecessors (Michele Leggott, Ian Wedde and Cilla McQueen) and contributing a regular blog to the Laureate site.
Each poet has used this opportunity in quite different ways. Vincent states his aim at the outset: ‘The obvious point of this site is to celebrate and present the breadth of experience and formal variety that poetry embraces. I shall be inviting a guest poet to contribute work of their own, and to select a poem by a living writer they value, as well as a poem from an earlier era that continues to matter to them.’
He also plans to showcase poets who have been persecuted as a writer. The first is Ghanaian Kofi Awoonor, killed by terrorists on the day he was to appear at a literary festival.
The first invited poet is Jennifer Compton.
This is a wonderful initiative on the part of Vincent — an invitation that will be of real benefit to New Zealand poetry communities, and to all those who love poetry.
See here for The Laureate site.
Grace Taylor’s debut poetry collection is tender, strong and essential
Grace Teuila Evelyn Taylor is an Afakasi poet, teacher, spoken-word artist and mother. Her father is from Glastonbury, England while her mother is from Moata’a and Apolima in Samoa. She is a mentoring presence in South Auckland where she co-directs Niu Navigations and co-founded both the South Auckland Poets Collective and the Rising Voices Youth Movement.
Grace’s debut collection, Afakasi Speaks, is a significant arrival. These poems have sung in the air at spoken word performances, where the poem is wrapped in the body’s movement, and the body’s movement is wrapped in the poem. Hearing Grace perform, it is not just a matter of entering a poem and all its rewards, but encountering a writer who occupies her space with dignity, integrity and compassion. This woman has the courage to stand up and speak out.
Now that the poems have been placed upon the page, where you can stall and back track, you encounter beauty, wit, edge, intelligence, empathy and above all, heart. It is the sort of poetry that takes you into unfamiliar rooms and changes you to the extent you view all that is familiar in a new light — particularly notions of identity.
At the red-hot core of the collection, as the title suggests, is Grace’s navigation of being Afakasi. Afakasi — the daughter of mixed heritage, both white and brown, both Samoan and European — is in-between. The writing (the poems) makes its way in and out of this space. At times it is a gap, a gap that trembles with the electricity of unbelonging. At times it is a braid, a plait, and the electricity of in-between ignites new ways of being. Grace as poet is searching for the words (‘They don’t carry dictionaries for Afakasi’) to take root in this space.
The music of performance is not lost on the page. The white space becomes the silent beat that punctuates the rhythm, the rhyme and the repetition. The white space absorbs the neighbourhood activity. It is where you stall to take on board the heart of speech. The voice.
The first poem, ‘Afastina,’ is dedicated to Selina Tustitala Marsh and Tusiata Avia. In this genealogy song, Grace acknowledges the presence of these writers in her writing lineage. These women. These ‘Afakasi are modern monarchs.’ There is beauty in the image of the butterfly; women are able to stretch their wings wide and find the freedom and skill to fly.
Other poems stand out because Grace seems to reach deep into an honesty of self to say out loud what it is like to be in-between. In ‘Afakasi has no name,’ Grace moves through examples of Afakasi not fitting into the skin of a name, and that poetic movement moves you. How to be Samoan or palangi or New Zealander are the simmering questions? Then, ‘Aunty is Afakasi wishing you would just shut-up/ stop talking about how in-between we are/ it is what is/ just move on.’ ‘The poem, ‘What is Afakasi’ has such energized heat it sears you as you read. This is poetry with its undulating music and chords that catch your ear, but it is also politics. This is a voice that is insistent and strong, a voice that has come from experience and doubt and vulnerability. Like many of the poems in the collection, it is utterly vital, because it can change how we see things. Like all the poems in the collection, it feeds off political ideas, but it never looses sight of heart.
There is an ode-like, tender poem to Grace’s father – she is missing him, and she misses him ‘the most/ when I see/ the weathered paint of our home flake/ when I hear the cold/ tired floorboards creak/ when I get/ a flat tyre on my car.’
The final poems are for and of her child – a different bloodline, where writer becomes mother. Like poetry, he too is a way of filling the in-between. Of finding ways of belonging.
This debut collection is an important entry on the New Zealand poetry landscape. The poems are strong, with wings set to fly and lead us out of misplaced preconceptions into revitalising connections. I loved it.
Afakasi Speaks, Grace Taylor, published by Ala Press, Hawa’ii, 2013
Favourite poetry books of 2013 — make your pick
The New Zealand Listener devotes vital attention to New Zealand writing throughout the year and this is to be applauded — reviews, interviews, features that cover a range of genres. However I was disappointed to see the slim selection of poetry in their recent Top 100 Books (November 30th issue) considering Chief Judge John Campbell had picked poetry as a particular strength of NZ writing at the NZ Post Book Awards this year: ‘It is a reflection of the extraordinary strength of the new and young writers we read, particularly in poetry, where New Zealand is blessed by so many fine writers (at all ages and stages) that we respectfully suggest poetry could stand beside rugby as our national sport.’
It was a list of 6: I was delighted to spot three favourite books of mine (those of Selina Tusitala Marsh, Amy Brown and Ian Wedde).
Disclaimer: This post might be picked up as sour grapes on my part as I had a book of poetry released in the past year (The Baker’s Thumbprint, Seraph Press), but I have zero expectation of my books being on lists, being reviewed or gaining awards. It is not what matters to me. I focus on writing and all the things I love in life which is why I run two blogs dedicated to a celebration of poetry.
To make up for the Listener’s inattentiveness to the fabulous poetry published both in New Zealand and abroad I invite you to celebrate a favourite poetry book of 2013 (excluding mine). I don’t mind where the book was published. I would love to publish a series of these picks over the next month. Just select your book (you can do more than one if you like) and write a few sentences or a paragraph on what you love about it.
Perhaps these picks will send us hunting for poetry books to put in our summer reading bags.
I have a little bundle of NZ poetry books to send to a random contributor or two.
Send to paulajoygreen@gmail.com
I say let’s invent, cultivate and nourish new ways to talk and write about poetry — Emma Neale raises a question
In a new post Emma Neale wonders if poetry reviews are ever obsolete. It’s a good question. She then posts reviews of two fabulous books.
Print media is in such strife these days poetry reviews have almost become an endangered species (which is partly why I started Poetry Shelf). Some newspapers such as The ODT and the Nelson Mail show a strong commitment to poetry and I still manage to get two or three published in The Herald. Landfall-on-line is another source, as is the NZ Listener.
So perhaps we have to invent, cultivate and nourish new ways to talk and write about poetry (in new places). A blog like this is only ever going to hook the attention of our small enclave of poetry fans. A newspaper review might capture the attention of someone quite different (it happens!) and give a book a new readership.
What can we do?
NZ Poetry Shelf 