More Poems on Being a Parent

My son turns 12 soon. That, and the recent publication of Swings and Roundabouts: Poems on Parenthood, Emma Neale’s anthology of parenting poems, made me want to put up some of the poems I wrote while he was growing up. (My poem “Coverage” in Swings and Roundabouts is about an imagined father.). So here are for such poems, written from 1996 to 2002.

Publication note: “The Weather”, “At the Gate” and “Action Man Is Sleeping” appear in my first poetry collection, Boat People (HeadworX, 2002). Copies are available from me - please email timjones (at) actrix.co.nz for more information, or see my website orders page.

“Elfland” appears in my second collection, All Blacks Kitchen Gardens (which you can buy online), published in 2007.


The Weather

The weather is a matter of cultural safety
for us white Englishmen.

I talk about it with my father:
it's fine up here, Dad, not a breath of wind
(so rare for Wellington)
how's it with you?

Cloudy, he replies, and raining
wind from the south-west
I can't get the garden done.
In his voice is the gloomy assurance
that more is on the way.

I talk about it with the barber.
We agree it's
not such a bad day
for this time of the year.

We're talking the prices of houses.
I tell him I'll be a father come June.
I don't tell him, the child will be born in winter
as the wind and the rain prowl outside.

I don't tell him, we will carry the infant
back to our wooden house
shaken by the gale.

I do say, I'll have to check the gutters
come spring.


At the Gate

This morning
at the kindergarten gate
my son said "You stop there!"

He didn't want me to come in
He would place his bag
on Hook 22
put his nametag on the chart
go in to mat-time by himself

He opened the gate, turned, and waved goodbye
I waved back proudly
and started down the path
close to tears

He was so tiny once
that I could hold him in the palm of one hand
He starts school in two weeks' time
His bag will fill with books
his heart with other friends.
Smiling and crying, I take the long road home.


Action Man Is Sleeping

Action Man is sleeping
wearing his yellow bobble hat
(taken from a fluffy bunny who won't be needing it again)
blue underpants which keep him rated G
and two cloth nappies which serve him well as sheets.

His bed is a wheeled wooden trolley.
My son, who's sleeping too, said Action Man should have
a bed with legs, like him — but Action Man
must always be ready for action
even in his jut-jawed dreams.

He (my son, that is — I wouldn't
want you to get confused) has decided
he should not be kissed or hugged.
"Not by you — not by anyone!"
We blamed Action Man at first

but now the boy's relented —
he can kiss us
we just can't kiss him.


Elfland

Outside, the world is growing darker
counters clicking downwards to perdition.

Inside, the children bring me
cup-cakes, pizza, new and better clothes

all made from pure cheek
and six-year-old imagination.

I'm story-writing helper for today.
It's not too hard:

"What's that word? Let's sound it out."
"Nothing to write about? Let's see ...

what will you do tomorrow? What
would you rather do today?"

At the end we're smiling: a whole page written!
Teacher, give these children praise.

As they start on Printing
I'm taking my leave, walking

out of the enchanted wood
back to the world's long darkness.

Blogs in Their Summer Clothes - 2

This is the second in an occasional series highlighting blogs and other sites to which I link from "Books in the Trees". In the first instalment, I said a little bit about the blogs of Harvey Molloy, Helen Rickerby, Giant Sparrow, Meliors Simms and Kay McKenzie Cooke. Here's another four blogs, and one web site, worthy of your attention.

• I mentioned in the first instalment that Harvey and Helen's blogs had served as role models for me when I first set up this blog. That's true, but going a little further back, it was Fionnaigh McKenzie's blog Beautiful Monsters that first made me realise that a blog could be a work of art - not that I'm claiming the same status for "Books in the Trees". Fionnaigh, who was another member of the CREW 256 "Writing the Landscape" class in 2003, is a fine poet who infuses her blog with the same spirit as her poetry.
  
• I met Edwin McRae through the New Zealand Society of Authors Mentoring Scheme. As well as being a cyberpunk writer, Edwin is a storyliner for Shortland Street - so he knows the inside goss before anyone else, because he thinks it up!
  
• Reading the Maps is a multi-author blog about literature, Marxism, and much else besides. I got in a bit of a stoush with them over their coverage of Bernard Gadd's death and literary/ideological views, but I still return there regularly for refreshing literary and political opinion.
  
• James Dignan has a website rather than a blog - but "Blogs and Websites in Their Summer Clothes" sounds cumbersome, so I'm not going to change the title. I have known James for many years - since around 1986, in fact, when we were both involved in organising Halleycon, that year's NZ National Science Fiction Convention. A writer and musician when I first met him, his career as a visual artist and art reviewer for the Otago Daily Times has since taken off.
  
• Finally for this instalment, I don't know John Crowley personally, but I do know and love his fiction, which occupies a space all of its own, somewhere between metaphysics, fantasy and realism. High points of his career include Little, Big; the Aegypt tetralogy; and The Translator. He's the only fantasy writer I know whose work has been ringingly endorsed by Harold Bloom. 
  

Enough for now. But I'll be back with another five blogs (or sites) to watch out for sometime in the not too distant future.

JAAM 26: Editing Progress Report

I'm editing Issue 26 of JAAM Magazine. Submissions closed at the end of March, and I'm starting to get some enquiries about how far through the editing process I've got - so here's a progress report.

I'm currently going through all the submissions, listing those I'd like to include in JAAM 26. When I've finished doing this, then it's a matter of comparing what I'd like to include with the space available, and then matching the two - a process which is going to involve me making some difficult decisions, as there have been many high quality submissions to this issue, and I'm not going to be able to include them all.

I estimate that it will take me another two weeks to finish reading through all the submissions, and a further week to work out what I can fit within the number of pages available. Therefore, at the end of May, I expect that I will be able to start notifying everyone who has submitted whether or not their submission(s) have been included. There have been a lot of submitters, so that process will take a little while - though I'll make it as quick as I can.

After that, it will be a matter of arranging the contents into a coherent and interesting order, and giving the publisher everything needed to finalise the issue.

I hope this update helps soothe any frazzled nerves. Some wonderful work has been submitted, and I think this is going to be a very good issue of JAAM.

Transported Longlisted for 2008 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award

I've been blogging like crazy this week, but there's good reason for one more post: my short story collection Transported (which you can pre-order online), which will be published by Random House New Zealand in June, is one of four New Zealand short story collections longlisted for the 2008 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.

The New Zealand collections longlisted are:

• Transported, Tim Jones (Random House New Zealand)
  
• Etiquette for a Dinner Party, Sue Orr (Random House New Zealand)
  
• The Girl Who Proposed, Elizabeth Smither (Cape Catley)
  
• Ask The Posts Of The House, Witi Ihimaera (Raupo)

The Guardian has the full longlist of 39 books and an article about it.

I'm really pleased about this, but it's important to keep a sense of perspective. It's a longlist - a looooong longlist. The quality of the other New Zealand selections (congratulations to all the authors!) indicates the strength of the field. The shortlist is announced in July, and I don't expect Transported to be on it - but I won't deny that I'll be very pleased if it is!

It's also good to see a prize specifically for short story collections, which are sometimes neglected beasts in the literary zoo.

UPDATE: If you're looking for a review copy of Transported, or other 'official' publicity material about the book, please contact Jennifer Balle, jennifer (at) randomhouse.co.nz

Swings and Roundabouts: Poems on Parenthood

On Monday, I received a contributors' copy of Swings and Roundabouts: Poems on Parenthood, edited by Emma Neale, with photography by Mark Smith. As I am a contributor, I'm not going to review it, and indeed I've read only about a quarter of it so far: but here are four first impressions.

First, the book looks really good, and feels good in the hand.

Second, it doesn't just contain New Zealand poems: there are a number of Australian poets represented, as well as international heavy hitters (NB: not in the smacking sense!) such as Sylvia Plath and Seamus Heaney.

Third, although being a parent isn't always lovely, there are some poems in the book that radiate parental love - and others that don't flinch from the difficulties.

Fourth, what a great idea for a book! I think a lot of people are going to love it. I think I will be among them.

Wellington Blogger Offers Modest Giveaway!

I covered several reviews of my poetry collection All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens in a recent post. Another review has since appeared, in Issue 63 of the Christchurch-based literary journal Takahe. In his review, James Norcliffe looks in detail at the three sections of the book - Inside, Outside and Farside - and concludes that:

All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens is a most enjoyable read, full of intelligent poems intelligently arranged so that they set up echoes and conversations. Although at times there is the slight clunk of contrivance, there is more than enough here to surprise and satisfy.

Slight clunks apart, I'm pretty satisfied with this as a summary.

There's a lot to like about Takahe. It's a handsomely-produced magazine, featuring striking, full-colour front and back covers with artwork by Phil Price; it contains an extensive reviews section, the centrepiece of which is a long review of the latest collection by Stephen Oliver, Harmonic; and it is full of high-quality fiction and poetry.

I have a couple of poems in this issue, and the editors kindly sent me two contributors' copies. I'm offering one of those copies free to a good home. If you'd like a copy of Takahe 63, please email me at timjones (at) actrix.co.nz with your postal address. I'll send a copy to the first person who responds, and post a note here when I've done that. UPDATE: We have a winner - thanks for getting in touch, Rod Scown!

Scriptwriters Wanted

From the NZ Society of Authors (NZSA) weekly email newsletter* comes this snippet, which I'll post here as I know I have some scriptwriters among my readers:

Writers Wanted for Two Animated TV Series

"Currently in development are two concepts for separate animated TV series
primarily targeting boys aged 8-12. Script writers are being sought. The
first is a fantasy series based in colonial NZ; the second is a sci-fi
series. Expressions of interest emailed to nika (at) huntdigitalmedia.com"

I have no connections with these projects, so I can't vouch for their chances of success - but if you're interested, go to it!

*This newsletter, emailed each week to NZSA members, is a very valuable source of market information: I have made several sales, especially of poetry, to magazines or anthologies I first saw advertised there. Membership of the NZSA isn't cheap, but it can [so I believe] be claimed as an expense against taxable income, and it's definitely worth considering if you're a New Zealand writer.