Out Of It No Longer Out Of Print

 
In November 2010, I blogged about Michael O'Leary's cricket novel Out of It in the context of NZ cricket poetry anthology A Tingling Catch.

At the time, I said that Out Of It was out of print. The good news is that now it's available from Amazon as a Kindle ebook. You can find out more about it, and about Michael's many other books, at Michael O'Leary's new site - and Mark Pirie has a comprehensive new site as well.

While we're on the topic of new sites, check out my new Amazon.com author page - there will be a UK version along in due course.

Tuesday Poem: Baxter Between the Wickets, by Michael O'Leary

Tim says: This week, I've chosen an anthologised poem that is also part of a novel. Confused? You won't be...

A Tingling Catch

"Baxter Between the Wickets" is one of several poems by Michael O'Leary in the excellent anthology A Tingling Catch: A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009, edited by Mark Pirie, which was launched at the Long Room of the Basin Reserve, the test cricket ground in Wellington, on Sunday. I had the great pleasure of reading my poem Swing at the launch.

I was going to spend some time telling you how good A Tingling Catch is - starting with this cover painting of the Basin Reserve by Jocelyn Galsworthy, who, I think it's safe to say, is the world's leading cricket artist, and continuing with the selection of poems (mine, of course, modestly excluded!).

But now I don't have to say how good it is, because Graham Beattie has done so admirably on Beattie's Book Blog.

Out of It

So let's move on to the book from which this poem is extracted. Out of It (Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, 1987) is presently out of print, but Michael is planning to reprint it in 2011 - and if you can't wait till then, the entire text of the novel is available online. I read Out of It recently, and enjoyed it very much.

The frame of this novel-with-poems is a cricket match at Eden Park between the "Out of It XI" and New Zealand. The two XIs are:

NEW ZEALAND OUT OF IT

1) Dipak Patel Jimi Hendrix

2) Ken Rutherford Monk Lewis

3) John Wright (V.C.) Te Rauparaha (C)

4) Martin Crowe Oscar Wilde

5) Jeff Crowe Jim Morrison

6) Jeremy Coney (C) Alfred Jarry

7) Richard Hadlee Janice Joplin

8) Ian Smith Bob Marley (V.C.)

9) John Bracewell Herman Goering

10) Lance Cairns Lord Byron

11) Ewen Chatfield James Joyce

12TH MEN

12) Martin Sneddon James K. Baxter

Baxter, then, is on the field as a runner for an injured Jim Morrison, and "Baxter Between the Wickets" represents his thoughts as he is called through for three runs by Te Rauparaha, the "Out of It XI" captain. Michael tells me that the "Colin" of the poem is Colin Durning, an old friend of both James K. Baxter and Michael O'Leary.

Baxter Between the Wickets

Morrison hit Chatfield down to deep cover and sent Hemi, grey-hair, grey-beard flying like sails, off for a run. The chief ran like the wind so that Baxter, who was obviously the least fit of the two, was stretched to the limit but made it home for three runs.

“Ha Ha! I bet that got the old cogs in the wheels turning, John. I thought the old guru of the New Jerusalem was struggling a bit there.”

“Yes Dennis, but he made it and his thinking must be matching his physical triumph at this moment."


Man! He has called me again
From that place inside me – the unworthy

Servant! He called me three times
When I, in my mortal dung heap mind

Would have settled for one
And all the lice in my beard jumped out

For fear of this terrible century’s (looming) speed
Who will torment me now, at night

Who will remind me of Him –
And sin! Which this mad old devil

Commits with every eyelid bat, every thought
Kei te Rangitira o te ngati porangi, ahau –

I stand at the end of the crease Colin
Knowing He only wants what He knows I can do


This poem, and the text which immediately precedes it, is taken with permission from Michael O'Leary's 1987 novel Out of It.

Finally, this poem also ties back to my post from early October responding to Scott Baxter's query about the influence of James K. Baxter on New Zealand poetry. Here, that influence is alive and well, if not incredibly happy at having been called through for more than a single!

You can check out all of the Tuesday Poems at the Tuesday Poem Blog.

Completed Events, Current Favourites and Coming Attractions

Completed Events

The 2008 HeadworX/ESAW Winter Readings Series finished on Wednesday night with another good session, the highlight of which for me was hearing Marilyn Duckworth read her poetry. I knew of her abilities as a novelist, but as this session made clear, she's a fine poet as well. All the other poets taking part - Bill Dacker, Michael O'Leary (launching his new collection Paneta Street) and Marilyn Duckworth and Nelson Wattie reading from the new collection of love poems by Meg and Alistair Te Ariki Campbell - were fine as well, and the night concluded with an audience sing-along to a mashup of the Beatles' "Happiness is a Warm Gun" and "Hey Jude", then copious and well-merited thanks to all those who have contributed to the continuing success of the series.

New Zealand Book Month was launched last Sunday (I attended the launch as a volunteer - I'm not sure I contributed much, but I had some lovely conversations), and the authors selected for inclusion in The Six Pack Three were announced: Sue Wootton, Marisa Maepu, Ian Mackenzie, David Geary, Aroha Harris, and Kate Duignan. Congratulations to them all!

Current Favourites

As a followup to The Good Book Guide's article on the author photos taken by renowned photographer Miriam Berkley comes another testament to her work, and to the power of the author photo.

Also at The Good Books Guide is this powerful article on the uses of fiction by Preeta Samarasan.

Perhaps I shouldn't call it a "current favourite", since I haven't read it yet, but I am looking forward to reading The White Road and Other Stories by Tania Hershman, who runs The Short Review. (It's published by Salt Publishing, and should become available in this corner of the world in due course.) As a connoisseur of genre distinctions, who has the countervailing desire to obliterate those distinctions, I am especially intrigued by the distinction she draws between "science fiction" and "science-inspired fiction".

Coming Attractions

I don't really have a plan for this blog, other than a rough rule of thumb that about half the posts should be about my writing, and half about other people's. All the same, over the next six weeks or so, I expect to bring you:

• Three interviews with New Zealand authors, all of whom have, or have just had, books being published.
• This blog's first guest post.
• A tantalising peek at my tastes in music. (Note: the definition of "tantalising" may vary according to the perspective of the observer.)
• A little literary archaeology: I've written and edited other books besides the three featured here so far. Come with me back, baaack to where it all began!
• A post about how various leading fantasy writers have handled theological issues in their work - to wit, Philip Pullman, J.K. Rowling, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. This was sparked off by a comment from Mike Crowl on my earlier post, Is Literary Fiction a Genre?.

And finally ...

Another good review of Transported! This one's by Mike Crowl, and I found it on bookstove.com (not sure whether it started life there, or comes from somewhere else). Mike says:

Tim Jones' Transported is a pleasant surprise. None of the tales have that kind of super-seriousness about them that's typical of NZ short stories. Instead, they're an intriguing mix of tongue-in-cheek, subtle humour, history turned inside out, and sci-fi.

There's more in the full review on Bookstove.