A Fool For Poetry: I'm Reading At The Metro On 1 April

 
I'm the guest poet at Music & Poetry at the Metro this coming Sunday, 1 April. Here's the lineup:

Guest Musicians: Ramon Oza and Susie Colien-Reid

Open Mike

Guest Poet: Tim Jones

The Metro is at 7 Lydney Place, Porirua, and the session runs from 4-6pm.

I'll be reading from Men Briefly Explained and trying a few newer poems out as well.

If you're on Facebook, you can sign up for the Facebook event and also see the Music at the Metro Facebook page for more news: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Music-at-the-Metro/301841379852705

Here is some more information about the guest musicians:

Black Eyed Susie

Ramon Oza and Susie Colien-Reid are the core sound of four piece original Celtic rock band Blackeyedsusie. Ramon has played electric guitar professionally for 35 years, starting with supporting his family by performing 6 nights a week for a 5 star hotel in India. Susie studied classical violin to diploma level, until her love of 70’s rock drew her to develop the freelance raw style she enjoys today. Individually both have performed for major international acts ranging from the Drifters, to the Alabama Blind Boys. As a duo their sound is a blend of high energy Celtic and Funk Blues Rock influence.

Tuesday Poem: Fallen / Niedergang

 

Fallen

Driving through Mandeville. Empty windows, empty houses,
a craft shop sprung like fungus from the bones of the dying town.

The cenotaph stands roadside. Blunt, unwearied,
it commends to our attention the names of the anxious dead.

They grew, these Southland towns, on the graves
of the children of Tane. Mandeville, Riversdale -
Myross Bush, Ryal Bush, Gummies‘ …

the land groaned with the weight of their money.
As the tribes were pushed to the margins, fat lambs
grew fatter. Knives flashed cold on the chains;
eels tumbled and writhed over offal.

Now, thistles nod in the hard-pan fields. Children
are a letter from the city, a ten-hour drive at Easter.
The wealth
went with them. No mirror glass monuments here.

But the Council keeps the graveyard clean; and our dust
settles impartially
on the sign: “Country Crafts - Buy Here!”
and the sign that their dead live on, and will do so,
chiselled in stone,
till new trees and new ferns drag them down.

Niedergang

Eine Fahrt durch Mandeville. Hohle Fenster, leere Häuser,
ein Kunstgewerbeladen wie ein Pilz aus den Knochen der sterbenden Stadt entsprungen.

Das Ehrenmal am Straßenrand. Plump, unermüdlich
empfiehlt es uns, sich der Namen der Toten zu erinnern.

Sie wuchsen, diese Südlandstädte, auf den Gräbern
der Kinder Tanes. Mandeville, Riversdale –
Myross Bush, Ryal Bush, Gummies’ …

das Land stöhnte unter der Last ihres Geldes.
Während die Stämme an den Rand gedrängt wurden,
setzten fette Lämmer mehr Fett an. Messer blitzten kalt an den Ketten;
Aale wandten und stürzten sich auf die Innereien.

Jetzt nicken Disteln auf den pfannentrockenen Feldern. Kinder
sind ein Brief aus der Stadt, eine Zehnstundenfahrt an
Ostern. Der Wohlstand
zog mit ihnen fort. Keine Spiegelglassdenkmäler hier.

Doch der Stadtrat hält den Friedhof sauber; und unser Staub
senkt sich unbefangen
auf das Schild 'Einheimisches Kunstgewerbe –
hier zu kaufen!' und das Schild, dass die Toten weiter leben und weiter leben werden,
in Stein gemeisselt,
bis neue Bäume
und Farn sie niederziehen werden.

Tim says: A few years ago, a poem from my first collection, Boat People, was selected for inclusion in Wildes Licht, an anthology of New Zealand poetry with German translations, edited by Dieter Riemenschneider.

I was pleased not only because it always feels good to have work anthologised, but also because I have an interest in literary translation, and a particular liking for books which have the original on one page and the translation on the facing page.

Subsequently, however, due to a change in publishing arrangements, the manuscript had to be shortened, and mine was one of the poems cut. I was disappointed about this, but since Mark Pirie and I had undergone exactly the same process while finding a publisher for Voyagers, I recognised that this is just one of the realities of the publishing process.

Dieter was kind enough to send me the translation of "Fallen" that would have appeared in "Wildes Licht", and give me permission to publish it on this blog. In the year of the Frankfurt Bookfair 2012: An Aotearoa Affair, this is a good time to republish it.

You can check out all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog - the hub poem in the middle of the page, and all the other poems in the sidebar on the right.

Tuesday Poem: New Live Dates

 
It's a meat market in here.
Why girls as green as grass
Should dance to the songs of a man ten times their age
Climb on their boyfriends' shoulders
Throw their panties and their room keys on the stage
I'll never know.

They wanted to send me out backed by machines
Some guy in a booth somewhere, flicking switches.
I said no: give me a band, the younger and louder the better.
Let the old man have his Zimmer frame of noise
His crackling fire of guitars
His beating heart of bass and drum.

I've lived; no, not lived, let's say survived
To hear my music cut to pieces, used to sell
Everything from shoes to car insurance
Everything from fried chicken to retirement homes.
It doesn't matter: nothing matters
But the lights, the noise, the stage

And my women. I drink them up.
I leave them pale and drained.
In the morning, they don't know themselves
Waking with a shiver to the memory of pleasure
The scents of whisky and old leather
And the sound of curtains flapping in the wind.

Credit note: "New Live Dates" was first published in my second poetry collection, All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens (HeadworX, 2007) - signed copies still available from me for $10 (plus p&p) - email me at senjmito@gmail.com if you'd like one.

Tim says: The third of my poems about music and musicians from All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens, following An Adventure and Norah Jones and System of a Down. This one is pretty much the ageing-male-rock-musician-as-vampire metaphor, and I think it explains quite a lot about one Michael Philip Jagger, especially SuperHeavy.

I first posted this poem on my blog in 2008, but as the Tuesday Poem wasn't going then, I have given myself free rein to repost it here.

You can check out all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog - the hub poem in the middle of the page, and all the other poems in the sidebar on the right.

Of Tania Hershman, Men, and Middle Earth

 
Men of Middle Earth sounds like a good idea for a calendar, actually - although Dwarves of Middle Earth would be more appropriate in this year of The Hobbit.

But no, this is an orc-huntin', mead-swillin' odyssey through the geographically coterminous worlds of Middle Earth and Men Briefly Explained. Your guide is the distinguished UK writer of short and short-short fiction, Tania Hershman:

An Interview with Tim Jones in which Men are Briefly Explained.

The interview includes my photos of used movie locations! And I encourage you to find out more about Tania, her writing, and her new collection of fiction on her website.

Tuesday Poem: Beige Keeps Being Born, by Madeleine M. Slavick

 
        The first appearance was a pair of tall pants that came all the way
from Germany, with two fashionable legs of beige suede standing up a strong and tender woman,
and the balance of beauty was wanted

                                                     instead of Maine teenage
      faces foundationed a false brown, and Imedeened Hong Kong women lightening
      their born color, not to be touched, just looked at, like
                  an advertisement for a certain chosen future

                                                                        not found in the house's one hundred
and twenty seven shelves of careful literature, some Southern, most modern, and the
contemporary having creamy pages, thick, the edges feathered, pretending
              to be just as natural

                              as a trillion grains of policed sand in Santa Monica and Rio de Janiero,
two open oceans trying to bring answers to people with or without money, homes,
                 minds - no poverty, begging, allowed

                                                              in the anytime clicking of mah jongg on the table,
eight hands moving the batter, wild cards, private line drawings, and following
          the boxy ivory or plastic tiles go where they go

                                                                                                                  like a lover, traveling
along the body, making a home, rich as Indian tea, empty as sunned bamboo.

Poet's note: Imedeen: a beauty product to lighten skin

Credit note: This poem is from Madeleine M. Slavick's collection "delicate access", poems in English with translations into Chinese by Luo Hui, and is reproduced by permission of the author.

Madeleine M. Slavick is a writer and photographer. Madeleine has several books of poetry and non-fiction and has exhibited her photography internationally. She has lived in Germany, Hong Kong, the USA, and New Zealand. She maintains a daily blog: touchingwhatilove.blogspot.com - and Madeleine has a witty visual reference to "Beige Keeps Being Born" on her blog here: http://touchingwhatilove.blogspot.co.nz/2010/12/extras.html.

Her books include Something Beautiful Might Happen (Tokyo, 2010), My Favourite Thing (Beijing and Taipei, 2005), Delicate Access (Hong Kong, 2004), Round - Poems and Photographs of Asia (Hong Kong, 1998) and Fifty Stories, Fifty Images, forthcoming. Her photography has been exhibited in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.

"Beige Keeps Being Born" image courtesy of Madeleine M. Slavick.

Tim says: This poem took quite a bit of effort to format, but I think it's well worth it. I love the elegance of the language and the way the poems twists and turns around its central metaphor and its many vivid images.


You can check out all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog - the hub poem in the middle of the page, and all the other poems in the sidebar on the right.

Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part Four

 
There are some things to dislike about summer nearing its end, but one of the good things is that, as the days draw in, the monthly poetry reading sessions in Wellington resume.

Earlier this week, I went to the first sessions for the year of two of Wellington's longer-running poetry reading sessions: Poetry at the Ballroom Cafe in Newtown on Sunday afternoon and then the New Zealand Poetry Society (Facebook | Twitter | Web) at the Thistle Inn on Monday night. The respective lineups were:

* Ballroom Cafe: open mike (good mixture of performance and "page" poets), musician (jazz pianist Gilbert Haisman), and guest reader (poet Pat White). I had to leave before the end of Pat's reading as I had something else on immediately afterwards, but there is a quiet power to his poetry that becomes evident as he reads it.
* New Zealand Poetry Society: open mike (one of the best I've heard at the NZPS), guest reader (poet Teresia Teaiwa).

I enjoyed both sessions very much, but the absolute highlight from me was hearing Teresia read. I'd heard her read a few poems before, but the way she put the reading together and wove her poems in with a narrative was an absolute treat. If you get the chance to hear her read, I advise you to take it!

All being well, I'll be doing some more guest readings this year, partly on the back of Men Briefly Explained. The first of these will be in Porirua in April as part of the monthly Music at the Metro series - I am looking forward to it.

I don't believe I will be required to sing, but if I was, I would naturally sing this, since it's referenced in the Men Briefly Explained poem Queens of Silk, Kings of Velour:

Tuesday Poem: Landlines (a re-post from February 2011)

 
Note: This is a poem I wrote in response to the Christchurch earthquake of February 22, 2011. I thought it was appropriate to re-post it today.

Landlines

It began with a tremor in the wires,
a voiceless howl of anguish.
Within minutes, the waiting world
has heard the worst — but there's no news of you.
Amanda Palmer, an Olympic rower, former neighbours
are online. But you depend on landlines,
and the lines are down.

Were you at home when it struck? Were you
trapped on a fatal cross-town bus,
walking a hill track bombarded by boulders? Were you
unlucky under verandahs? I strategise
with relatives I barely know, plead on Twitter
for tiny clues, ask Google for your name.
I lift, and set down, and lift the phone.

At last we hear you're safe at home,
barely touched, offering neighbours shelter.
My voice explodes with joy and messages.
I'm gabbling. I slow down. The bigger picture
presses in: so terrible, a city centre
crumbled into bone. I lift the phone.
It rings. You speak. I know, at last, I'm not alone.

Credit note: "Landlines" was first published as the Thursday Poem in the Dominion Post newspaper in Wellington on 3 March 2011.

Tim says: When the Dominion Post asked me to write a poem about the Christchurch earthquake of 22 February, I was on the verge of saying "no", because as a non-Christchurch person, I didn't think that I could do justice to the subject. Then I decided I could write a poem about my reaction in the aftermath of the earthquake, and the search for information on what had happened to my father and stepmother, who were living in a Christchurch retirement village at the time of the quake.

You can read all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog - the hub poem is in the centre of the page, and the week's other poems are linked from the right of the page. Several other Tuesday poems this week, some by Christchurch poets, address the quake and its aftermath.