18 December 2012

Tuesday Poem: I Would Rather..., by Laurice Gilbert




I would rather…


·         cut my toenails in the dark with a machete
·         slash my wrists and lie bleeding in a puddle of leeches
·         self-diagnose a suspicious lump by looking it up on the internet
·         roll cheese at Coopers Hill, run with the bulls at Pamplona,  swim with the sharks in Shark Alley
·         trek across Central Australia in bare feet and a black crushed velvet Goth dress
·         answer an online dating ad for an outgoing, intelligent and well-travelled professional man with his own successful business
·         visit Liberia without anti-malarial tablets, climb Everest without oxygen, hitch-hike in Afghanistan in a mini-skirt
·         recite poetry naked in Manners Mall on a Friday night in July
·         drink water from the Ganges during a cholera epidemic
·         go back to university to study accounting
·         have the soles of my feet tattooed

than write another funding application to Creative New Zealand 

Credit note: This poem first appeared in Valley Micropress (May 2010), where Laurice Gilbert was the Featured Poet, and is the final poem in Laurice's first collection, My Family & Other Strangers (Academy Aotearoa Press, 2012). It is reproduced by permission of the author.

You can purchase My Family & Other Strangers for $12 by:

(a) PayPal - linked from this page: http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/aboutlaurice

(b) Emailing Laurice at laurice.gilbert@paradise.net.nz to get bank account details for direct credit.

Tim says: I went to the launch of Laurice's collection this past Sunday. It was a warm and fun launch, filled with family and friends, and introduced by a witty slideshow compiled by Laurice's husband Wally Potts, with well-timed interjections from Laurice. The collection is full of lovely poems about family, and I had decided to ask Laurice if I could use one of them as my Tuesday Poem, when she closed the reading with the poem above. How could I resist?

But, since it's Christmas, I want to wish a Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays to all poets and lovers of poetry; to the frustrated compilers of grant applications and the  inscrutable examiners of grant applications alike; to saint and sinner, publican and publicist; to the long and the short and the tall, and all the ships at sea. I hope everyone has the chance for, and enjoys, a lovely and well-deserved holiday.

The Tuesday Poem: Wonderfully rounds out the year.

10 December 2012

My Flash Fiction "Aftermath" Nominated For A Pushcart Prize


In 2012, I have been working steadily away on stories for a third short story collection, but I haven't yet got to the stage of making many subissions to magazines and anthologies.

I have, however, had several short-short stories aka flash fictions published by the excellent New Zealand-based monthly flash fiction magazine Flash Frontier, whose editors Michelle Elvy and Sian Williams have done a great job since starting the magazine in late 2011. They pulled together an outstanding lineup of authors for the international issue, as well as all the New Zealand authors who have been published in Flash Frontier since its inception - as shown by the list of contributors.

I was very pleased to hear from the editors recently that they have nominated my story "Aftermath", which was first published in the April 2012 issue of Flash Frontier, for a Pushcart Prize, together with five other stories from Flash Frontier. It's always nice to get this sort of recognition, and I hope to have further flash fictions in Flash Frontier - and, I hope, in other venues too - next year. Thank you, Michelle and Sian!


Aftermath

After the party we drove the last guests home down streets already filling with the desperate and dangerous. The return journey was arduous, our new armour plating proving its worth more than once.

Sir Charles, manning the machine-gun nest at the gates, gave us a cheery wave as we swept into the driveway. Our path from the motor pool was lit by the fitfully flaring skies. To our left, the men under Tompkins were taking up the croquet lawn, ready to plant kale, to plant leeks, to plant the seed potatoes long tended in secret by O’Brien. No varietal rights lawyers would trouble him now.

Mother was surprisingly chipper. She gave me a peck on the cheek and sent me upstairs to help with the blackout curtains. “Everything’s going like clockwork,” she said. “Like clockwork.”

Standing watch in the upper gallery was tedious. I will not deny that I had fallen asleep at my post when the first wave of attacks began. We heard the chattering of Sir Charles’ machine-gun; we heard it fall silent. I learned later that only the massed charge of the under-gardeners, who had been concealed in the ha-ha for such an eventuality, repelled the attackers from our gates.

In the morning, we dragged Sir Charles’ body to the petunia border for burial. We stopped for a minute’s silence to mark his passing. Then Mother blew a single, mournful note on a party favour, and we returned to the task of further reinforcing the gates.


04 December 2012

Tuesday Poem: Delegates



Delegates

Storm stuffed with snow
stomps the sky’s boots
through hallways, conventions.

Delegates register, scatter
to the four sides of the square,
to the Four Seasons.

A corner suite. Storm
thrums the windows. Each year
they re-enact the ritual:

her hands meshed in his hair,
his stubble chafing her thighs.
She arches on the wardrobe door.

Next morning, at the plenary,
they sit apart. Each time they vote
a secret warmth escapes their hands.

Credit note: "Delegates" was first published in my third poetry collection, Men Briefly Explained.

Tim says: I can't remember why, but the idea of a couple who conduct a secret affair at an annual convention they both attend popped into my head, and this is the result. For some reason, the idea only works if the annual convention takes place in winter.

The Tuesday Poem: Keeps getting better

27 November 2012

My Guest Post On Poetic Inspirations: The Swells Of The Quiet Ocean


No Tuesday Poem from me this week, but I've included several poems and extracts from poems in my guest post on the Poetic Inspirations blog, The Swells of the Quiet Ocean, which talks about my uneasy relationship with the sea in general and the Pacific Ocean in particular.

I'm very grateful to Maryanne Pale for giving me the opportunity to write this guest post for Poetic Inspirations - and I encourage everyone to follow her excellent blog.

20 November 2012

Tuesday Poem: One's One And Only Haiku


King Arthur today
a sofa, two chairs
an occasional table

Credit note: First published in Learning a Language: New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology 2005, edited by Margaret Vos.

Tim says: Frantically busy. Running late. No Tuesday Poem posted last week - little chance of one this week. Facing being drummed out of the regiment,* possible court-martial. What to do?

Then - inspiration strikes in the form of P.S. Cottier posting a haiku. Note to self - adopt same policy - post a haiku! RSM McCallum thereby satisfied, honour of regiment intact. One problem: self not a noted writer of haiku, little inspiration to write one.

But! Chap rummages around in old files, finds the above - one and only haiku ever attempted, and by Jove, published too. Matter of Britain - most satisfactory. Not really a haiku in the strict sense but as Padre says, there are no atheists in a fox-hole. (Note to self: must ask Padre if he has experimental evidence of same. Poss. of survey, troops answering questions on religious belief or lack of while taking shelter from live fire. Would take troops' minds off their troubles, buck them up. Good for morale.)

*The regiment of Tuesday Poets. Jolly good show, everyone!


08 November 2012

An Interview With Gerry Te Kapa Coates


Gerry Te Kapa Coates (Ngāi Tahu) was born in Oamaru, but has lived in Wellington for most of his working life. He has been a writer since schooldays, initially concentrating on poetry with work published in journals like Landfall. He works as an engineer and company director, but has done many varied and creative things in his career - from journalism and stage lighting design to working with Ngāi Tahu and Te Tau Ihu on their Treaty claim settlements. A past published finalist in the Māori Literature (Pikihuia) Awards in 2001, 2003 and 2007, his book of poetry and short stories The View From Up There was published in 2011. He is now working on further collections and longer works including a novel. An engineer/poet is a rare breed. He still finds that working − and looking after mokopuna – takes its creative toll.

How long has The View From Up There been in preparation, and is it a satisfying feeling that the book has now published?

When I started writing, being published was only a vague notion, although I submitted a poem in 1961 to Canta (the University newspaper) that was published under my pseudonym at the time ‘Jerez’. In a burst of enthusiasm in the early 80s I submitted – and was mostly rejected − by the literary periodicals of the time such as Landfall, Islands, Poetry NZ etc. The advice I was given by publishers later was that ‘poetry didn’t pay’ and to look at self-publishing, which always seemed to me to be rather self-seeking. It’s always a salutary feeling to walk into a library – or a book remainder shop – and see the attempts of the thousands of authors seeking fame. So when Roger Steele, who had previously given me advice to self-publish, offered to publish my collection I was very happy, and even happier with the result and the feedback. But getting any acclaim through reviews is still difficult for New Zealand authors, especially for poetry.

How would you describe your fiction and your poetry to readers unfamiliar with your work?

I’m never sure whether ‘accessible’ is a good attribute, but I think my poems are. They are relatively straightforward and rely on the use of words to evoke a feeling, rather than fancy devices. The same reviewer who called them accessible also said ‘I suspect the true test of a "good" poem is when the reader is able to pick up a poem and find something of their own life experience in it.’ Another well-read friend of mine said ‘I find many modern poems hard to understand. The poet is so close to his or her subject that it is impossible for an outsider to gain entry to his thought process. But your poems are not like this. They have depth, but I was able to enter just a little of your world, and share your feelings.’

My stories often tend to have a Māori flavour, but again I want them to be a ‘good tale’ whatever the reader’s background. If I see myself as an indigenous writer – which I do – then I make sure the ‘politics of difference’ as Witi Ihimaera says, is evident. But sometimes I’m just a writer – as in love poems for example.

You have had a long and successful career as an engineer, sustainability consultant, and director of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. Do each of these feed into your writing, or is your writing something apart from any of these?

Yes, many of my poems and stories are loosely based on my life-experience, but not necessarily autobiographical – for example I didn’t fight in Vietnam, but I was a protester against the war. Being deeply involved with Ngāi Tahu politics and its Treaty Claim settlement process meant I was in touch with my roots, and also aware of the red-neck anti-Māori sentiment that the settlement generated in the form of Letters to the Editor. Apparently John Huria asked me at a panel discussion at the Christchurch Writers’ Festival ‘Is writing a poem like lighting an airstrip?’ according to Fergus Barrowman. I probably didn’t hear him because the sound system on stage was so bad, but my answer (to Fergus) was ‘Maybe more like lighting a play - which I do as well!’ Everything – life, career, reading – all feed into my work in some way.




The View From Up There includes both stories and poems. Was it an easy decision to include both in the collection, and are you satisfied with how this combined approach has worked out?

It was the publisher’s decision, but I hadn’t thought it through and the difficulties it would provide for libraries and bibliographic listings to adequately categorise it. In future I think that despite the book being more interesting with a variety of genre, I will do poems and fiction separately.

In commenting on The View From Up There, author Phillip Mann says:

“I admire the grace of these poems, and the carefulness which keeps them clear and direct. I also appreciate the ease with which they are able to bring together the Maori language and English, achieving a synthesis that is uniquely true to the country.” – Phillip Mann
 
Can you tell us about the ways you have bought Te Reo Māori and English together in your work?

When I first assembled the selection, I hadn’t realised how much Te Reo was implicit in many of the poems. In the end I did a glossary that spread to 70 words and two pages. Ideally a poem should be able to include Te Reo and English seamlessly. But even a poem needs a footnote to put it in context. I can’t recall how many readers have said they were so glad to discover the ‘Notes on the Poems’ at the end, but usually after they needed it. Maybe next time they’ll be footnotes.

Phil also said after the book was published, ‘I think it is an excellent collection. Your poems achieve what poetry does best. They explore those moments of  realization and change which occur when life suddenly opens up before us, sometimes terrifyingly so − as a when a loved one dies, or a car crash reminds us of our own mortality or when suddenly we know we are happy and in love or we confront a distasteful political reality. While the poems are personal, they encourage us to see the universal in the moment for, as has often been said, Death is our only certainty as in grief, and a car crash in New Zealand is very like one in Finland or Peru, and love, it seems to me, is a flower which thrives despite barbed wire, pollution, economic downturn or our own tongue-tied silence. Which things said, I also admire the patient craftsman who works on the words until they shine.’ I thank him for those insights.

You were a guest at the Christchurch Writers Festival 2012. Do you enjoy reading at such events, and the ‘public performance’ aspects of being a writer?

That was the first Festival where I’d been an invited ‘official writer’ although I have read publicly before. I enjoy both the reading, and the selection of what to read. At Christchurch, because it was a Ngāi Tahu writers’ panel, I chose to read poems with a Māori context but at the end I read a new love poem I’d just written the previous week. I was blown away by several responses including from an out of town couple who felt deeply connected to the poem. Those interactions make it all worth it.

Who are some of your favourite authors of fiction and poetry, and in particular, are there authors and poets you particularly enjoy whom you feel haven’t received the attention they deserve from critics and the public?

The poets I have been influenced by include (apart from the ones everyone has been influenced by like T S Eliot etc) Robert Graves, e e cummings, Philip Larkin, James K Baxter, Alastair Campbell and latterly Glen Colquhoun. At the Christchurch Writers Festival I was also reacquainted with Riemke Ensing, Bernadette Hall and Cilla McQueen whom I’ve admired. Also an amazing Māori poet Ben Brown (Ngāti Pāoa, Ngāti Māhuta) whose performance readings are fantastic.

Fiction is more difficult to pin down. Short stories by kiwis Owen Marshall or Maurice Duggan, and by Alice Munro and Lydia Davis. And novels by authors from many countries. The Nobel prizewinners are a good start – the Norwegian Knut Hamsun’s epic Growth of the Soil or Sigrid Undset’s even grander Kristin Lavransdatter were a great influence. Also the so-called ‘Angry Brigade’ of British writers in the 60s.

The Steele Roberts website mentions that you are working on a novel – would you care to say more about this?

An extract from its early stages entitled ‘The Exploration of Space’ was published in Huia Short Stories 5 (2003). It’s about a Māori rower who goes to Munich in 1972 with the Olympic team and has a love affair with an Israeli team member who is killed, and how this, and his whakapapa history, affects his later life. After mulling it around and writing more chapters I’m still quite a way from finishing it. I need to deal with the ‘Enemies of Promise’ and start working on it again, rather than my erstwhile career. Roger Steele said after my book launch ‘This will change your life, Gerry.’ Although it’s less than 12 months now, he was right. One of them is that writing has become more of a priority, and hopefully some opportunities to become a writer in residence and have the space to concentrate will arise. 

Book availability details

The book is available at Steele Roberts’ website http://steeleroberts.co.nz/books/isbn/978-1-877577-64-2 or elsewhere online by Googling the title or my name.

It’s also available in New Zealand at quality bookshops such as Unity Books and the University Book shop in Christchurch.

In addition to his Ulysses 2012, which was my Tuesday Poem this week, Gerry kindly allowed me to use another poem from The View From Up There to conclude this post.

Strawberries 

Nothing like a tube in your neck
to make a grown man look fragile.
“Yes -I’m a part time plumber,” joked Pania
the vivacious nurse, ideal to buck up
tired spirits, except you looked a bit
too tired to be bothered with flirting
for the fun of it, despite your strength
and your manly chest - not the chest of  a
middle-aged man (as they would put in the papers)
You, at this time, in this place
this home away from home
can only be described as looking wan.

There’s nothing like hospital food
to push you back to life and remembering
what it was like to be eating with gusto
be well again, able to race up stairs
pee over a fence and do all those things
that being in bed proscribes - a catheter
and a bed pan in the wings do inhibit
freedom of movement, of action.
Sorry about the strawberries - I forgot
you’d not be eating right away
but partly they’re there for titillation
if not for you, for Pania and her laughing eyes.

And you, out of the privacy of the
operating theatre back in the light
(although it’s really blinding in there -
just seems dark with the loss of consciousness
and the mystery of it all) with your tripes only
partly intact, what now. Can you recapture that
zest for life and use your libido in other ways?
I admire your strength and acceptance,
for in the end we all have to face it alone
whatever ‘it’ is - things that stop working,
sensations that dull, appetites that get lost
strawberries that crumble into dust.

05 November 2012

Tuesday Poem: Ulysses 2012, by Gerry Te Kapa Coates


You and I are not now that strength
which in the old days could
move earth and heaven

But we have grown old together
rather than matching each in aging
which is our strength and comfort.

What happened to your body
happened to my eyes and I
no longer see you getting old.

You are still just a version of 33
though there are times when my
rose tinted glasses fail, but seldom.

We can still move the earth, maybe
not heaven at the same time, except
perhaps in the morning on a good day.

We can forgive each other much
now that nothing − yet everything − still
matters in this, the journey of the souls.

Something ere the end may yet be done,
be realised, that this life was indeed a bed
of roses of which we could not get enough.

- 2012

Credit note: This poem is not previously published, and is reproduced by permission of Gerry Te Kapa Coates, whom I'll be interviewing on this blog later this week.

Tim says: "Ulysses", by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is one of my favourite poems - certainly my favourite 19th-century poem - and I have previously used it as a Tuesday Poem on my blog. So, when I asked Gerry to supply a Tuesday Poem as a teaser for my interview of him later this week, I was delighted when he sent "Ulysses 2012", which is full of ingenious references to its great original as well as being a lovely poem in its own right.

The Tuesday Poem: Is justified and ancient, and it travels across the land but usually winds up here.

02 November 2012

Book Review: Triptych Poets, Issue Three



First of all, a disclaimer: P.S. Cottier, one of the three poets represented in this collection, is a friend of mine. I'd actually turned down an opportunity to review her recent collection The Cancellation of Clouds for this very reason, but I decided I felt comfortable - to use a John Key-ism - with reviewing a book in which her contribution makes up a third: hence this review!

A few years ago, I reviewed AUP New Poets 3, which included chapbook-sized contributions from Janis Freegard, Reihana Robinson, and Katherine Liddy. Triptych Poets: Issue Three, published by Blemish Books in Canberra, follows the same pattern. Here the three poets are P.S. Cottier, Joan Kerr, and J.C. Inman.

I liked two of the three sections of the book a great deal, and though I didn't enjoy J.C. Inman's section as much overall, I think it contains some fine poems. So let's look at each section in turn.

P.S. Cottier: "Selection criteria for death"

What can I say? I really like P.S. Cottier's poetry, and I like this selection just as much - in fact, maybe a little more - than her collection The Cancellation of Clouds.

Her poetry is a powerful and inimitable (at least, I haven't ready anything else quite like them) concoction of dark humour - humour that often seems powered by an underlying anger - vivid and often witty description, and most of all intelligence. Sometimes, as in the political poetry of "Abbott's Booby", that anger steams off the page.

"Intelligence" can be a double-edged sword in poetry - too often, poets confuse it for academicese and an excessive devotion to critical theory - but that is not a problem here. There is no sense of deliberate obscurity in these poems, but there is the sense of a powerful mind at work, teasing out the poems' diverse strands.

Because P.S. Cottier often uses long stanzas, it can be hard to excerpt a few lines of poetry to show you what I mean, but these lines from "How To Wrestle An Angel" give you some idea:

Clutching is advised; hold him tight as an idea,
well-loved and convenient. Wriggling will occur,
and it is imperative that the wings be kept from play.
What ring could hold an angel, should he unfold,
flex and soar? No ropes will ever net him.
He will reach out with as many arms
as Kali, as many voices as there are prophets,
hoping to flick slow minds into new holds.


Don't let the title mislead you. There is plenty of life here.

Joan Kerr: "Dying Languages"

Though Joan Kerr's poetry is quite different from P.S. Cottier's in many ways - the stanzas are often shorter, the point of view cooler and more detached - her poems share the first selection's virtues of intelligence and imagination. I found her poetry a little more opaque than P. S. Cottier's - at times I didn't know what she was getting at, but I think that is because a lot of her poems refer to colonial and post-colonial moments I don't have the historical background to fully appreciate.

Perhaps because its subject matter is closer to my own experience, my favourite poem in this selection is "My Father's Steps", which in two-line stanzas ranges freely over 80 years of the life of the narrator's father, with these beautiful closing lines that expand the scope of the poem:

His mind was the world we lived in once,

from Aeschylus to Xenophon, the Odyssey
to Soapey Sponge's Sporting Tour,

Dante to Beachcomber, Pepys to Perelman.
Ninety years, spanning three thousand years

close into distance, silence and the moon
going its way across this little world.

But there are striking and memorable lines in many of the other poems. How about this, from "Prizegiving":

My friend has won a prize for twenty years
of hanging on:
her fingers whiten
on the edges of the world.

Images like this show what a talented poet Joan Kerr is.

J.C. Inman: "Lovers and Brothers"

The bio at the front of J.C. Inman's entry lists him as a "frequenter of the Canberra poetry slam scene" and frequent performer at festivals. The poems in "Lovers and Brothers" are good poems, and I can see them working really well in a performance setting, but for the most part I didn't find these poems as satisfying as I did the poems by P.S. Cottier and Joan Kerr.

That's the easy part - the hard part is to say why. I think it's because poems that go across well when performed because of their directness and impact can sometimes be less interesting when read.

The opening of "I Dream Of Fidelity" is, I think, a good showcase for J.C. Inman's poetry:

In the dark I could not separate the snores from the sobs
The smell of love hung dank in the spaces between us
Like semi liquid steam.

You were already sleeping when I met you in your dreams
Half formed and imperfect, standing in the Field of Infidelity,
(a field of impatiens and forget-me-nots)
               where the only sport is fucking

It's got vigour and energy, and a good image in the "field of impatiens and forget-me-nots", but I don't think it's as rich as P.S. Cottier's or Joan Kerr's work.

This is J.C. Inman's first published (part of a) collection. As he adjusts his work from what works best in performance to what works best on the page, I think there will be more and better to come.

Conclusion

I'm hard to please, aren't I? I want to read poetry that is neither obvious nor obscure, poetry I can at once understand without too much extra reading and not entirely 'get' on the first attempt. It's a pretty narrow sweet spot, and if I applied these criteria to my own poems, I'm sure that a good number of them would fail the test.

As the poet said, don't be sad 'cos two out of three ain't bad, and in this case, I'm going to say two-and-a-half out of three ain't bad. Triptych Poets: Issue 3 is worth your time and attention.

23 October 2012

Tuesday Poem: Before Science Stepped In, by Rod Usher


Before science stepped in with its fancy footwork
A raw youth, I'd scan nights for a shooting star
Crooning like Como to catch one and pocket it
Could it really do the magic? Unhook a girl's bra?

Ha! They're not stars, mere fragments of comet
Arcs of burnout in the black canopies of June
Older now, sadder, I leave science to the boffins
Rave on about breasts to an understanding moon.

Credit note: "Before Science Stepped In" by Rod Usher was first published in Eye to the Telescope 2, a special Australian and New Zealand issue of the Science Fiction Poetry Association's online journal, which I edited. The poem has been selected as a finalist in the Science Fiction Poetry Association's Dwarf Stars Award for the best short-short speculative poetry published in 2011, and will appear in the 2012 Dwarf Stars Anthology. It is reproduced here by permission of the author.

About the author: Rod Usher is an Australian writer living in Spain. His poems have been published in Island, Meanjin, Quadrant, Going Down Swinging, et al. He is a former literary editor of The Age and senior writer for TIME magazine in Europe. His third novel, Poor Man’s Wealth (2011), is published in Australia and New Zealand by HarperCollins, and is available in paper and e-book formats.

Tim says: A well-executed short poem is a joy to behold, and I very much like the way "Before Science Stepped In" links scientific and romantic disillusion while still holding out the consolation of the "understanding moon".

The Tuesday Poem: Is actually the Tuesday Poems - each week's hub poem and all the other poems linked from the left of that page.

16 October 2012

Tuesday Poem: On Contemplating The Statue Of Courtney Love Outside The Front Entrance Of Nelson College for Girls



The sculptor has caught Courtney in the act of running away,
her uniform already half removed, the blue of the blazer (optional)
offsetting the pallor of her skin. She lasted just one term
yet is the most famous Old Girl of them all.

No telling what she’s running from: maths, tyranny,
the restraints – petty? essential? – that fence her round.
It’s all in her past, or in her genes. Hardly the College’s fault
that they caught her in the middle of a very difficult year.

As for what she’s running to: the hardest of all fates,
doomed to be more famous for whom she loved
than what she’s done. Kurt is still better known
than Hole, than Celebrity Skin, than the sound of her guitar.

Courtney is caught in the act as she makes a break for town.
One foot is raised, one shoe slipping off.
One hand grasps at nothing, or punches the air.
In the shadow of her plinth, a small boy sells lemonade.

Credit note: This is a new, unpublished (and very possibly unfinished) poem.

Tim says: I wrote this poem in Nelson, inspired by walking past - you guessed it - the front entrance of Nelson College for Girls. Some parts of this poem are true: Courtney did attend Nelson College for Girls for one term, it was a less than ideal experience for all concerned, and a small boy did have a lemonade stand further along the street. The lemonade was very sweet, but also very welcome on a hot Nelson day.

The Tuesday Poem: Is just a poetic click away for all of y'all.

11 October 2012

Poetry At The Greytown Arts Festival and at Meow Cafe


Poetry in Greytown

I had a good time last month reading poetry and meeting poets and poetry lovers in Takaka and Nelson. Soon I'll be joining eight other poets at another poetry destination I haven't visited before: Greytown.

I'll be there as part of a nine-strong crew of poets reading at the event Poetry: a lasting peace, which is part of the Greytown Arts Festival. Here is the lovely poster, designed by Madeleine Slavick who has organised and will MC the event, which is on Saturday 20 October at 5pm at The Village Art Shop, 98 Main St, Greytown:


Here is the Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/events/290166134417646

Some of the participating poets may also be lurking in Greytown during the afternoon, surprising people with poetry. Whether there is a local body bylaw against such activities in Greytown will be an exciting part of the discovery process. (I understand there is a law against wearing rubber-soled shoes on the streets of Nelson, a law which I repeatedly violated last month. Hah!)

Poetry at Meow Cafe

It's Hammer Time! I'm going to be an MC the week after next: Saradha Koirala, Harvey Molloy and Helen Rickerby are reading their poetry on Tuesday 23 October at 7pm at Meow Cafe, Edward Street, Wellington, and I'm MC'ing. Hope you can make it!

05 October 2012

5 Reasons To Vote Takahe For Bird Of The Year 2012 ... 5 Days Left To Vote


You have five days left to vote for the takahe as Bird of the Year 2012 - or, if you prefer (though I can't imagine why), some other bird. And here are five reasons to do so. Several of them are even true.

1. There are only 260 takahe left, and apart from their remnant natural habitat in the Murchison Mountains, they live only in sanctuaries. They need your support.

2. Takahe are incredibly cute. Check this one out:



3. If elected, takahe will reject the baubles of offices, unless the baubles of office consist of the right sort of tussock bases, in which case the takahe will accept them faster than you can say Porphyrio hochstetteri.

4. Many of humanity's greatest works of art are about takahe. Ke$ha's "Tik Tok" is her empathetic response to the takahe's threatened countdown to extinction. Homer's "Odyssey" is about a takahe called Kevin, and his twenty-year adventure to get home to his beloved Murchison Mountains. And as for Kanye West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" ... well, some things are better left unsaid.

5. The Vote Takahe campaign will not stoop so low as to fill up its final reason with irrelevant but highly-ranked search terms in a misguided attempt to boost the campaign's Google search rankings. And Rihanna, One Direction, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Coldplay and Nicki Minaj fully endorse our position on this.

Oh, and because you've been good, here are some more factual-type facts about the takahe:

• The takahē is an endangered flightless bird indigenous to New Zealand.
• Takahē once lived throughout the North and South Islands and were thought to be extinct until rediscovered by Geoffrey Orbell near Lake Te Anau in the Murchison Mountains, South Island in 1948. 
• Today’s population is around 260 birds at various sites including the Murchison Mountains in Fiordland as well as the pest-free islands Tiritiri Matangi, Kapiti, Mana and Maud and mainland sanctuary of Maungatautiri, near Cambridge.
• Some takahē have lived for over 20 years in captivity, but in the wild few would live to more than 15 years of age. 
• Since the 1980’s, DOC has been involved in managing takahē nests to boost the birds' recovery. Artificial incubation of eggs and rearing of chicks is carried out at the Burwood Bush rearing unit, Te Anau, where five pairs are held to form a small breeding group. 

Remember! Vote Takahe, tweet #votetakahe and #birdoftheyear, and disrupt opposition political gatherings with your enthusiastic pecking!

02 October 2012

Tuesday Poem: The First Artist On Mars, plus an Announcement



The First Artist on Mars

Well, the first professional artist
There were scientists who, you know
dabbled
but NASA sent us —
me and two photographers —
to build support for the program.

The best day?
That was in Marineris.
Those canyons are huge
each wall a planet
turned on its side.
I did a power of painting there.

You can see all my work
at the opening. Do come.
Hey, they wanted me to paint propaganda —
you know, 'our brave scientists at work' —
but I told them
you'll get nothing but the truth from me

I just paint what I see
and let others worry
what the public think.
Still, the agency can't be too displeased.
They're sponsoring my touring show.
That's coming up next spring.

Would I go back? Don't know.
It's a hell of a distance
and my muscles almost got flabby
in the low G. Took me ages
to recover — lots of gym and water time
when I should have been painting.

But Jupiter would be worth the trip!
Those are awesome landscapes
those moons, each one's so different.
Mars is OK — so old, so red,
so vertical. Quite a place
but limited, you know?

Credit note: "The First Artist On Mars" was first published in Blackmail Press 15 (May 2006) and was included in my second poetry collection, All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens, where it forms part of a sequence about the exploration of Mars called Red Stone. That sequence was inspired by Kim Stanley Robinson’s superb Mars Trilogy, but this rather conceited artist is entirely my own invention.

Tim says: That note first appeared on Helen Lowe's blog, on which she kindly published "The First Artist on Mars" as a Tuesday Poem in 2010. I wouldn't normally 're-use' a Tuesday Poem in this way, but it seemed appropriate this time, because TFAOM was also included in Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, the anthology Mark Pirie and I co-edited in 2009 which was published by IP, and ... (drumroll please!) ...

P. S. Cottier and I have An Announcement: We are going to be jointly editing an anthology of Australian speculative poetry, to be published, all being well, by IP in 2014. Like Voyagers, it will have both a historical and a contemporary component - so we will be trolling the archives for the history of Australian speculative poetry, but also calling for submissions from contemporary poets - though it will be a while before that call is issued, so (if you happen to be Australian) please don't send your poems to us yet!

Unlike Voyagers, it won't be restricted to science fiction poetry, but rather will cover the full range of speculative poetry, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, and magic realism. We'll say more about that in the call for submissions, too.

I am really looking forward to our working on this project together, as if I were the Barney Gumble to her Linda Ronstadt, though I hope no snow-ploughs will be involved in this one. Keep watching the stars, and the market listings!

The Tuesday Poem: Is not a thing of rags and patches, nor yet a wand'ring minstrel, but rather a still point in a turning world.

25 September 2012

Tuesday Poem: Watching The Birds



An old woman in a bathchair
appears on the lawn
hair freshly combed
rug newly straightened.

Her attendants
relieved
move away
two hours future-proofed.

She is watching the birds
the impudent birds
blackbird, thrush
sparrow

looking for bread
raven, crow
corvidae
tugging at rings

waxeye
fantail
grey warbler
trying to perch.

The old woman
stares straight ahead
eyes wide in delight
watching

roc
moa
elephant bird
vast as the house

she shared with her mother
when Father was gone to the war.
They push at her face with their beaks.
An old woman. The insolent birds.

Credit note: This poem was first published in my second poetry collection, All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens.

Tim says: There is something lacking from this poem: The Takahe, which I encourage you all to vote for as New Zealand's Bird of the Year 2012

The Tuesday Poem: Can be found in all its multifarious magnificence on the Tuesday Poem blog.

17 September 2012

Poetry Readings In Takaka And Nelson


I'm off soon to a part of Aotearoa I've never visited before: Golden Bay. I've judged the poetry division of this year's Golden Bay Literary Awards, and I'm attending the prizegiving ceremeony in Takaka on Thursday night.

The following day, Friday the 21st, after an event at the local school (I have no idea what this involves yet!), I'm reading at the Takaka Memorial Library at 1pm. Here are the event details:

http://itson.co.nz/2012/4689-takaka-library-poetry-reading-with-tim-jones

Then, after a few days' break during which I'm really looking forward to get some writing done, I am reading - in a yurt! - as the September guest for Nelson Live Poets. There is a Facebook event for this one: http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/380878888650908/ - if you have friends in Nelson, please invite them to this event.

The poster and the press release for the Nelson reading are below. I'm not sure whether I feel masculine enough to live up to the press release - it may be time for a quick course of testosterone supplements before I travel south!





Media Release – 6 September 2012

Manhood and science fiction - out of this world poetry at the Free House

Science fiction and manhood are set to do a merry dance at Nelson’s Free House this month as poems from the collection Men Briefly Explained and the science fiction poetry anthology Voyagers, get an airing at Nelson Live Poets.

Tim Jones, poet and science fiction writer from Wellington, is the featured guest at the Nelson Live Poet’s Society’s September gathering.

Jones will be performing poems from Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand (Interactive Press, 2009, co-edited with Mark Pirie), and will also treat the audience to samplings from his latest collection of poems, Men Briefly Explained (2011).

Men Briefly Explained, his third book of poems, explores all aspects of contemporary manhood, the humorous and not so humorous, and lifts the covers on where men are in relation to women and to society in general!

The mix of science fiction and manhood promises an entertaining night in The Yurt at the Free House as Live Poets continues to encourage and promote a wide range of both local and national poetic talent.

Among his other recent books are the fantasy novel Anarya’s Secret (RedBrick, 2007) and a short story collection Transported (Vintage, 2008).
Voyagers won the “Best Collected Work” category in the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Awards and was listed as one of the Listener's 100 Best Books of 2009.  Jones was also awarded the NZSA Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature in 2010.
As well as performing his poems at Nelson Live Poets, Tim Jones will be attending the Golden Bay Lit awards as this year’s guest judge.
Local poets also get the opportunity to perform their work during the regular and legendary open mic sessions. These sessions give Live Poets its beating heart as first-timers and established performers stand together to deliver words of wisdom and wonder!

Open mic performers, who have slots before and after the night’s guest, can register on the night. Jim Doak will open the evening with song and guitar.


ENDS


Live Poets Society
Featuring Tim Jones
In the Yurt @The Free House
Collingwood Street, Nelson.
on Monday evening, 24 September , 2012
Doors open: 6.00 pm
Music from 6.30 pm.
Koha entry.

ENDS

Further information:
Carol Ercolano - 03-545 0162
Mark Raffills – 03 544 4975
Nelson Live Poets Society


12 September 2012

Vote Takahe Campaign Denies Public Money Used For Campaign Video

The Vote Takahe campaign today denied that public money had been used to promote their Bird of the Year 2012 election campaign. Rival birds claimed yesterday that the following promotional video about Takahe had been made by a TV channel funded by public money:



Members of the Takahe campaign refused to come into the studio to answer this allegation, but the campaign did provide the following video response:



Experts in Takahe language have interpreted this statement to mean "Vote Takahe as Bird of the Year 2012!", and you can do just that at the Bird of the Year site.

Some actual facts about takahe
  • The takahē is an endangered flightless bird indigenous to New Zealand.
  • Takahē once lived throughout the North and South Islands and were thought to be extinct until rediscovered by Geoffrey Orbell near Lake Te Anau in the Murchison Mountains, South Island in 1948. 
  • Today’s population is around 260 birds at various sites including the Murchison Mountains in Fiordland as well as the pest-free islands Tiritiri Matangi, Kapiti, Mana and Maud and mainland sanctuary of Maungatautiri, near Cambridge.
  • Some takahē have lived for over 20 years in captivity, but in the wild few would live to more than 15 years of age. 
  • Since the 1980’s, DOC has been involved in managing takahē nests to boost the birds' recovery. Artificial incubation of eggs and rearing of chicks is carried out at the Burwood Bush rearing unit, Te Anau, where five pairs are held to form a small breeding group. 
(Taken from http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1208/S00260/tiritiri-matangi-island-loses-iconic-bird.htm and posted in memory of Greg the Takahe, who died in August.)

You can read more about the Vote Takahe campaign here and join the campaign on Facebook.

11 September 2012

Tuesday Poem: Prove You Are Not A Robot, by P. S. Cottier


Prove that you are not a robot.
Affirm android is what you're not.
Prick a digit, we'll watch the blood flow
(though nanovamps may swim, and grow).
Indicate a lack of chips embedded -
that you are only fleshy headed,
with just the right amount of brain
to reason, love and feel all pain.
Now fill in the code that we select -
words unknown to mortal intellect.
Quickly, for we're losing time -
our batteries run down at nine.

Credit Note: This is an original poem by P. S. Cottier and is published here by permission of the author - and if you have not already done so, you should check out her blog.

Tim Says: The first time I saw the command to "Prove that you are not a robot", I suffered a prolonged period of existential dread. Might I, in fact, be a robot? Might there be telltale signs? How could I prove I wasn't?

P. S. Cottier did something more useful. She wrote a poem - and here it is. I really like it.

The Tuesday Poem: One does not simply walk into The Tuesday Poem. One clicks.

10 September 2012

Voting Now Open: Vote Takahe for Bird of the Year 2012


It's on! Forest and Bird's 2012 Bird of the Year competition is now open - and this means that you can Vote Takahe right now, and encourage all your friends (and enemies) to do likewise!

Here is where you can vote: http://www.birdoftheyear.org.nz/

While most of you will understand that the takahe is just naturally cooler, sexier, and more electable than any other bird, there might be a few people who are wondering what's in it for them. Read Friday's announcement of the takahe campaign below and you'll have your answer - and if you're still a swinging voter, check back later in the week for a Vote Takahe FAQ that will answer questions you didn't even know you wanted asked.

Friday's announcement


What: Every year, the excellent conservation organisation Forest and Bird holds its Bird of the Year competition. The 2012 competition opens on Monday 10 September. And this year, I am the campaign manager for the rightful winner of that competition, the takahe.


Photo: Steve Attwood

Who: Yes, the takahe. There's one, right there, comin' at ya. It's the pukeko's bigger, cooler, rarer cousin. And the news that the pukeko won the 2011 competition? The takahe isn't taking that well at all.

Why: There are a lot of reasons why you should vote for the takahe, and I'll be telling you all about them over the next three weeks. Here are three to start with.

1) The takahe is a survivor. It was thought to be extinct for more than half a century - but it wasn't, and one determined naturalist, Dr Geoffrey Orbell, kept looking for it until he found it in the Murchison Mountains of Fiordland. When he clambered up the mountains and found them, the takahe just kept on going about their business. They didn't throw a big party or anything.

2) The takahe is beautiful. Just look at those gorgeous feathers!

3) If you don't Vote Takahe, it might peck you on the knee. True story: A takahe once pecked a photographer friend of mine on the knee as he was photographing it - this was in the days before the general public had access to takahe, as they do today, e.g. at Zealandia and on Kapiti Island. He kept taking photos. The takahe kept pecking his knee. And I lived to tell you the tale.

When: The competition opens on Monday 10 September and runs for three weeks.

How: You'll be able to vote for the takahe online from Monday onwards. Vote early. Vote often (am I allowed to say that?). Tell your friends to vote, and use social media to pimp out these important hashtags: #votetakahe and #birdoftheyear. I'll be tweeting like a bird that tweets - takahe don't tweet, because they're far too cool.

There'll be plenty more to come during the campaign, including a set of Frequently Asked Questions about the Takahe that I'm just about to make up. There will be more photos, some actual facts, and a comparison of the takahe with the honey badger. Keep checking this blog, keep voting, and keep watching the skies!*

*But not for takahe - they're flightless.

07 September 2012

Vote Takahe for Bird of the Year 2012


What: Every year, the excellent conservation organisation Forest & Bird holds its Bird of the Year competition. The 2012 competition opens on Monday 10 September. And this year, I am the campaign manager for the rightful winner of that competition, the takahe.


Photo: Steve Attwood

Who: Yes, the takahe. There's one, right there, comin' at ya. It's the pukeko's bigger, cooler, rarer cousin. And the news that the pukeko won the 2011 competition? The takahe isn't taking that well at all.

Why: There are a lot of reasons why you should vote for the takahe, and I'll be telling you all about them over the next three weeks. Here are three to start with.

1) The takahe is a survivor. It was thought to be extinct for more than half a century - but it wasn't, and one determined naturalist, Dr Geoffrey Orbell, kept looking for it until he found it in the Murchison Mountains of Fiordland. When he clambered up the mountains and found them, the takahe just kept on going about their business. They didn't throw a big party or anything.

2) The takahe is beautiful. Just look at those gorgeous feathers!

3) If you don't Vote Takahe, it might peck you on the knee. True story: A takahe once pecked a photographer friend of mine on the knee as he was photographing it - this was in the days before the general public had access to takahe, as they do today, e.g. at Zealandia and on Kapiti Island. He kept taking photos. The takahe kept pecking his knee. And I lived to tell you the tale.

When: The competition opens on Monday 10 September and runs for three weeks.

How: You'll be able to vote for the takahe online from Monday onwards. Vote early. Vote often (am I allowed to say that?). Tell your friends to vote, and use social media to pimp out these important hashtags: #votetakahe and #birdoftheyear. I'll be tweeting like a bird that tweets - takahe don't tweet, because they're far too cool.

There'll be plenty more to come during the campaign, including a set of Frequently Asked Questions about the Takahe that I'm just about to make up. There will be more photos, some actual facts, and a comparison of the takahe with the honey badger. Keep checking this blog, keep voting, and keep watching the skies!*

*But not for takahe - they're flightless.