24 June 2014

Tuesday Poem: Chrome Yellow Hypothesis, by Iain Britton


the house isn’t what it was

the voice of a radio predicts a storm /

it mimics a politician
commentates on cricket

the radio possesses the eye
of an orchestra
anthems on walls / flags and
coronation stuff / a platoon

route marches to Hill 44 /      


the family has taken furniture
its god particles and disguised itself in bundles

the house isn’t what it seems ...

a square brick object at the mercy of orthodoxies
dousing gentiles in holy water / they
chant / play / sing / love thine enemies
                                                                                                                                   
Te Hahi o te Whakapono

the church (sermon-bloated)

hunches its white skull

beside the lake


passers-by are pulled in to drool

on historical grounds

where prisoners in wood

hug others in wood

where the lake laps music against stained-

glass windows / a flute’s voice

breathes on naked skin

a woman smiles

undoes her soul

for the cost of a camera’s sharp bite


life i observe is a sulphuric cloud
raw and exposed
a matter of confessions


this woman this mother

approaches
                                                                                                                                   
the miracle makers
who each year split atoms
by walking on air


she’s fascinated by silica

its crystals / this geothermal fragility

which  domes the town


she opens herself to parkland
fantasies
any stuntman would exploit

            
beside the lake

birds scrap

over chrome-plated godsends
plucked from moonstones


this mother this woman

goes into the house of

 one room
 one kitchen
 one radio

a solitary figure clothing
                                                                                                                                   
legends in bright garments
                                                                                                                                   
 what if

i place my lips on her lips / would forests
buckle up / would ghosts
return to their shelves to rest


she speaks to each gnome in her garden / paints

their hats gold

handles them carefully


each night they rough and tumble

squabble like her children

where invisibility is an asset

where in her house

love battles

love charges up a hill / e hoa
she calls

and the radio responds

with the news / the weather

a boy scoops up a ball

and runs with it
through a yellow cloud


Credit note: "Chrome Yellow Hypothesis" is from Iain Britton's collection photosynthesis, now available from Kilmog Press. This version is published, and reformatted to work better on a blog, with the permission of the author.

Tim says: After my hiatus, I'm back in the world of the Tuesday Poem, where I will try to get back in the routine of posting a Tuesday Poem every fortnight. It's a pleasure to (re)start with this fine poem by Iain Britton.


15 June 2014

The Stars Like Sand - Canberra Launch: Orbital Separation Achieved

Well, I'm back - back in Wellington from my trip to Melbourne and Canberra, where my co-editor P.S. Cottier and myself launched the anthology we've been working on for almost two years, The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry.

Each of us (Penelope | Tim) has already blogged about the Melbourne launch. The Canberra launch last Thursday, held at historic Manning Clark House, was also a success, with 40-50 people in attendance. The photos below show poets Lizz Murphy and John Jenkins reading their poems from the book, although most of the crowd is out of shot in these photos.

UPDATE: Penelope has now posted another eloquent post about the launches and how she feels at the end of them.



I enjoyed my trip to Australia a lot, thanks in very large part to the hospitality of my co-editor and her lovely family. Now I have a couple of solid weeks ahead of me as the judge of the Open Section of the 2014 New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competition, and then I have some writing to do!



Finally, watch out for some more publicity for Lost in the Museum this coming week - that's the new fantasy anthology with a touch of horror, set in Te Papa, that includes my story "The Big Baby".

11 June 2014

The Stars Like Sand: Awaiting Second Stage Ignition

The first launch of The Stars Like Sand has happened - and very good it was too! As my co-editor reports on her blog, we had a good group of poets from the anthology reading at the Melbourne launch - a double launch with poet Gemma White' first collection Furniture is Disappearing.

About 70 people attended the launch at Melbourne's Collected Works bookshop - you can see part of the crowd below, including one of the poets from the anthology, Sean Wright (with hat); publisher's representative Breanne Rodda (seated on floor) and Collected Works owner Kris Hemensley (at right) (image courtesy Satya Helen Patrice).



Now we're gearing up for the Canberra launch tomorrow night, and expecting another good crowd and another set of anthology poets to read!

If you'd like a copy of the book, it's making its way into bookshops such as Melbourne's Collected Works, and you can also buy it from the publisher and from Amazon.com.




03 June 2014

"Lost In the Museum" Now Available As Ebook and In Bookshops




I mentioned in my previous post that I have a story, "The Big Baby", in the recently published anthology Lost in the Museum, which has just received an excellent review by Lee Murray in the widely-read Beattie's Book Blog.

Lost in the Museum is now starting to become available in bookshops, including The Children’s Bookstore in Kilbirnie, Unity Books, and Marsden Books in Karori (Wellington) and Retrospace (Auckland). The ISBN is 978-0-473-28320-9, which will help you to order it from other bookshops.

Lost in the Museum is also available from Amazon as a Kindle ebook: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KTV5K0U