19 April 2017

Takahē 89 Is Out And I'm Guest Poet


In late 2016, then-poetry editor Joanna Preston of takahē magazine asked me to be a guest poet for a forthcoming issue, and now that issue has been published! I really like the cover:



While I haven't seen the issue yet, I'm expecting the following poems of mine will appear in it:
  • Messiaen among the Dinosaurs
  • Composer
  • The Leningrad Symphonies
  • The Home of Country Music
  • Early Summer Music
  • The Hired Hand
They are all on a common theme (with variations), and as might be apparent from many of the titles, that theme is music. My musical tastes run from Schoenberg to Stormzy, but as I haven't a shred of musical talent, I'm much better suited to writing about music than making it. My first three collections all feature poems about music and musicians, but I took a break from that theme for my latest collection New Sea Land.

I was delighted to be asked to be the guest poet for takahē, and especially pleased that "The Hired Hand" was among the poems they accepted, as it's the longest poem I've written (84 lines) and my most sustained attempt at narrative poetry. Below, as a teaser for the issue, is the first stanza of "The Hired Hand". Subscribe to takahē to see the full poem and all the other fine work in this issue.

The Hired Hand [first of six stanzas]

I

The news breaks along the Oregon Trail, their van
panting up I-84 in the thin continental air,

coverage intermittent, Suzie snoring
last night’s last three drinks away.

Whether to call, or text, or let things
simmer for a while. Whether to bang her head

against the dashboard. Whether to look at the road
instead of synching and resynching her phone.

Boise: gas, toilet, then McDonalds. Suzie mumbling
like a broken boxer, mountain light stinging her eyes.

Then as coffee takes hold: “An album and a reunion tour?
And they didn’t call you about it? Again?”

“They might have kind of called,” she says.
Suzie calls her a fool and takes her hand.


Read the rest in takahē 89!

06 April 2017

My First Three Books Are Now Available To Buy As Ebooks, Thanks To HeadworX


Tim Jones – Extreme Weather Events Support independent publishing: Buy this e-book on Lulu.



Tim Jones – Boat People Support independent publishing: Buy this e-book on Lulu.



Tim Jones – All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens Support independent publishing: Buy this e-book on Lulu.


My first three books were all published by Wellington publisher HeadworX:

Extreme Weather Events (short story collection, 2001)
Boat People (poetry collection, 2002)
All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens (poetry collection, 2007)

Other than a few copies of each that I produce with a flourish* to put on the sales table when I do readings, these books have been long out of print. But I'm pleased to say that, through the tireless work of HeadworX publisher Mark Pirie, these books and a number of other have now been made available as ebooks in epub format, and you can buy them at Lulu.com.

(Epub format won't work on an Amazon Kindle without version conversion, but it will work on most other ebook readers, laptops and tablets.)
You can buy these books, plus cricket anthology A Tingling Catch, edited by Mark Pirie, which contains my poem "Swing":

Mark Pirie – ‘A Tingling Catch’: A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009 Support independent publishing: Buy this e-book on Lulu.

For a full list of the books by HeadworX authors available on Lulu/com, visit the HeadworX shop.

Books by the following authors - including hardbacks, paperbacks and ebooks - are currently available:

Alistair Te Ariki Campbell
Alistair Te Ariki Campbell and Meg Campbell
Tony Chad
Andrew Fagan
Michael O'Leary
Alistair Paterson
Mark Pirie
Vivienne Plumb
Jenny Powell
Helen Rickerby
Harry Ricketts

MaryJane Thomson
F W N Wright

That's quite a list, and shows what a great contribution HeadworX has made to publishing New Zealand poetry and fiction.

With all but one of my published books now available in at least one format, this seems like a good time to run through them all, from oldest to newest - so over the next few months I'll put up a series of posts that take you all the way from Boat People (2001) to New Sea Land (2016).

*for a given value of flourish.

04 April 2017

Here Is Where We Wash Up: "New Sea Land" reviewed by Kay McKenzie Cooke in Landfall Review Online




My latest poetry collection New Sea Land has got some good reviews already, but I'm particularly happy about the excellent review by Kay McKenzie Cooke that has just appeared in Landfall Review Online.

Kay reviews both my collection and another fine collection from Mākaro Press, I am Minerva by Karen Zelas, which I recently read, and recommend.

Talking about New Sea Land, Kay says lots of nice things, but I especially appreciated this comment:

This is a passionate, sincere collection of poems on a concerning subject, but nonetheless peppered with playful aspects, twists and turns. Jones has lightened the load of concern and care that the subject of ecological disaster engenders, with welcomed measures of humour and well-constructed, imagined worlds, both past and future.

It's great to get such a good review which engages with both the content of the collection and the intention behind it - all the more so when the review is by a poet and author I greatly admire. Thanks, Kay!

How to get a copy of New Sea Land

New Sea Land is available in selected booksellers nationwide (the link is to a directory of booksellers).

If the book isn't in stock at your local bookseller, you should be able to order it using this information - especially the ISBN:

ISBN 978-0-9941299-6-3
Publisher: Mākaro Press
Paperback, 150x190mm, 74pp poetry collection
RRP $25

and overseas readers can also order the book from Mākaro Press.