Nature Bats Last

The events of the last few days have been a salutary reminder that we are guests on this planet, and that Nature bats last. The massive earthquake in North Canterbury/Marlborough and its swarm of aftershocks - which, here in Wellington, we continue to feel - has caused equally massive damage.

But Nature's innings is well underway when it comes to climate change, as well. 2016 will be the hottest year on record - just as 2015 was, and 2014 before it. 16 of the 17 hottest years on record will have happened this century.

When it comes to earthquakes, we can prepare personally, seek to improve resilience, and respond afterwards as best we can. But when it comes to climate change, we still have a chance - maybe a slim chance, but a chance - to change the game for the better, as long as we act this decade.

Tragically, the election of Donald J. Trump has put the possibility of meaningful action at further risk - and while Trump is rowing back on some of his wildest election promises, he is still dead keen on sabotaging the Paris climate agreement. If Trump succeeds, and his agenda dominates climate policy for the rest of the decade, we may well get to the point where it's too late to do anything about climate change other than respond to what Nature throws at us - and there will come a point when we are no longer capable of doing that.

So it's up to us. Are we going to sit by while Trump, his cronies, and his agenda puts the planet's future at even greater risk, or are we going to act - wherever we are, however we can - to preserve a liveable future?

The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A Matter Of Life And Death

A narcissistic, megalomaniac, fascist bully has been elected as the 45th President of the United States. The consequences of that decision are likely to be extremely serious, not only for Americans but for the rest of the world.

Set aside for a moment the oppression that anyone who is not a Trump supporter, anyone who is not a white male, anyone who is different, is likely to suffer under Trump's presidency - and indeed, just as they did after Brexit in the UK, homophobic, misogynist and racist attacks have already surged in the US in the wake of Trump's election.

Set aside if you can the fact that this man with a hair-trigger temper and an overweening ego is just over two months away from getting his hands on America's nuclear launch codes.

And set aside his utter lack of anything resembling a moral code.

At a time when the world has been - far too slowly, far too cautiously - starting to make some progress towards dealing with the threat of runaway climate change, Trump plans to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, open all the coal mines he can, mine and drill and dig and burn all the fossil fuels he and his cronies can lay their hands on. This comes when time is almost up to prevent rapid and severe climate change within the lifetime of people alive today.

This is the critical decade for action on climate change. We can't afford another four years, or worse, another eight, of inaction on climate change, or even worse, deliberate action to make things worse.

In my view, this makes it a moral duty to oppose Trump, his cronies, his policies, and his Presidency whenever and wherever possible. That burden falls most heavily on the millions of Americans who do not support him - but the rest of us need to do our part too.

On 17 November, a US warship is due to visit Auckland, and protests are planned. I encourage everyone who can do so, to send President-elect Trump a nonviolent but unambiguous message that the rest of the world wants no part of him.

More on the danger Trump poses to the planet: 

Donald Trump presidency a 'disaster for the planet', warn climate scientists.

Stars, Sand, Shelved: An Australian In New York

Part of the Australian anthology collection at Poets House in New York City.
Photo used by kind permission of Alice Allan.

It's been a while since I mentioned The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, the 2014 anthology published by IP that I co-edited with P. S. Cottier, but I enjoyed seeing that the anthology has taken its place in a collection of Australian poetry at Poets House in New York - and quite right too! (But could it be that this is an Australasian collection?)

Many thanks to Alice Allan for the photo and the heads-up: check out Alice's Poetry Says podcasts for some very interesting and thought-provoking conversations.

For more on The Stars Like Sand, see this great review in the Sydney Morning Herald, and check out my previous posts about The Stars Like Sand for more information and a couple of sample poems from the book.

Tuesday Poem: Eastbourne, Friday evening, winter southerly, by Pete Carter

moored boats waggle and strain,
shags huddle on offshore rocks,
steamed-up cars pick around the debris -
driftwood, seaweed and shells coat the road

the 81 rolls up in every bay,
spitting out commuters
who scuttle like little blue penguins,
to their burrows, away from the sea
to light fires
and clutch that first glass of wine

the ferry rocks uncertainly against the wharf,
the disembarking chatter is
high-pitched after a two-beer crossing,
the Pavilion glows

Barry the butcher makes some late sales,
the library lights are out,
pre-teens have been pushed off their perch
by high-school hoodies who jostle and hunch,
sip beer and suck on cigarettes
try not to catch the eyes
of their parents’ friends

the RSA’s pokies are warming up and collecting,
pints are poured and drunk, poured and
drunk, stories re-invented,
a humourless runner in a beanie shuttles
up and down the rugby paddock

envoys are dispatched to pick up curries,
fish and chips, just one more bottle of wine,
milk for breakfast, food for the cat

dogs are walked one last time,
windows peered through,
hedges bounced

at the end of the road, nowhere to go,
boy racers warble and wheeze,
smoke tyres and rollies, share cans of V

at the terminus, buses turn with the tide
to return to the city, collecting pre-loaded youth
headed for bright lights and chemicals

bedroom lights are dimmed,
books read
fires burn out


Credit note: "Eastbourne, Friday evening, winter southerly" by Pete Carter is published in It's Your Dad (Mākaro Press, 2013) and is reproduced here by permission of the author and the publisher. Pete Carter blogs at http://petecarter.nz/.

Tim says: When I heard Pete Carter read his poetry on Poetry Day, I immediately decided that I liked his poetic voice a lot - and that voice is strongly present throughout It's Your Dad, and also his second collection of poetry, prose and photographs, Buddy's Brother.

You can hear Pete read the poem here: http://petecarter.nz/blog/eastbourne-friday-evening-a-reading/

I've visited the Wellington seaside suburb of Eastbourne a number of times - often with my Dad, to have lunch and visit Rona Gallery.  But I've never been there overnight, and I really like Pete Carter's evocation of the changes Eastbourne goes through over the course of an evening.

One New Book And Three Old Books

One new book

The new book first: it was wonderful to see the turnout at Unity Books last week for the launch of Murdoch, which in case you're wondering isn't the warts-and-all biography of the odious Rupert Murdoch - it's the first collection of the editorial political cartoon of Sharon Murdoch, aka @domesticanimal, with an introduction and commentary by art historian Melinda Johnston.

In an era in which most of the media is making every effort to smother political commentary - especially political commentary critical of the current Government and of the state of the nation - it was lovely to see how many people attended - and how quickly the book sold out at the launch! I got to the counter only just in time to buy my copy, and I'm glad I did - it's excellent.

(Of course, many more copies are now on sale throughout the nation!)

You can listen to an excellent Radio New Zealand interview with Sharon Murdoch (19 mins).

Three old books

Publisher HeadworX is planning to release my first three books - short story collection Extreme Weather Events (2001) and poetry collections Boat People (2002) and All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens (2007) as ebooks. I'm really pleased that these books, long out of print, are to be re-released, and as the release date comes closer I'll say more about each book individually - but for now, here is a quick gallery of the original covers, with apologies for the image quality of the first two.

Extreme Weather Events (2001)

Boat People (2002)

All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens (2007)

Tuesday Poem: No streets, or maps to find them, by P. S. Cottier

Rushing fish commute between rubble piles,
bearing pressure that would burst human lungs
like a careless child's lost balloon.
This is where they once worshipped,
their gods now drowned amongst them.
And that is where they traded coin,
king's faces fading with each tide.
Fans turned out for the athletes here,
just near a sunken arsenal of bows
and arrows tipped with wigs of weed.
Long since silenced, those who screamed
as Atlantis dived into the sea; the wealthy,
joined to the poor, momentarily, in an economy
of gasp, and a sudden run on oxygen.
Now an elegance of rays skims over columns,
quiet triangular shades, hovering like memory.
They kiss the split, empty skulls, housing eels,
and the heartless chests with ribs askew.

Credit note: "No streets, or maps to find them" is published in P. S. Cottier's new chapbook Quick bright things: poems of fantasy and myth (Ginnindera Press, 2016), available from the publisher.

Tim says: Quick bright things is really, really good - and as a bonus it has a great cover, as you'll see if you follow the links above! I was spoiled for choice when it came to choosing a poem to request permission to use as a Tuesday Poem, but "No streets, or maps to find them" particularly appealed to me both because of the skill of its construction - "an economy of gasp", "an elegance of rays" - and the subject matter.

I've always been partial to the Ubi sunt motif in literature - "Where are they now?":

Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? 
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing? 

- this from Tolkien's Lament for the Rohirrim, itself based (it appears to me) on the Anglo-Saxon poem "The Wanderer", which Harvey Molloy has translated in his recent collection Udon by the Remarkables.

The sea and time both have the ability to sweep away the wealthy and their coin, the athlete and their speed, the worshipper and their worship, with only memory and song to mark their passing. As the sea rises, we may increasingly come to feel that we are living in Atlantis, and that the floor is trembling.

Notes From A Reading: Dunedin

Harvey Molloy and I were both in Dunedin for a Coal Action Network Aotearoa hui this past weekend, and we took the opportunity (with the very much appreciated help of Mākaro Press, Dunedin Public Libraries and University Book Shop Otago) to have a joint poetry reading, with Bruce from the University Bookshop selling our two latest collections:

• Harvey Molloy, Udon by the Remarkables
• Tim Jones, New Sea Land

Here are some photos from the launch, used here with the kind permission of photographer James Dignan.

Harvey Molloy at the lectern

"I was sure there was a poem in here somewhere!"

Using my inside voice

So how did the reading go? Very well. 12 noon on a Sunday is a weird time for a poetry reading, but it was the only time both of us were available that didn't clash with Dunedin Arts Festival events. So we were very pleased that around 20 people turned up, and that, after Harvey and I finished reading, we had an open mike session of amazing quality - Carolyn McCurdie, Sue Wootton, James Dignan and Linzy Forbes were the open mike readers.

The whole reading had a really nice feel to it: warm, open and inclusive. Plenty of books were bought and signed, and all in all, it was a great time. I hope to get down to Dunedin again - to read, and to visit all my lovely friends there - next year.

NEXT WEEK: I've been reading and enjoying P. S. Cottier's new chapbook Quick Bright Things: Poems of fantasy and myth, and I'll be posting a poem from that - I enjoyed the whole collection, but this one stood out to me.