This morning my dad said
Who’s moved my bloody cellphone?
Christ why can’t people leave my things alone.
There was just the two of us.
I said I never even touched your cellphone
and my dad said
Where the hell
is the bloody thing? Oh forget it.
Get yourself dressed. I’ve got to get to work.
Aren’t you dressed yet? Then he didn’t talk
till he dropped me at my mum’s and he said
Kiss.
by Rachel Bush
from Nice Pretty Things and others
Published by Victoria University Press
Used with the permission of Victoria University Press
Editor: Emma McCleary
I don't write poetry and we should probably all be glad for that. However, what I like in a poem is observations of the everyday, which Kiss has in spades. I'm hugely admiring of people who can take a seemingly normal activity - something that would otherwise be overlooked - and write it down in a way that's instantly recognisable to us all.
I also really like that although this Dad is a bit fraught he's clearly a good Dad - he's frustrated but there's no aggression in the poem. There's a particular kind of way a strung out father speaks and this poem captures that perfectly. My own Dad used to use this tone when we was wallpapering; muttering to yourself and using the word 'bloody' is really at the core of it all.
Emma McCleary is Web Editor at Booksellers NZ. She loves buying books from her local bookshop and reading - currently Stonemouth by Iain Banks (labouring through) and most recently The Forrests by Emily Perkins.
When she's not putting stuff on the internet, she runs her craft empire, Emma Makes.
After reading the hub poem try out all the other Tuesday Poems in the sidebar where our 31 Tuesday Poets reside.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
From 'Postcards' by Helen Heath
iv. Greek for Travellers
How much for this peach?
I would like a room.
What time does the bus go?
I would like a ticket to Stavros.
What a lovely day.
I am in pain.
Where is the police station?
I want to wash clothes.
v. The landing
The truth about stones is some fit in your palm,
some you lay your palms upon.
If you press a stone with your finger
your finger is also pressed by the stone.
If you pull a stone on a rope
the stone pulls you back.
If you carry a stone in your pocket
you can smooth it with your thumb.
I collect pebbles form Ithaca
and intend to bring them home.
vi. Up the hill
The truth about raindrops is
they are not shaped like tears.
As raindrops fall they become balls,
burger buns, parachutes, then doughnuts.
Rain is only sad in wet places,
others greet it with euphoria.
Water is containment and travel,
it worries at earth and stone.
Things do smell better after rain, like
wild oregano up the hill from Vathy.
A week or so ago Helen Heath, local poet, friend and Tuesday-poet-on sabbatical, launched Graft, her debut full-length collection which has been published by Victoria University Press. (I published a wee chapbook of her work, Watching for Smoke, a couple of years ago.) I love Helen’s work, and knew I wanted to feature a poem from Graft, but choosing which was a really hard job. There are so many I like, and I also wanted to try to somehow show the breadth of this collection. But obviously not one single poem can manage to show the variety of a collection, so I hope you’ll follow some of my helpful links below that will take you to some of Helen’s other poems.
It was also hard to choose an individual poem because even though they are self-contained, once you’ve read them in the context of the book, where the poems are finely woven together with connections and resonances within and between, it seems hard to take them out of that environment.
Finally, after reading through the collection a couple of times, I chose these extracts from ‘Postcards’, a long multi-part poem from the centre of the collection. Similarly, I feel funny about removing these from their context as part of a longer piece, but I like them a lot and think they also contain many of the themes and interests of Helen’s poetry, and this collection.
In this sequence the narrator is visiting Greece, seeking something (in the sequence that follows – 'Graft', we learn more about what that is). In ‘iv. Greek for Travellers’ we get phrases as if from a phrase book – and, as humans do, we join things up to make a story. The sharp-eyed humour mixed/contrasting with deep and sometimes painful feeling is a combination you’ll find quite frequently in Helen’s work.
‘v. The landing’ begins with the phrase ‘The truth about…’ which is a recurring phrase in this collection, one I find really appealing. Science and empirical study is a major interest in this collection, especially in the first of the three sections which contains a number of poems about scientists such as Isaac Newton, Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin and Galileo Galilei. Also the third and final section begins with the poem ‘Making tea in the universe’, which manages to combine the big bang with making a cup of tea. I love the images and observations about the stones – there’s a empirical objective preciseness about them, while also being tactile and emotional. And, of course, metaphorical. And beautiful.
‘vi. Up the hill’ continues the scientific explanations – what you think you see is not what you see. Raindrops are not the shape of tear drops (I learned this recently from some science programme which had ultra-slowed-down footage, so I know it’s true), they are round. But what is scientifically true is also exciting, maybe even more exciting. Explaining something isn’t explaining it away.
I think ‘the truth’ that the poems keep speaking of, though, isn’t just scientific truth. It’s poetic truth and emotional truth and experiential truth, and in this collection you’ll find truths of many kinds. Many of the poems are much more narrative than these ones, and many deal with very real and raw things, such as death, love, family and the experience of being a Hutt girl (as also a former Hutt girl, who did indeed scuff my way around in ugg boots for a while a very long time ago, I was excited to see a clutch of ‘Hutt girl’ poems at the end of Graft). I have so much to say about this book, and I really haven't done it justice, but I think I’ll stop here. For now.
Helen Heath has just started working on a PhD in creative writing at Victoria University of Wellington, where she has previously completed an MA. In her doctorate she is looking at the intersect between people and technology. She won the inaugural ScienceTeller Poetry Award in 2011 for her poem ‘Making Tea in the Universe’. She blogs at helenheath.com.
Here’s some links to more of her poetry:
'Night's magic'
'Making tea in the universe'
'Ripple'
'Plum'
'Truths'
'Tight'
And, a particular favourite of mine, 'Spilt'
And now I hope you'll make some more poetic discoveries by clicking some of the links to other Tuesday Poems in the sidebar.
Helen Rickerby is a Wellington poet, having escaped many years ago from the Hutt (Upper rather than Lower), though she can still see the Hutt Valley from her lounge window. She publishes books as Seraph Press and is co-managing editor of JAAM magazine. She’s had two collections and a hand-bound chapbook of her own poetry published, including My Iron Spine (Headworx, 2008). She blogs at http://wingedink.blogspot.com/.
How much for this peach?
I would like a room.
What time does the bus go?
I would like a ticket to Stavros.
What a lovely day.
I am in pain.
Where is the police station?
I want to wash clothes.
v. The landing
The truth about stones is some fit in your palm,
some you lay your palms upon.
If you press a stone with your finger
your finger is also pressed by the stone.
If you pull a stone on a rope
the stone pulls you back.
If you carry a stone in your pocket
you can smooth it with your thumb.
I collect pebbles form Ithaca
and intend to bring them home.
vi. Up the hill
The truth about raindrops is
they are not shaped like tears.
As raindrops fall they become balls,
burger buns, parachutes, then doughnuts.
Rain is only sad in wet places,
others greet it with euphoria.
Water is containment and travel,
it worries at earth and stone.
Things do smell better after rain, like
wild oregano up the hill from Vathy.
Editor: Helen Rickerby
It was also hard to choose an individual poem because even though they are self-contained, once you’ve read them in the context of the book, where the poems are finely woven together with connections and resonances within and between, it seems hard to take them out of that environment.
Finally, after reading through the collection a couple of times, I chose these extracts from ‘Postcards’, a long multi-part poem from the centre of the collection. Similarly, I feel funny about removing these from their context as part of a longer piece, but I like them a lot and think they also contain many of the themes and interests of Helen’s poetry, and this collection.
In this sequence the narrator is visiting Greece, seeking something (in the sequence that follows – 'Graft', we learn more about what that is). In ‘iv. Greek for Travellers’ we get phrases as if from a phrase book – and, as humans do, we join things up to make a story. The sharp-eyed humour mixed/contrasting with deep and sometimes painful feeling is a combination you’ll find quite frequently in Helen’s work.
‘v. The landing’ begins with the phrase ‘The truth about…’ which is a recurring phrase in this collection, one I find really appealing. Science and empirical study is a major interest in this collection, especially in the first of the three sections which contains a number of poems about scientists such as Isaac Newton, Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin and Galileo Galilei. Also the third and final section begins with the poem ‘Making tea in the universe’, which manages to combine the big bang with making a cup of tea. I love the images and observations about the stones – there’s a empirical objective preciseness about them, while also being tactile and emotional. And, of course, metaphorical. And beautiful.
‘vi. Up the hill’ continues the scientific explanations – what you think you see is not what you see. Raindrops are not the shape of tear drops (I learned this recently from some science programme which had ultra-slowed-down footage, so I know it’s true), they are round. But what is scientifically true is also exciting, maybe even more exciting. Explaining something isn’t explaining it away.
I think ‘the truth’ that the poems keep speaking of, though, isn’t just scientific truth. It’s poetic truth and emotional truth and experiential truth, and in this collection you’ll find truths of many kinds. Many of the poems are much more narrative than these ones, and many deal with very real and raw things, such as death, love, family and the experience of being a Hutt girl (as also a former Hutt girl, who did indeed scuff my way around in ugg boots for a while a very long time ago, I was excited to see a clutch of ‘Hutt girl’ poems at the end of Graft). I have so much to say about this book, and I really haven't done it justice, but I think I’ll stop here. For now.
Here’s some links to more of her poetry:
'Night's magic'
'Making tea in the universe'
'Ripple'
'Plum'
'Truths'
'Tight'
And, a particular favourite of mine, 'Spilt'
And now I hope you'll make some more poetic discoveries by clicking some of the links to other Tuesday Poems in the sidebar.
Helen Rickerby is a Wellington poet, having escaped many years ago from the Hutt (Upper rather than Lower), though she can still see the Hutt Valley from her lounge window. She publishes books as Seraph Press and is co-managing editor of JAAM magazine. She’s had two collections and a hand-bound chapbook of her own poetry published, including My Iron Spine (Headworx, 2008). She blogs at http://wingedink.blogspot.com/.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
VA Hospital Confessional by Brian Turner
Each night is different. Each night
the same.
Sometimes I pull the trigger. Sometimes I don’t.
When I pull the trigger, he often just stands there,
gesturing, as if saying, Aren’t you ashamed?
When I don’t, he douses himself
in gasoline, drowns himself in fire.
A dog barks in the night’s illuminated green landscape
and the platoon sergeant orders me to shoot it.
Some nights I twitch and jerk in my sleep.
My lover has learned to face away.
She closes her eyes when I fuck her. I imagine
she’s far away and we don’t use the word love.
When she sleeps, helicopters
come in low over the date palms.
Men are bound on their knees, shivering
in the animal stall, long before dawn.
I whisper into their ears, saying,
Howlwin? Howlwin? Meaning, Mortars? Mortars?
Howl wind, motherfucker? Howl wind?
The milk cow stares with its huge brown eyes.
The milk cow wants to know
how I can do this to another human being.
I check the haystack in the corner
for a weapons cache. I check the sewage sump.
I tell no one, but sometimes late at night
I uncover rifles and bullets within me.
Other nights I drive through Baghdad.
Firebaugh. Bakersfield. Kettleman City.
Some nights I’m up in the hatch, shooting
a controlled pair into someone’s radiator.
Some nights I hear a woman screaming.
Others I shoot the crashing car.
When the boy brings us a platter of fruit,
I mistake cantaloupe for a human skull.
Sometimes the gunman fires into the house.
Sometimes the gunman fires at me.
Every night it’s different.
Every night the same.
Some nights I pull the trigger.
Some nights I burn him alive.
© Brian Turner
From Phantom Noise by Brian Turner (Bloodaxe Books, 2010)
Distributed in Australia & New Zealand by John Reed Book Distribution.
Reproduced on The Tuesday Poem Hub with permission.
On January 24, I featured US poet Brian Turner's AB Negative (The Surgeon's Poem) as the Tuesday Poem selection on my own blog.
I had first heard Brian in 2009, as part of a radio documentary on contemporary war poetry. The poem read in that documentary was AB Negative (The Surgeon's Poem), which was why I featured it in January.
I felt, both on first hearing and subsequent reading, that it had the element I most look for in writing of any kind, which is what I call 'heart." In the poem I heard the note that I believe resonates in all great art and reaches out to the listener, the reader, or the viewer: that depiction of what NZ poet, Dr Glenn Colquhoun, has described as the "ache" of our human condition.
Part of that depiction may be gritty reality, another part may be compassion—both qualities that I found in Brian Turner's first collection Here, Bullet, a series of poems written during his service with the 3rd Stryker Brigade in Iraq. As I noted on January 24: "...the poems observe, record, note, but make no judgments outside of the personal—leaving the reader to make up his or her own mind on the subject of this war, its brutality and its human cost." In this sense, it's, "...war poetry in the tradition of the First World War poet, Wilfrid Owen, who wrote: 'My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.'"
Brian Turner's second collection, Phantom Noise, is still war poetry, but this is no longer the poetry of the combat zone but of its aftermath, that return to civilian life where the experiences of war, even when the individual tries to keep them locked down, still bleed into everyday life so that in the poem At Lowe's Home Improvement Center,
"... standing in aisle 16 ...
I bust a 50 pound box of double-headed nails
open ... their oily bright shanks
and diamond points like firing pins
from M-4s and M-16s."
Again, there are many powerful and moving poems in Phantom Noise, but two epitomise the collection for me—perhaps appropriately given they are also its first and last poems: VA Hospital Confessional, which I have featured today, and The One Square Inch Project.
For me, VA Hospital Confessional is all about the memories bleeding through:
"I tell no one, but sometimes late at night
I uncover rifles and bullets within me"
and
"Other nights I drive through Baghdad.
Firebaugh. Bakersfield. Kettleman City."
The landscapes of war are bleeding into those of home. But this is also a poem about emotional disconnection, perhaps most tellingly encapsulated in the lines:
"She closes her eyes when I fuck her. I imagine
she's far away and we don't use the word love."
Here the sexual act epitomises a world conceived as "subject" and "object", "self" and "other", one in which "I" fuck "her." Like war and killing, sex is separated out from love, becoming something which is done to the "other."
"Every night," the poem tells us, "it's different." But also: "Every night the same."
"Some nights I pull the trigger.
Some nights I burn him alive."
Raw, brutal, powerful stuff—but also full of Yeats' "terrible beauty." Some of that terrible beauty may lie in "night's illuminated green landscape" of war, but I feel, with Wilfrid Owen, that the poetry is in the pity.
And that other poem, the The One Square Inch Project? The key to why I feel it rightly completes this collection lies in the final stanza:
............................................." ...When I return to California,
to my life with its many engines – I find myself changed
............ ...when gifted with this silence, motions have more
of a dance to them, like fish in schools of hunger, once
flashing in sunlight, now turning in shadow."
Lovely lines in and of themselves, but just as the fish turn—now in sunlight, now in shadow—we are left with a sense that a return to wholeness may be possible. At the very least, amidst the gift of silence, there may be a turning away from that terrible gulf that splits the world into "self" and "other."
.
About the Poet:
Brian Turner served for seven years in the US Army. He was an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq, from November 2003, with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. In 1999-2000 he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina with the 10th Mountain Division. Born in 1967, he received an MFA from the University of Oregon and lived abroad in South Korea for a year before joining the army. His poetry was included in the Voices in Wartime Anthology published in conjunction with a feature-length documentary film.
His collection Here, Bullet (Bloodaxe Books, 2007) was first published in the US by Alice James Books in 2005, where it has earned Turner nine major literary awards, including a 2006 Lannan Literary Fellowship and a 2007 NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry. In 2009 he was given an Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship. His second collection, Phantom Noise, is published by Alice James Books in the US and by Bloodaxe Books in the UK. It was shortlisted for the 2010 T S Eliot Prize.
To read more about the poet and Phantom Noise you may also enjoy the following article that appeared in The Guardian newspaper in October 2010: "Brian Turner, words of war."
When you've read Brian Turner, check out the other Tuesday Poems in the sidebar.
About the Editor:
This week's editor, Helen Lowe is a novelist, poet, and interviewer, hosting a regular poetry feature for Women on Air, Plains 96.9 FM. She is the current Ursula Bethell Writer-in-Residence at the University of Canterbury and has recently launched her third novel The Gathering of the Lost, the second novel in the The Wall of Night series. The first-in-series, The Heir of Night is currently shortlisted for the Gemmell Morningstar Award. Helen posts every day on her Helen Lowe on Anything, Really blog and you can also follow her on Twitter: @helenl0we.
.
Sometimes I pull the trigger. Sometimes I don’t.
When I pull the trigger, he often just stands there,
gesturing, as if saying, Aren’t you ashamed?
When I don’t, he douses himself
in gasoline, drowns himself in fire.
A dog barks in the night’s illuminated green landscape
and the platoon sergeant orders me to shoot it.
Some nights I twitch and jerk in my sleep.
My lover has learned to face away.
She closes her eyes when I fuck her. I imagine
she’s far away and we don’t use the word love.
When she sleeps, helicopters
come in low over the date palms.
Men are bound on their knees, shivering
in the animal stall, long before dawn.
I whisper into their ears, saying,
Howlwin? Howlwin? Meaning, Mortars? Mortars?
Howl wind, motherfucker? Howl wind?
The milk cow stares with its huge brown eyes.
The milk cow wants to know
how I can do this to another human being.
I check the haystack in the corner
for a weapons cache. I check the sewage sump.
I tell no one, but sometimes late at night
I uncover rifles and bullets within me.
Other nights I drive through Baghdad.
Firebaugh. Bakersfield. Kettleman City.
Some nights I’m up in the hatch, shooting
a controlled pair into someone’s radiator.
Some nights I hear a woman screaming.
Others I shoot the crashing car.
When the boy brings us a platter of fruit,
I mistake cantaloupe for a human skull.
Sometimes the gunman fires into the house.
Sometimes the gunman fires at me.
Every night it’s different.
Every night the same.
Some nights I pull the trigger.
Some nights I burn him alive.
© Brian Turner
From Phantom Noise by Brian Turner (Bloodaxe Books, 2010)
Distributed in Australia & New Zealand by John Reed Book Distribution.
Reproduced on The Tuesday Poem Hub with permission.
.
Editor: Helen Lowe
I had first heard Brian in 2009, as part of a radio documentary on contemporary war poetry. The poem read in that documentary was AB Negative (The Surgeon's Poem), which was why I featured it in January.
I felt, both on first hearing and subsequent reading, that it had the element I most look for in writing of any kind, which is what I call 'heart." In the poem I heard the note that I believe resonates in all great art and reaches out to the listener, the reader, or the viewer: that depiction of what NZ poet, Dr Glenn Colquhoun, has described as the "ache" of our human condition.
Part of that depiction may be gritty reality, another part may be compassion—both qualities that I found in Brian Turner's first collection Here, Bullet, a series of poems written during his service with the 3rd Stryker Brigade in Iraq. As I noted on January 24: "...the poems observe, record, note, but make no judgments outside of the personal—leaving the reader to make up his or her own mind on the subject of this war, its brutality and its human cost." In this sense, it's, "...war poetry in the tradition of the First World War poet, Wilfrid Owen, who wrote: 'My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.'"
Brian Turner's second collection, Phantom Noise, is still war poetry, but this is no longer the poetry of the combat zone but of its aftermath, that return to civilian life where the experiences of war, even when the individual tries to keep them locked down, still bleed into everyday life so that in the poem At Lowe's Home Improvement Center,
"... standing in aisle 16 ...
I bust a 50 pound box of double-headed nails
open ... their oily bright shanks
and diamond points like firing pins
from M-4s and M-16s."
Again, there are many powerful and moving poems in Phantom Noise, but two epitomise the collection for me—perhaps appropriately given they are also its first and last poems: VA Hospital Confessional, which I have featured today, and The One Square Inch Project.
For me, VA Hospital Confessional is all about the memories bleeding through:
"I tell no one, but sometimes late at night
I uncover rifles and bullets within me"
and
"Other nights I drive through Baghdad.
Firebaugh. Bakersfield. Kettleman City."
The landscapes of war are bleeding into those of home. But this is also a poem about emotional disconnection, perhaps most tellingly encapsulated in the lines:
"She closes her eyes when I fuck her. I imagine
she's far away and we don't use the word love."
Here the sexual act epitomises a world conceived as "subject" and "object", "self" and "other", one in which "I" fuck "her." Like war and killing, sex is separated out from love, becoming something which is done to the "other."
"Every night," the poem tells us, "it's different." But also: "Every night the same."
"Some nights I pull the trigger.
Some nights I burn him alive."
Raw, brutal, powerful stuff—but also full of Yeats' "terrible beauty." Some of that terrible beauty may lie in "night's illuminated green landscape" of war, but I feel, with Wilfrid Owen, that the poetry is in the pity.
And that other poem, the The One Square Inch Project? The key to why I feel it rightly completes this collection lies in the final stanza:
............................................." ...When I return to California,
to my life with its many engines – I find myself changed
............ ...when gifted with this silence, motions have more
of a dance to them, like fish in schools of hunger, once
flashing in sunlight, now turning in shadow."
Lovely lines in and of themselves, but just as the fish turn—now in sunlight, now in shadow—we are left with a sense that a return to wholeness may be possible. At the very least, amidst the gift of silence, there may be a turning away from that terrible gulf that splits the world into "self" and "other."
.
Brian Turner served for seven years in the US Army. He was an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq, from November 2003, with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. In 1999-2000 he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina with the 10th Mountain Division. Born in 1967, he received an MFA from the University of Oregon and lived abroad in South Korea for a year before joining the army. His poetry was included in the Voices in Wartime Anthology published in conjunction with a feature-length documentary film.
His collection Here, Bullet (Bloodaxe Books, 2007) was first published in the US by Alice James Books in 2005, where it has earned Turner nine major literary awards, including a 2006 Lannan Literary Fellowship and a 2007 NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry. In 2009 he was given an Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship. His second collection, Phantom Noise, is published by Alice James Books in the US and by Bloodaxe Books in the UK. It was shortlisted for the 2010 T S Eliot Prize.
To read more about the poet and Phantom Noise you may also enjoy the following article that appeared in The Guardian newspaper in October 2010: "Brian Turner, words of war."
When you've read Brian Turner, check out the other Tuesday Poems in the sidebar.
About the Editor:
This week's editor, Helen Lowe is a novelist, poet, and interviewer, hosting a regular poetry feature for Women on Air, Plains 96.9 FM. She is the current Ursula Bethell Writer-in-Residence at the University of Canterbury and has recently launched her third novel The Gathering of the Lost, the second novel in the The Wall of Night series. The first-in-series, The Heir of Night is currently shortlisted for the Gemmell Morningstar Award. Helen posts every day on her Helen Lowe on Anything, Really blog and you can also follow her on Twitter: @helenl0we.
.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Fey by Helen Lowe
your door
stands open still
at dusk, your light
a moth's antenna
across
shadowed lawn
bare feet rustle
in last year's
leaf drift, a wind
sways
through naked trees
you say
you will hang
a cricket cage
above your lintel,
burn apple wood
in the grate –
dance, the circle
of your skirt
reflecting
the moon's dark face
I ride
a rocking horse
with patchwork eyes,
steal
through your door
to the cold-stone hearth –
dream
of dervish footsteps
hurdy-gurdy trees
© Helen Lowe Highly Commended, Takahe National Poetry Competition 2008 - published in Takahe 68, December 2009, and posted with permission here
Editor, Alicia Ponder
your light
a moth's antenna
across
shadowed lawn
Such a beautiful picture. Soft. Welcoming. But more than that. While being a stunning image of light across grass at first
glance - the moths antenna is also a hint
of something slightly alien or "other" that is about to creep into the
narrative. (Not to mention the rather
subtle nod to the creatures that belong to the dark - but yet
are drawn to the light.) Now I'm sure I could continue to dissecting the
rest of the poem - and leave the severed pieces bloody on the page - while undoubtedly
proving irrevocably that I've missed the entire point. I think that would be a bad idea. So the only other thing I'll note is how I
love the picture of "hurdy-gurdy trees" I have in my head, and suggest you check to make sure
Thanks Helen. Lovely work I look forward to more.
This
week's Tuesday Poem editor Alicia Ponder is better known for her children's stories. She has been published in Australia and New Zealand and her short story "Frankie and the Netball Clone" was recently nominated for Best Short Story in the 2012 Sir Julius Vogel Awards. Her poetry can be found on her blog An Affliction of Poetry
stands open still
at dusk, your light
a moth's antenna
across
shadowed lawn
bare feet rustle
in last year's
leaf drift, a wind
sways
through naked trees
you say
you will hang
a cricket cage
above your lintel,
burn apple wood
in the grate –
dance, the circle
of your skirt
reflecting
the moon's dark face
I ride
a rocking horse
with patchwork eyes,
steal
through your door
to the cold-stone hearth –
dream
of dervish footsteps
hurdy-gurdy trees
© Helen Lowe Highly Commended, Takahe National Poetry Competition 2008 - published in Takahe 68, December 2009, and posted with permission here
Editor, Alicia Ponder
I was first introduced to Helen's work
through her novel 'Thornspell', and I remember being particularly impressed by
the lyricism of her language, along with her obvious love for romance, myth and
fairytale. A very powerful combination
- especially in a poet - so of course when I found she was a member of the Tuesday Poem group I was instantly drawn to her poems. With pieces ranging from Haiku to works inspired by Homer's
Odyssey, each has its own unique voice, its own soul, and its own story to tell.
I remember seeing Fey when it was blogged in December
2011, and it sent me straight back to my misspent youth - where anything was possible and there were
fairies at the end of the garden. (Not to mention the besom on the front porch that could only confirm that my mother was indeed a witch.) But Fey is somewhat more sophisticated than a piece of childhood wonder. It
begins with an open door at night - your open door - placing you as the reader
open to all the possibilities of an open door - camaraderie and danger - hand
in hand.
And then...
a moth's antenna
across
shadowed lawn
 |
| Helen Lowe |
your door
stands open still
at dusk...
stands open still
at dusk...
Thanks Helen. Lovely work I look forward to more.
Helen Lowe is an active member of New
Zealand's poetry scene. She is a member
of the New Zealand Poetry Society, hosts a monthly poetry feature for Women on
Air, Plains 96.9 FM, and of course is a member of the Tuesday Poetry group with
her blog. She is also the winner of numerous awards which can be found on her website. Her third novel The Gathering of the Lost , the second novel in The Wall of Night series, is just out.
When you've read and enjoyed Fey check out the other Tuesday Poets' offerings in the sidebar - the range will astonish you.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
"Dippity Bix" and "Chimpanzee," by Kath and Kim (Gina Riley and Jane Turner)
 |
| Pitch perfect: Australian versifiers, Kath and Kim. |
Kim: You know what, mum. I've stopped my all-cabbage diet. I don't think it's healthy to eat just one thing.
Kath: Well Gwen Paltrow just had an Apple.
Kim: Huh?
Kath: Well that's what she's called her new baby. Apple. I think that must be all she's eaten since she had her by the luhks. You'd be wise to take a leave-out of Gwen's book, Kim.
Kim: So what are you saying? I should rename Epponnee-Rae*, Dippity Bix?
Kath: Yeah! Dippity Bix Cocoa Bomb Footy Frank.
Kim: Actually, Footy Frank is quite pretty.
Kath: Yeah, Footy Frank, it is, isn't it?
*Her baby daughter, whose full name is Epponnee Raelene Kathleen Darlene Charlene Craig.
"Chimpanzee"
Kim: Oh look mum. Another present I got for Epponnee: The Bath Book version of The Da Vinci Code. Look, It squeaks when you press the albino.
Kath: Who do I still need to buy for, Kim? I've got my health professionals: My Physio, my Ostio, my Chiro and my Gyno. They're all getting bottles of Cock Fighter, so that's done. Now my service providers: I've got my Posti, my Garbo, my Recycle's Man, my Coles Online Guy -- still need to get something for them.
Kim: I still gotta get something good for Bret. You know he's really into labels now.
Kath: Oh really, what, stick-on or iron-on, cause we go down to Office Works for that.
Kim: No, mum. Clothes. Designer labels. You know, Dolci and Kabanna, Tony Hellfinger, Louise Futon.
Kath: Oh, gee. Who's he dressing to impress? Actually, I got Bret's present. It's great. It's the John Grisham newy, The Firm Client. Actually, that sounds a bit more like Kel [her husband], doesn't it?
Kim: But Bret doesn't read at the moment. Now he's a workaholic.
Kath: Yeah, I've noticed, he's very driven at the moment, isn't he, Kim? I have to say, I think it suits him. He did look very spunky going off in his Yugo Boss this morning.
Kim: Yeah, he's got his sites set on the top. You know, eventually, he wants to be owner-manager.
Kath: Oh, that's really kudosses, Kim. Being a franchisee. Gee, one day I'd like to be a franchisee, Kim.
Kim: Well you look more like a Chimpanzee today.
__________
This week's editor: Zireaux
The Australian creators of this TV comedy, meanwhile -- Gina Riley and Jane Turner -- are poets to the core. They understand that when it comes to language -- in this case, the vernacular of the suburban Melbourne shopping mall -- sound and sense are the poetic equivalent of costume and character. "Kel says my hair is my clowning glory," boasts Kath about her frizzy white poodle-fro. And there you have it, all four elements of the comedic art form expressed in a single line.
In so much of Riley/Turner's work, their ear is near perfect. Metrically, for example, "Epponnee-Rae" and "Dippity Bix" would be called choriambs (stresses on the first and last sounds of a tetrasyllable), and their identical scansion is no accident. But the two baby names are also excellent examples of why common scansion alone -- the dissection of feet into stressed/unstressed patterns, as scholars have been doing for centuries -- is really a cheating of sound. Because sound itself divides into tones (or notes) and cadence (or rhythm), as I tried to show in my post on Notorious B.I.G..
So although the scansion is the same, Swinburne's "...senseless of passion," or Coleridge's "Down to the sunless...," sound nothing at all like Shakespeare's "flibbertigibbit" (which, in fact, more closely resembles the short rapid-fire air-bursts of "Dippity Bix"). After the swooping landing of Coleridge's, "Down," the mouth must stand up again and brush itself off before delivering, "to the sunless." "Flibbertigibbet," on the other hand, is a happy triple-flip of the tongue. "I should rename Epponnee-Rae, Raspberry Cream," would have produced exactly the same scansion, but with a very different rhythm, a very different effect.
 |
| Fascinating in its failure: the American Kath and Kim |
But I'll say it again: Ideas are not what poetry is about. Poetry is spoken music (some might say written music, but I'm less convinced of this, unless we equate reading with hearing, which seems a stretch). The Australian Kath has no qualms showing off her fanny-fissure, or trying on -- and spilling out of -- a Burberry bikini, or putting on that perpetual vulgar teenage girl expression, the rolling eyes and exasperated flip of the hair, which looks even funnier on the grown-up Riley. Excessiveness, outrageousness -- a realm that's ripe for poetry.
The American version of "Kath and Kim," however, was too concerned with meaning, too afraid to let sound and costume speak for themselves, too poetically restrained. It has, in fact, a very strong odor of the Lolita-Charlotte relationship -- think Sue Lyon and Shelly Winters in the film, Lolita -- a particularly American flavor of mother-daughter relationship which Nabokov netted in his novel; and from which Americans may never be able to escape.
"It squeaks when you press the albino" is a poetic phrase, in the manner of the anapestic limerick. And note the perfect rhyme with gyno in Kath's subsequent line (with both characters stretching out the "aiye-no" sound). Poetic, too, is "kudosses, Kim." But perhaps most lovely, and rich with poetic depth, is the coupling of the words "franchisee" with "chimpanzee." They have an aural relationship; yet no common rhyme form. They're not that rarest species of rhyme -- the gimmal; and yet the simian-coated Kath saying, "gee, one day I'd like to be a franchisee," still takes us on a pleasure-journey across the broadest spectrum of metaphor, from vulgar job title to Christmas shopping ape-woman; a trip, or trope, which Nabokov himself would surely have admired.
-Z
__________
You'll find information about this week's editor Zireaux, as well as his latest books, verse and commentary, at www.ImmortalMuse.com. This week he examines one of Edgar Allan Poe's earliest poems, "Dreams."
We do hope you'll take some time to enjoy the other Tuesday Poem posts this week, listed in the right-hand sidebar.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
The Poets' Birthday by The Tuesday Poets 2012
The shyest sparrow's supplications in the early evening trees
are a careful arpeggio - each note liberates a flotilla of leaves
fleeting, indeed, left scattered as archipelago in a dew-grass sea.
fleeting, indeed, left scattered as archipelago in a dew-grass sea.
The song's begun: feathered entreaties lift from every hedgerow, every
field, join in one great arc of beak and wing and downy plume --
brief benediction for the worker trudging home, a heart-lifted pause
at day's end. Summer's pages fall. Leaf by leaf, they shorten days,
strip bare the trunks, spill forth a concertina of split, sagging plums,
crimson globes -- Demeter's heart strung low against the blue note
sky. Furrowed fields lie flat beneath the tramp of corn-fed feet.
The scene is set, two candles lit, another year opens a window
through which we pass in streak of silver, burst of wheels' screech, breath
of horns' bright blasting. Inside, the chink of glass against china,
bubble of laughter tossed from one guest to the next draws us
to warmth, the blissful promise of shared experience. How it swells
the soul's bright plumage! A winking flame copies itself on the clean
slope of the knife before it passes. The reflection flickers: and beyond
the window frame, a final guest hesitates in mauve-hued shadow, ghost
of Keats maybe, listening still, reticent, reluctant to eschew
autumn's arias. And hear now, along the bay,
the pulse of song ticks out again in joyous iteration, a boy kicks
a ball against a wall, a sole finch adds bebop syncopation. Gabble,
and its consistency of warm honey dampen the tenor, the tune -- best
left out in the tang of sharpened daylight. Shadows unwilling to retreat
stand shoulder-to-shoulder and beat the day's thrum chanting come, cold,
come, dark, come firelight, we too have our part. Gladly, watch effulgence fade,
into this gentler glow of murmured crackle and spark-fed thoughts. Each year
is gathered and falls away in a clap of digits, up from nothing to where
we find ourselves surrounded. It's come to this: the riffle of breath, the winking
flame. One is out, then the other. Stay with us, poet, it's time to start over.
A global birthday poem written line by line by 26 poets from six countries and 12 cities over two weeks: from Tuesday April 3 to April 17 2012. It has been written to celebrate our second birthday.
The Tuesday Poets are (in order of their lines): Melissa Green, Claire Beynon, Saradha Koirala, Janis Freegard, T. Clear, Catherine Bateson, Renee Liang, Elizabeth Welsh, Alicia Ponder, Tim Jones, Kathleen Jones, Helen McKinlay, Helen Lowe, Eileen Moeller, Orchid Tierney, Susan T. Landry, Keith Westwater, Belinda Hollyer, Harvey Molloy, Bernadette Keating, Andrew M. Bell, Michelle Elvy, Catherine Fitchett, P.S. Cottier, Helen Rickerby, Mary McCallum.
Unable to post this year: Sarah Jane Barnett, Robert Sullivan, Zireaux, Emma McCleary
Editor: Mary McCallum, TP co-curator
Tuesday Poem is two years old, and The Poets' Birthday is a magnificent way to celebrate. It kicked off on April 3 with a line from Boston poet Melissa Green, title: Birthday Poem (working title) and has been criss-crossing the globe ever since like a digital marathon, with all the adrenalin and excitement you can imagine it generating.
The posts were twice a day, usually around 8 am and 6 pm NZ Time. As soon as a poet had logged into the TP blog and posted a line, s/he emailed the next poet on the roster to pass on the baton.
I love this image of the Tuesday Poet hard at work, it comes from our own Susan Landry in Maine: '... sitting in her bathrobe in Maine, hair sticking out in nine different directions, coffee cup rings marking her desktop...' There is something very familiar about this.
My co-curator Claire Beynon contributed the poem's second line from Ibiza, Spain, ten hours after Melissa Green posted, and Saradha Koirala from Wellington, New Zealand, came up with the third. And on it went. We passed the baton around the world from Dunedin to London to Canberra to somewhere in Italy to Seattle to Auckland to Maine and many other places besides. And look what came out! A poem about song and celebration, light and company.
There were remarkably few hiccups with the posting despite the time differences -- most notably the poem disappeared twice due to a pesky 'update' button and some mis-scheduling. But it came back again. Phew. We tidied up some lines and line breaks as we went along but the lines are mostly as posted. For example, 'it' appeared five times in three lines - some 'its' clearly had to 'hit' the dust, and early on we realised the growing poem was better in longer stanzas rather than the three-lines we started with.
I was quoted on Beattie's book blog last week as saying: 'It's an exciting process watching the lines go up one by one - seeing the thinking behind each line: the language, the line-breaks, where it's left for the next poet to pick it up. It's like watching one poetic mind at work with each poet acting like one of the many competing voices that a poet hears as s/he writes: 'break the line there' 'no don't' 'rhyme it' 'don't you dare' 'how about plums to echo plume?' 'what are you thinking?' and so on.'
Tuesday Poem co-curator Claire Beynon and I are once more delighted to raise a glass to our remarkable bunch of poets and devoted blog readers who come together in this place once a week to enjoy and celebrate poetry. We are a community built on trust, generosity, flexibility and a mutual obsession -- and long may it last.
Happy Birthday! Ra whanau ki a korua!
Mary McCallum and Claire Beynon (curators)
Now please join our celebrating poets in the right hand sidebar to read poems written by them or ones they have chosen.
Now please join our celebrating poets in the right hand sidebar to read poems written by them or ones they have chosen.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Birthday Poem (working title) continues
The shyest sparrow's supplications in the early evening trees
are a careful arpeggio - each note liberates a flotilla of leaves
fleeting, indeed, left scattered as archipelago in a dew-grass sea.
The song's begun: feathered entreaties lift from every hedgerow, every
field, join in one great arc of beak and wing and downy plume --
brief benediction for the worker trudging home, a heart-lifted pause
at day's end. Summer's pages fall. Leaf by leaf, they shorten days,
strip bare the trunks, spill forth a concertina of split, sagging plums,
crimson globes -- Demeter's heart strung low against the blue note
sky. Furrowed fields lie flat beneath the tramp of corn-fed feet.
The scene is set, two candles lit, another year opens a window
through which we pass in streak of silver, burst of wheels' screech, breath
of horns' bright blasting. Inside, the chink of glass against china,
bubble of laughter tossed from one guest to the next draws us
to warmth, the blissful promise of shared experience. How it swells
the soul's bright plumage! A winking flame copies itself on the clean
slope of the knife before it passes. The reflection flickers: and beyond
the window frame, a final guest hesitates in mauve-hued shadow, ghost
of Keats maybe, listening still, reticent, reluctant to eschew autumn's
arias or chorus.
are a careful arpeggio - each note liberates a flotilla of leaves
fleeting, indeed, left scattered as archipelago in a dew-grass sea.
The song's begun: feathered entreaties lift from every hedgerow, every
field, join in one great arc of beak and wing and downy plume --
brief benediction for the worker trudging home, a heart-lifted pause
at day's end. Summer's pages fall. Leaf by leaf, they shorten days,
strip bare the trunks, spill forth a concertina of split, sagging plums,
crimson globes -- Demeter's heart strung low against the blue note
sky. Furrowed fields lie flat beneath the tramp of corn-fed feet.
The scene is set, two candles lit, another year opens a window
through which we pass in streak of silver, burst of wheels' screech, breath
of horns' bright blasting. Inside, the chink of glass against china,
bubble of laughter tossed from one guest to the next draws us
to warmth, the blissful promise of shared experience. How it swells
the soul's bright plumage! A winking flame copies itself on the clean
slope of the knife before it passes. The reflection flickers: and beyond
the window frame, a final guest hesitates in mauve-hued shadow, ghost
of Keats maybe, listening still, reticent, reluctant to eschew autumn's
arias or chorus.
Now, along the bay, the pulse of song ticks out again in joyous iteration,
a boy kicks a ball against a wall, a sole finch adds bebop syncopation. Gabble,
and its consistency of warm honey dampen the tenor, the tune -- best left out
in the tang of sharpened daylight. Shadows unwilling to retreat
stand shoulder-to-shoulder and beat the day's thrum chanting come, cold,
come, dark, come firelight, we too have our part. Gladly, watch effulgence fade,
into this gentler glow of murmured crackle and spark-fed thoughts. Each year
is gathered and falls away in a clap of digits, up from nothing to where
we find ourselves surrounded. It's come to this: the riffle of breath, the winking
flame. One is out, then the other. Stay with us, poet, it's time to start over.
final update 11:20 am, Tuesday April 15 from Wellington - the final poem posted April 15
by Melissa Green, Claire Beynon, Saradha Koirala, Janis Freegard, T. Clear, Catherine Bateson, Renee Liang, Elizabeth Welsh, Alicia Ponder, Tim Jones, Kathleen Jones, Helen McKinlay, Helen Lowe, Eileen Moeller, Orchid Tierney, Susan T. Landry, Keith Westwater, Belinda Hollyer, Harvey Molloy, Bernadette Keating, Andrew M. Bell, Michelle Elvy, Catherine Fitchett, P.S. Cottier, Helen Rickerby, Mary McCallum.
Editor: Mary McCallum, TP co-curator
Tuesday Poem is two years old, and to celebrate we're writing another global poem. Twenty-six of our 31 poets living in six countries and 12 different cities will contribute a line each over 14 days to create it.
The global birthday poem kicks off at one minute past midnight on April 3, 2012 with a line from Boston poet Melissa Green - who also celebrates a birthday on April 3. Co-curator Claire Beynon (a New Zealander but currently in Ibiza, Spain) contributes the second line ten hours later, with Saradha Koirala from Wellington New Zealand posting at 6pm NZ time. The next day, it's Janice Freegard of Wellington in the morning and T Clear of Seattle in the evening, and on it goes until Tuesday April 17 when I post the final line and add a title.
The posts will be twice a day, usually around 8 am and 6 pm NZ Time, with some variations either side. Go to our global poem page to see who posts when and how, and remember to pop back to see how the poem unfolds and to cheer us on. Here's our first birthday poem, Tuesday.
Yes, Tuesday Poem is two years old. It began here on April 13 2010 after a casual start with a bunch of poets on my blog O Audacious Book , and has been posting every week since, bar a couple of weeks off over summer. Our Tuesday Poets take turns to be editor, and this involves selecting a poem, getting permission to run it, and writing up a response. It's that personal choice and response which, we believe, makes our posts so interesting and engaging for readers. Each of our poets also posts a Tuesday Poem each week on his or her own blog -- their own poems and poems they admire written by others. Look to the sidebar for those.
We have had so many wonderful poets and postings this year we can't begin to list the 'best of'. Fellow curator Claire Beynon and I bow deeply to the wonder of this - that a bunch of 30 poets (31 in fact) from six countries can work together to produce something so exciting, so profound, so community, so poetry and with so few hitches. Claire lives in Dunedin, I live in Wellington, and we've only met once ever, but we email, we talk by phone, and mostly TP progresses effortlessly giving poets and poems a platform and celebrating poetry in all its guises.
Our thanks to all our Tuesday Poets - including those who are on sabbatical or are in the alumni file - and to our guest editors, and all our followers and supporters. Reel through our posts - use the search in the sidebar - click on our Tuesday Poets sites - and see what it is we have here.
Nga mihi -
Happy Birthday -
Mary McCallum and Claire Beynon (curators)
a boy kicks a ball against a wall, a sole finch adds bebop syncopation. Gabble,
and its consistency of warm honey dampen the tenor, the tune -- best left out
in the tang of sharpened daylight. Shadows unwilling to retreat
stand shoulder-to-shoulder and beat the day's thrum chanting come, cold,
come, dark, come firelight, we too have our part. Gladly, watch effulgence fade,
into this gentler glow of murmured crackle and spark-fed thoughts. Each year
is gathered and falls away in a clap of digits, up from nothing to where
we find ourselves surrounded. It's come to this: the riffle of breath, the winking
flame. One is out, then the other. Stay with us, poet, it's time to start over.
final update 11:20 am, Tuesday April 15 from Wellington - the final poem posted April 15
by Melissa Green, Claire Beynon, Saradha Koirala, Janis Freegard, T. Clear, Catherine Bateson, Renee Liang, Elizabeth Welsh, Alicia Ponder, Tim Jones, Kathleen Jones, Helen McKinlay, Helen Lowe, Eileen Moeller, Orchid Tierney, Susan T. Landry, Keith Westwater, Belinda Hollyer, Harvey Molloy, Bernadette Keating, Andrew M. Bell, Michelle Elvy, Catherine Fitchett, P.S. Cottier, Helen Rickerby, Mary McCallum.
Editor: Mary McCallum, TP co-curator
Tuesday Poem is two years old, and to celebrate we're writing another global poem. Twenty-six of our 31 poets living in six countries and 12 different cities will contribute a line each over 14 days to create it.
The global birthday poem kicks off at one minute past midnight on April 3, 2012 with a line from Boston poet Melissa Green - who also celebrates a birthday on April 3. Co-curator Claire Beynon (a New Zealander but currently in Ibiza, Spain) contributes the second line ten hours later, with Saradha Koirala from Wellington New Zealand posting at 6pm NZ time. The next day, it's Janice Freegard of Wellington in the morning and T Clear of Seattle in the evening, and on it goes until Tuesday April 17 when I post the final line and add a title.
The posts will be twice a day, usually around 8 am and 6 pm NZ Time, with some variations either side. Go to our global poem page to see who posts when and how, and remember to pop back to see how the poem unfolds and to cheer us on. Here's our first birthday poem, Tuesday.
Yes, Tuesday Poem is two years old. It began here on April 13 2010 after a casual start with a bunch of poets on my blog O Audacious Book , and has been posting every week since, bar a couple of weeks off over summer. Our Tuesday Poets take turns to be editor, and this involves selecting a poem, getting permission to run it, and writing up a response. It's that personal choice and response which, we believe, makes our posts so interesting and engaging for readers. Each of our poets also posts a Tuesday Poem each week on his or her own blog -- their own poems and poems they admire written by others. Look to the sidebar for those.
We have had so many wonderful poets and postings this year we can't begin to list the 'best of'. Fellow curator Claire Beynon and I bow deeply to the wonder of this - that a bunch of 30 poets (31 in fact) from six countries can work together to produce something so exciting, so profound, so community, so poetry and with so few hitches. Claire lives in Dunedin, I live in Wellington, and we've only met once ever, but we email, we talk by phone, and mostly TP progresses effortlessly giving poets and poems a platform and celebrating poetry in all its guises.
Our thanks to all our Tuesday Poets - including those who are on sabbatical or are in the alumni file - and to our guest editors, and all our followers and supporters. Reel through our posts - use the search in the sidebar - click on our Tuesday Poets sites - and see what it is we have here.
Nga mihi -
Happy Birthday -
Mary McCallum and Claire Beynon (curators)
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Birthday Poem (working title 1)
The shyest sparrow's supplications in the early evening trees
are a careful arpeggio - each note liberates a flotilla of leaves
fleeting, indeed, left scattered as archipelago in a dew-grass sea
fleeting, indeed, left scattered as archipelago in a dew-grass sea
this poem continues line by line from April 3 to April 17 2012
see April 10 posting for the next update and April 17 for the final post
by Melissa Green, Claire Beynon, Saradha Koirala so far ... more to come
Editor: Mary McCallum, TP co-curator
Tuesday Poem is two years old, and to celebrate we're writing another global poem. Twenty-six of our 31 poets living in six countries and 12 different cities will contribute a line each over 14 days to create it.
The global birthday poem kicks off at one minute past midnight on April 3, 2012 with a line from Boston poet Melissa Green - who also celebrates a birthday on April 3. Co-curator Claire Beynon (a New Zealander but currently in Ibiza, Spain) contributes the second line ten hours later, with Saradha Koirala from Wellington New Zealand posting at 6pm NZ time. The next day, it's Janice Freegard of Wellington in the morning and T Clear of Seattle in the evening, and on it goes until Tuesday April 17 when I post the final line and add a title.
The posts will be twice a day, usually around 8 am and 6 pm NZ Time, with some variations either side. Go to our global poem page to see who posts when and how, and remember to pop back to see how the poem unfolds and to cheer us on. Here's our first birthday poem, Tuesday.
Yes, Tuesday Poem is two years old. It began here on April 13 2010 after a casual start with a bunch of poets on my blog O Audacious Book , and has been posting every week since, bar a couple of weeks off over summer. Our Tuesday Poets take turns to be editor, and this involves selecting a poem, getting permission to run it, and writing up a response. It's that personal choice and response which, we believe, makes our posts so interesting and engaging for readers. Each of our poets also posts a Tuesday Poem each week on his or her own blog -- their own poems and poems they admire written by others. Look to the sidebar for those.
We have had so many wonderful poets and postings this year we can't begin to list the 'best of'. Fellow curator Claire Beynon and I bow deeply to the wonder of this - that a bunch of 30 poets (31 in fact) from six countries can work together to produce something so exciting, so profound, so community, so poetry and with so few hitches. Claire lives in Dunedin, I live in Wellington, and we've only met once ever, but we email, we talk by phone, and mostly TP progresses effortlessly giving poets and poems a platform and celebrating poetry in all its guises.
Our thanks to all our Tuesday Poets - including those who are on sabbatical or are in the alumni file - and to our guest editors, and all our followers and supporters. Reel through our posts - use the search in the sidebar - click on our Tuesday Poets sites - and see what it is we have here.
Nga mihi -
Happy Birthday -
Mary McCallum and Claire Beynon (curators)
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