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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
I’m delighted to be interviewing poet, novelist and short story writer Tim Jones about his latest collection of poetry, Men Briefly Explained, as part of his virtual book tour. (And no, that’s not Tim pictured on the cover, but there is a photo of him at the bottom of this post.) It’s a very enjoyable book, which I’ve already read twice and intend to read again.
Tim’s previous publications include poetry collections Boat People and All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens, short story collections Transported and Extreme Weather Events, and a novel, Anarya’s Secret. He is also co-editor of Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, which won “Best Collected Work” in the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Awards, the same year he was awarded the NZSA Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature.
First of all, Tim, how did your recent “real-world” book tour go? Any particular highlights?
The highlight of the whole tour was meeting up with friends – both people I already knew in person and enjoyed catching up with again, and people, especially poets, I knew only from the Internet before this.Of all the launch events, I think the Friday night event at the Rona Gallery in Eastbourne, which is part of Lower Hutt in local body terms but feels to me a lot like the seaside suburbs of Wellington, was my favourite. The staff are friendly and knowledgeable (plus there are two Tuesday Poets within their ranks!), the venue is great: you walk into an excellent bookshop and, at a certain point, it morphs into an excellent gallery – what’s not to like? There was a good crowd who laughed at all my jokes (which is, of course, the true measure of success!), books were bought and nibbles nibbled – it was a really good time.But another highlight (and it is so strange for me, an avowed South Islander, to be selecting only North Island highlights) was to read poetry for the first time in Auckland. I wasn’t at my best by by that stage, as I had picked up a cold, I was tired, and the rain was bucketing down, but I have always been nervous about reading in Auckland, and it felt good to break through that particular barrier. It was good of PoetryLive to let Keith Westwater, Dr David Reiterand I be part of their regular weekly readings series.
How does this latest book fit into your body of work to date? Is it a departure from or a continuation of themes from your previous collections?
There have been poems about men, masculinity and growing up male in each of my two previous collections, Boat People and All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens. The difference this time is that, having initially put together a number of such poems as a chapbook (which I was going to called “Guy Thing” – I’m glad I changed the title!), I then decided to go on and write more poems around these themes, rather than (as in my previous collections) having a collection with several sections, each devoted to a theme or style of poem.
The other difference is that my two previous collections each had a section of science fiction and speculative poetry, whereas this one doesn’t – I guess only “As you know, Bob” and “In A World Without Pity, A Town Without Fear” would qualify as speculative poetry. I’ve just joined the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and even guest-edited an issue of their online magazine Eye To The Telescope this year, so I think this is a temporary aberration – perhaps not much science fiction is needed to explain men!
I gather that these poems were written over a five-year period. Did your approach to writing poems about men change as you went along?
As noted above, having initially discovered that I was writing a number of poems about men and planning to bring them together in a chapbook, I then decided to go for a collection. I don’t usually write with a theme in mind before I start – I usually write first, and look for themes later – so this took a bit of adjustment. Once I got underway on these poems, especially the ones about older men near the end of the book, though, I found that they came quite quickly and relatively easily.
I think I might try writing more themed collections in future – in fact, I have a couple of possible themes in mind for future poetry collections, plus another chapbook idea. I like chapbooks a lot – I am determined to put one together at some point.
You write award-winning fiction as well as poetry. Do you work on your various projects concurrently or sequentially?
I find that I can’t work on a novel and short fiction at the same time, but I have at times been able to work on fiction and poetry at the same time – well, say, a morning on one and an afternoon on the other. I’m concentrating on short fiction at the moment – I went through a nervous time when there seemed to be a blockage between the short story ideas I had squirrelled away and my ability to turn them into stories, but I feel (I hope) as though the knack is beginning to return.
I have many favourites in this book: poems about love, like happened to meet and Honey Moon; Return to Nussbaum Reigel; and the very entertaining Men Briefly Explained:
”My friend and I are talking at
the most attractive woman in the room.
We’re talking big: theories, hypotheses,
each wilder than the rest.
How huge our brains must be!”
What’s your own personal favourite?
That’s a tough question, because it’s like being asked to choose between one’s children. Then again, I only have one child, so [puts names of poems on folded slips of paper in hat, swirls slips of paper around, without looking, pulls out a slip] … my favourite poem is “Thinning”! It’s kind of gloomy and I stopped reading it at readings because it was depressing everyone too much, but I’m particularly pleased with that one. My favourite poem to read out loud is “Men Briefly Explained” itself – I’ve noticed that it’s mainly women who appreciate that one.
What’s next on the writing agenda?
Another collection of short stories, and again, I have a theme in mind as I write them. Right now, I have a couple of published but uncollected stories that fit with the theme, a couple more completed but unpublished stories, and a whole bunch of first drafts, bits of stories, and story ideas – which sometimes consist of no more than a title! So there is a lot to do yet, but I’m enjoying the process.
Links to more interviews on Tim’s virtual book tour here.
How To Buy A Copy Of Men Briefly Explained (a perfect Christmas gift for a poetry fan near you!)
Men Briefly Explained is published by Interactive Press (IP) of Brisbane. You can find out more about Men Briefly Explained, and buy it direct from the publisher, on IP’s mini-site for the book: http://www.ipoz.biz/Titles/MBE.htm
On Tim’s Men Briefly Explained page, there are more options for buying the book in person and online, plus latest reader reactions and reviews: http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/p/men-briefly-explained.html
painting by Mary McIntyre
The latest reviews of Kingdom Animalia: the Escapades of Linnaeus come from Emma Neale in the NZ Listener (December 3 -9 2011):
“…Freegard is equal parts jester and scientist…the collection is as much about human follies, infringements, betrayals and tenderness as it is about the habits and habitats of our animal cousins.”
Sarah Jane Barnett in Landfall:
“There is a lot to enjoy in Kingdom Animalia. Freegard’s poetry is sharp and funny; she is the poet next door who I immediately like.”
and Joanna Preston in A Fine Line (the NZ Poetry Society newsletter):
“At its best, Kingdom Animalia is delicious – often funny, frequently touching, unmistakeably modern, and full of swerves and quirks and strange reverses.”
Earlier reviews had this to say:
Paula Green in the NZ Herald (1 November 2011):
“…Freegard has glued the breach between poetry and science with lyricism, inventiveness, research, playfulness and miniature bursts of storytelling. Fascinating.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/books/news/article.cfm?c_id=134&objectid=10763178
Patricia Prime in Takahē 73 (Winter 2011):
“…Freegard’s is a restless poetry, expressing contemporary angst within a context of travel, or analyzing the stopping-places, trying to see clearly, and identifying with the flora and fauna. Yet there is also a need to try and anchor the poems to the modern world.”
http://www.takahe.org.nz/review/Takahe73KingdomAnimalia.pdf
Tedi Busch in the Nelson Mail (30 July 2011):
“…The author’s imagination is infinite. In just one piece a witch teaches her to fly like a humming bird while advising a man from Japan about his cup of spaghetti and notes that our minds have minds of their own. Hers certainly does; I think I’ll go and read this all over again.”
and Hamesh Wyatt in the Otago Daily Times:
“…There is plenty of subversive humour and a little self-indulgence but never a dull moment. …….Kingdom Animalia: The Escapades of Linnaeus will get under your skin something fierce. It’s neat to have something brand-new and shiny.”
http://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/books/164172/plenty-evidence-osullivans-lesson
Other links:
An interview about the book with Veronika Meduna on ‘Our Changing World’ poetry-and-science.asx
and with Tim Jones on his blog.
Kingdom Animalia also has its own Facebook page.
Image via Wikipedia
Of Many Worlds in This World
Just like as in a nest of boxes round,
Degrees of sizes in each box are found:
So, in this world, may many others be
Thinner and less, and less still by degree:
Although they are not subject to our sense,
A world may be no bigger than two-pence.
Nature is curious, and such works may shape,
Which our dull senses easily escape:
For creatures, small as atoms, may there be,
If every one a creature’s figure bear.
If atoms four, a world can make, then see
What several worlds might in an ear-ring be:
For, millions of those atoms may be in
The head of one small, little, single pin.
And if thus small, then ladies may well wear
A world of worlds, as pendents in each ear.
Another poem from the inimitable Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673), Duchess of Newcastle, poet, science fiction author and the first woman invited to attend the Royal Society. I posted about her last year, too.
“I would rather die in the adventure of noble achievements than live in obscure and sluggish security.”
Yesterday marked the 29th anniversary of Neil Roberts’ death. Neil blew himself up outside the Wanganui Computer Centre in 1982, as a protest action. Here’s a link to an earlier post about Neil.
No Future – in memory of Neil Roberts.
and here’s a photo I stole off the Neil Roberts – New Zealand’s own Guy Fawkes Facebook page.
On Thursday (17 November 2011), sometime after 9pm, I will be talking to Veronika Meduna on Our Changing World on National Radio and reading a few poems from Kingdom Animalia: the Escapades of Linnaeus.
The words on the beach, “This is a day for the eating of clouds” are busy settling into a poem now that the tide has swept them away. They originally came from me mishearing “It’s cloudy today” as “It’s cloud-eater day”. I like the cloud-eater version better.
It’s so good to see all the pingao around Island Bay now the council has fenced it off. Many years ago (over the 1985/86 summer) I did a coastal vegetation survey with Yvonne Weeber for the Wellington Harbour Board (best job I’ve ever had!) and it was very exciting every time we found a struggling pingao plant clinging on amongst the marram. Now they’re thriving – hurrah!
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