While I was in South Shields (in the North-East of England) in August, I was lucky enough to attend a memorial reading of James Kirkup’s poetry at the local museum.  James Kirkup was a prominent British poet who was born in South Shields in 1918 and died earlier this year.  My interest in him was sparked by my friend Jean, who sent me a book of his poems after noticing we were both born in South Shields.

James Kirkup wrote dozens of poetry collections, several volumes of autobiography, plays, haiku, tanka and many translations.  He was the UK’s first poet-in-residence at an academic institution (at Leeds University in 1950) and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.  He held numerous awards, including the Atlantic Award for Literature from the Rockefeller Foundation, the P.E.N. Club Prize for Poetry, the Scott-Moncrieff Prize for Translation and the Japan Festival Foundation Award. 

James Kirkup lived in Japan for many years, but spent the last part of his life in Andorra.  He was a conscientious objector during the second world war and one of his collections is titled ‘No More Hiroshimas’.  In “Not Cricket”, he writes about those experiences:

“I, too, remember brutal overseers

In the labour camps of Britain, men

Who could only relish power

If they could degrade, mock, punish

With violence as sad as any commandant’s

With anger that reveals the heart of war.”

and in “White Shadows”, he commemorates a man “annihilated in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima” who left only his white shadow:

 “Your shade – poor forked human creature – fled

Like a mist of dew on morning glories.  Your breath

Evaporated, taken away, lost soul, before

You even had time to scream.  Your shade was white.”

 Another collection, ‘The Body Servant’, contains a sequence of poems about parts of the body:

 “CHEST

Box, barrel, bastion

of the heart and lungs,

rigid with side-

winding ribs, yet

accordion-pleated,

bagpipes, bellows of bone

breathing like the sea…”

James Kirkup was gay and the publication of one of his poems in Britain’s Gay News in 1976 led to Britain’s last successful prosecution for blasphemy.  Amazingly, it is still banned in Britain today.  If you want to read it, you can find it here http://www.annoy.com/history/doc.html?DocumentID=100045, but the poet would probably rather be remembered for such poems as “A Correct Compassion” (dedicated to Mr. Philip Allison, after watching him perform a Mistral Stenosis Valvulotomy in the General Infirmary in Leeds), which begins:
“Cleanly, sir, you went to the core of the matter.
Using the purest kind of wit, a balance of belief and art,
You with a curious nervous elegance laid bare
The root of life, and put your finger on its beating heart.”

The memorial reading I attended was organised by Red Squirrel Press, who published one of Kirkup’s collections (Marsden Bay) recently and who have a reprint of one of his other books coming out soon.  At another Red Squirrel Press event, publisher Sheila Wakefield kindly pointed us to some places where we’d be likely to see red squirrels – fast being edged out of their habitat by the American grey squirrels (though I gather this is as much about diseases as it is about competition) – but alas, they proved elusive on our searches.  Next time, maybe. 

More about James Kirkup and Red Squirrel Press here: http://www.redsquirrelpress.com/index.php?marsden

and a nice painting of him here:

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/library/spcoll/leedspoetry/kirkup.htm

The Voyagers science fiction poetry anthology is being launched around New Zealand this month. A list of dates and readers (shamelessly copied from Tim Jones’ blog) follows. I will be reading a poem from the book at the Wellington Central Library on Monday 19 October 2009 and at Paraparaumu Library on Tuesday 20 October. The book’s received a great review in the latest Listener (10-16 October) – good to see it’s making a splash, as editors Mark Pirie and Tim Jones had quite a journey getting it published.

There are all sorts of notable Kiwi poets in the book – Fleur Adcock, Kevin Ireland, Fiona Kidman, Alistair Campbell, Meg Campbell, Alistair Paterson, David Eggleton – I could go on. Have a browse in your local bookshop, go to a reading, write some yourself!

Voyagers Tour Events: Venues and Readers

Dunedin Public Library, 14 Oct, 5:30 pm. Join Sue Wootton, James Dignan, Tim Jones, David Karena-Holmes and IP Director Dr David Reiter to kick off the national tour of Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand.

Dunedin, Circadian Rhythm Café, 15 Oct, 7 pm. Our event here will feature Sue Wootton, Jenny Powell, James Dignan, David Eggleton, David Karena-Holmes, Tim Jones and David Reiter.

Christchurch, Madras Café, 16 Oct, 5 pm, with Owen Marshall, James Norcliffe, David Gregory, Tim Jones and David Reiter

Wellington Central Library, 19 Oct, 5:30 pm, with Janis
Freegard, Robin Fry, Helen Rickerby (tbc), Jack Perkins, Rachel McAlpine, Michael O’Leary, Marilyn Duckworth, Tim Jones, Mark Pirie and David Reiter

Kapiti Coast, Paraparaumu Library, 20 Oct, 5:30 pm for 6 pm,
featuring Puri Alvarez, Nic Hill, Helen Rickerby, Michael O’Leary, Janis Freegard and David Reiter

Hamilton, TBC, 21 Oct

Auckland Central Library, 22 Oct, 5.30pm, , with Raewyn Alexander, Jacqueline Ottaway, Iain Sharp, Michael Morrissey, Anna Rugis, Alastair Paterson, Iain Britton, Thomas Mitchell, Janet Charman and David Reiter

Devonport, 24 Oct, 6:30 pm, Depot Arts Space, with Iain Britton, Alistair Paterson, Andrew Fagan, Janet Charman, Anna Rugis, Thomas
Mitchell and David Reiter.

Everyone should go to Iceland. I’m trying to think of a synonym for cool. But, you know. That’s just how it is.

Left to right: an ice lagoon (glacier melting because of underground magma), a cafe we really liked in Reykjavik, shark meat drying at the shark museum

What do the above have in common, I hear you cry? Well, they are all journals which have published my work over the past month and a bit.

The Rebel Issue of Blackmail Press is available online here http://blackmailpress.com/Index25.html It will be launched in Wellington on Weds 16 September at 7:30 pm upstairs at the Thistle Inn. I have a couple of poems in the issue and will be reading them on the night, along with many other fine poets. (that is to say, I won’t be reading the fine poets; they will be reading their own work)

While I was overseas in August (Iceland and England, photos to come), three of my short stories were published in NZ journals: Bravado http://www.bravado.co.nz/PressReleaseBravado16.html Takahe http://www.takahe.org.nz/index.php and Viola Beadleton’s Compendium http://www.wellingtonwriters.com/violablog/

I was also pleased to hear that another story was “honourably mentioned” in the Momaya Press competition and will be published later this year.

In further poetry news, don’t forget tomorrow’s fundraiser at Paekakariki for the victims of the Princess Ashika Ferry Disaster in Tonga. Karlo Mila, Apirana Taylor, David Geary, Glenn Colquhoun and Te Roopu Kapa Haka o Paekakariki will perform. Starts at 2pm in the Paekakariki Memorial Hall, 98 The Parade, Paekakariki, Kapiti Coast.

Today I have the pleasure of interviewing Wellington-based poet Mary Cresswell. Mary is currently engaged in a “virtual book tour” to promote her new book Nearest and Dearest (Steele Roberts), an illustrated book of satiric poetry. On a virtual book tour, the author appears for brief interviews on a range of blogs rather than visiting different places—a much more environmentally friendly approach. Mary has already been interviewed by Tim Jones http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/.

Mary lives on the Kapiti Coast, though she’s also spent time living in the US, Germany and Japan. She holds a degree in history and English literature from Stanford University in California, and works as a freelance science editor and proofreader. Her first poetry book was the joint publication Millionaire’s Shortbread (University of Otago Press, 2003) with Mary-Jane Duffy, Mary Macpherson, and Kerry Hines.

Mary, you often use particular forms for your poetry. I enjoyed the sonnets in Nearest and Dearest such as “The Rake’s Wife’s Progress” and “The Office Manager Addresses her Mirror” (a wonderful parody of Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” which begins “Shall I wear the Gucci scarf today/ It’s far more lovely and more corporate” – see Tim’s blog for the full poem). You also make good use of rhyme schemes in your book. What is it about form and rhyme that appeals to you?

Early brainwashing, I expect. I had poetry recited to me long before I could read. I finished university in 1958, when modernism was still modern; the long gap between then and when I started reading (much less writing) serious poems again meant that I am ignorant of most late twentieth-century poetics. Free verse doesn’t come comfortably to me. I can start something in free verse, but I end up trying to link elements to each other: perhaps alliteration, perhaps changing words so the same/similar vowel sound wanders along through the poem, perhaps dragging a whole line down through the stanzas (“The Pass at Grasmere”).

But I don’t think I have any favourite forms that I tend to default to. I read poetry as much as I write it, and I’m always pleased to come across a new way of linking words, or to be reminded of an old way. Poetry is very much a spectator sport, I think.

I’m interested in your writing process or writing habit. Do you set aside regular time for writing? Is there a special place you go to or is it something that can happen anywhere?

I try to write something, anything, first thing in the morning but often I don’t. I read something every day, always. There are a couple of web sites I subscribe to: PoemHunter.com (generally trad) and Poetry Daily (poems.com; contemporary). Those two cover a lot of weird and wonderful territory, and I am sure there are more places. One way or another, they get me thinking.

I write in my study—on the computer—drink vast amounts of coffee. When I’m stuck, I go for a long walk, put the whole mess out of my mind, and read a thriller. It doesn’t bother me at all to put a poem aside, to forget about it.

How do you think your poetry has changed and developed over the years? What has led to those changes?

It’s only about a dozen years, but yes, there have been changes. I am more prepared to play with form and invent forms, rather than follow a set recipe, than I used to be. This is sometimes driven by the content— “Bigfoot in Love” in N&D stomps along in trochees (STOMP stomp), throws an iambic paddy (stomp STOMP) and then returns in more trochees to a predictable life as a control freak; I wanted to illustrate inflexibility. I admire the US poet laureate, Californian Kay Ryan, who is extraordinarily laconic but still incorporates an elegant variety of rhyme variations throughout her poems. Paul Muldoon and Thom Gunn are great to read, if you like form and like to watch people working with it happily … Marilyn Hacker, Marie Ponsot (both from the US), P. K. Page (Canada). Harryette Mullen (US) surfs meaning in a wonderful way. They’ve all been an education to me.

You publish widely overseas as well as in New Zealand. Have you noticed any differences in editors’ tastes? Are some poems more likely to appeal to an editor from the United States than one from New Zealand?

Yes, but I think this is partly because the US scene is so much bigger: they have space for a wide variety of editors. I would think more than twice about sending an experimental (visual or words) or satiric poem or a parody to most New Zealand journals, and my impression is that formal poetry is only beginning to come back.

And I don’t know the extent to which editorial decisions are driven by funding, how editors feel obliged to accommodate particular points of view about poetry/art/whatever in order to survive. I was terribly lucky as a science editor, in that my main job was to facilitate getting good information to people who needed it. I worried about the budget, but I didn’t have to worry about metaphysical issues.

Can you tell us about the illustrations in Nearest and Dearest?

The illustrations were done by prize-winning freelance illustrator Nikki Slade Robinson, who was suggested by Roger Steele and worked directly from the text of the poems. I love what she’s done: when I have finished writing a poem, I tend to think well, that’s finished and then send it to a journal, but Nikki has drawn out and then illustrated a personality from the various poems. And this was always more than I had seen in the poems, an additional dimension.

Nikki has been an illustrator since 1989 and has illustrated many children’s books, as well as illustrating for the corporate, public and advertising sectors. She’s also illustrated books by poet Glenn Colquhoun. 2009 saw the release of her first book as an author: children’s book That’s not Junk! published by Penguin.

To find out more about Nikki’s work you can visit her website www.penandink.co.nz

Finally, do you have good acceptance/ rejection stories you’d like to share?

Actually, I don’t. I usually send editors a choice of poems, rather than putting all my hopes into one. When an editor rejects the lot, I usually feel, oh, well, I’m just not their cup of tea and start thinking of somewhere else. There’s the occasional editor who speaks for the universe when turning me down, tells me loud and clear that Olympus simply isn’t hiring tea-ladies. That’s really offensive, and I try to go for a very long walk on the beach when that happens. A few editors will tell me why my work doesn’t suit, and that is welcome, a rare event. … Acceptances I can live with!

I can recommend Nearest & Dearest as a fine antidote to the recession. You can order copies here: http://www.steeleroberts.co.nz/

or here: http://www.fishpond.co.nz/

and read more about Mary here:

http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/Writers/Profiles/Cresswell,%20Mary

Exciting news that Cilla McQueen is NZ’s new poet laureate!  The National Library function to announce the appointment was very well attended this evening, which just goes to show what a huge level of support there is for poetry in this country (and I do think Sam Hunt, Hone Tuwhare, Alistair Campbell and Jan Kemp can take some credit for that, given their wonderful touring poetry show of NZ schools back in 1979?  which even National Library Minister Nathan Guy mentioned tonight.)

Cheers to Cilla, and of course to outgoing poet laureate Michele Leggott, who’s done a fine job of promoting poetry all over the country during her “reign”.  (I did think that Michele should have selected the next laureate by lining up all the poets and chucking the specially carved laureate tokotoko over her shoulder and seeing who caught it – maybe next time…)

Cilla McQueen, based in Bluff, has a long commitment to NZ poetry.  More about her here http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/mcqueencilla.html

She’s an interesting choice, given she’s one of the more “popular” poets and a frequent user of humour.  Let’s hope Cilla hits the schools and the streets and continues to bring poetry alive!

For Wellingtonians of a poetic bent, this coming week is going to be busy! Monday 20 July has ‘Best NZ Poems’ at Te Papa at 12:15 http://tepapa.govt.nz/WhatsOn/allevents/Pages/WritersonMondaysBestNewZealandPoems2008.aspx and the regular NZ Poetry Society meeting at 7:30pm at the Thistle Inn, featuring Lynn Davidson http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/poetrynews#nzps

Friday 24 July is, of course, Montana Poetry Day (yay!) and there are poetry treats all over New Zealand. Check out details at http://www.booksellers.co.nz/mpd_local.htm Unity Books has a great line-up of local poets reading at lunchtime – unfortunately I can’t make it, but I’m hoping to get along to the Newtown Public Library’s Open Mic session at 6:30pm. (oops – if you read this earlier, you would have seen an incorrect time – I’m told it really is 6:30pm) Unity also has a launch of Diana Bridge’s new book at 6pm.

Also, look out for Mary Cresswell’s virtual book tour later this month. I will be interviewing Mary on this blog about her latest publication Nearest and Dearest.

Yesterday, I did not climb a mountain or wrestle a bear. I did not wake up in a log cabin and eat porcupines for breakfast. There was no snow outside my window.

Nobody gave me flowers; nobody wished me a Happy Easter; nobody invited me to stay in a villa in Tuscany over summer. I did not drink a bottle of champagne.

I was not asked to audition for a Broadway musical; I did not put the finishing touches to my best-selling novel; I did not fly through the air on a trapeze. I found no diamonds under my pillow. My eyebrows did not turn blue. I did not faint.

I didn’t spend the day digging up petunias from the Botanical Gardens and replanting them along the motorway. No-one sculpted a life-sized statue of Elvis for my front lawn. The circus did not come to town.

I did not send Christmas cards to everyone in the phone book whose surname begins with ‘V’. I neither walked across the Nullabor nor swam with crocodiles.

I did not dine at the Ritz. I was not compelled to abseil from the top of the Eiffel Tower. I was not chased by a swarm of killer bees or a great white shark. I was not in a coach that was held up by a highwayman.

I did not head south for winter or eat butterflies.

But I did go up in a balloon.

© Janis Freegard

http://www.radionz.co.nz/__data/assets/audio_item/0011/1970633/art-20090607-1445-Chapter_and_Verse_Voyagers,_sci-fi_poetry-m048.asx
Mark Pirie & Tim Jones talk to Lynn Freeman on Radio NZ about Voyagers, the new NZ science fiction poetry collection.

I may be biased – having a poem in the collection myself – but I’m finding it a great assortment of established and new poets with a wide range of poetic styles and interpretation of what science fiction poetry actually is.

There is a new book out, about New Zealanders who were involved in the Spanish Civil War. My personal knowledge of the Spanish Civil War begins and ends with The Clash’s Spanish Bombs – which is probably my all-time favourite Clash song (and that’s saying something). Personally, my main interest in war is to try to stop it, but I appreciate remembrances for those who fought/ died/ nursed etc. This is an important new work, telling the personal stories of New Zealanders who were involved. Mark Derby is the editor.

Peter Clayworth (my partner) has two articles in it and it will be launched in Wellington at Unity Books on 28 May (Budget Day)

More here

Kiwi Companeros

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0905/S00142.htm

http://c20c.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/kiwi-companeros-new-zealand-and-the-spanish-civil-war/

http://books.scoop.co.nz/2009/05/09/homage-to-aotearoas-anti-fascists/

brief

…and I have a poem/prose poem/piece in the latest brief

http://sydreef.blogspot.com/2009/04/issue-37-april-2009.html