tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50198058492360851672024-03-14T06:01:43.688+13:00This is Writing?Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.comBlogger133125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-18712233955292923122014-04-01T17:58:00.002+13:002014-04-01T17:58:32.800+13:00The social review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
And here's that follow-up. Only 2 years later.<br />
<br />
Here's a selection of comments...<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">"densely packed internal 'chimes'"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">"short, punchy and wonderful poem</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">s/pieces/paragraphs</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Amazing!"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div>
Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-23142620250195734362012-10-02T10:13:00.000+13:002012-10-02T10:17:39.912+13:00A Man Runs into a Woman Who Runs into a Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8ysGL85I5zs/UGoIZJjvEyI/AAAAAAAAA-Q/6RRy30Vosjg/s1600/Sarah-Jane-Barnett-292x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8ysGL85I5zs/UGoIZJjvEyI/AAAAAAAAA-Q/6RRy30Vosjg/s200/Sarah-Jane-Barnett-292x300.jpg" width="194" /></a></div>
<i>A Man Runs into a Woman</i> is
the first book of poems by Sarah Barnett and the first publication
off the shelf of <a href="http://hueandcry.org.nz/press.html">H<span id="goog_1499492051"></span>ue and Cry Press</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_1499492052"></span></a>. I have known both Sarah and Chloe
(editor-in-chief at Hue and Cry) for a few years and was thrilled to
hear some of the poems I've been reading in early draft form were to
make themselves into the wider world.<br />
<div class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Chloe used
PledgeMe, a New Zealand crowd-sourcing website, to raise the funds
for this book. It broke the PledgeMe record for reaching its target. </div>
<div class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Usually I write reviews on this blog or at Scoop Books, but seeing as
this book was delivered into the world with the aid of social
collaboration I thought I would try and kick off some kind of social-review. So please, if you have read this book or you are about to, add a
review on goodreads.com. You can give it a star rating and even
better, a few quick thoughts. </div>
<div class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I’m intending a follow-up post with some of the pithier comments collected together. So add your comments, the pithier the better.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For A Man Runs into a Woman on Goodreads go <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16000586-a-man-runs-into-a-woman">here</a>. </div>
<div class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Other links:</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/artsonsunday/audio/2534107/a-man-runs-into-a-woman">Radio NZ interview with Sarah</a><span id="goog_1763992802"></span><span id="goog_1763992803"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u58igKW--Lc">Sarah discussing her creative PhD project and reading some poems</a></div>
</div>
Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-55013915029657722842012-09-14T10:00:00.000+12:002012-09-14T10:07:52.959+12:00Hot hot hot: Say So by Dora Malech<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XlJb38Xd4bE/UEggFRoWgII/AAAAAAAAA9Q/D6obNy8c9nU/s1600/saysocover1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" hea="true" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XlJb38Xd4bE/UEggFRoWgII/AAAAAAAAA9Q/D6obNy8c9nU/s200/saysocover1.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://doramalech.com/">Dora Malech's</a> latest book, <em><a href="http://doramalech.com/books/">Say So</a></em> was bought on auto-buy. Ever since I heard her read at The Wellington City Gallery in 2007 I was permanently sold. Hinemoana reckoned it was because she was pretty. And she was hot, I admit it, but so was her poetry, like nothing else I'd heard.<br />
<br />
And 'hot' is a good word for her work I think. The poems are like little language boilers, the words bounce off each other, they steam up and bubble over. Sometimes it feels like she is playing word association games, tumbling around randomly and then somehow, and I don't really know how, she pulls it all together into something profound. This is not easy to do, but she does it over and over again, sometimes more successfully, but always with a skill and intelligence that is infectious. If one of her poems seem like a boiled surface at first, after a few more reads and a narrative or at least a common subject starts to rise up and show itself. They are brilliant.</div>
<br />
Her work hasn't changed too much is style or voice from her earlier work. The concerns are the same and the result is the same. <em>Say So </em>seems like a small progression, in that way visual artists (and Dora is also a visual artist) progress their work, in incremental steps. I guess the idea being nobody gets it if you do that thing once, but if you do it a hundred times, you inch your way toward the artistic horizon.<br />
<br />
With this book I am beginning to see the brains as well as the beauty.</div>
Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-64452409433238242642012-08-29T11:26:00.002+12:002012-08-29T11:30:08.874+12:00Review: The Doors and Retromania<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<i>A couple of reviews I wrote that didn't make it on to the pages of Scoop Books.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uYDLma09H0k/UD1TCldgzfI/AAAAAAAAA84/8o2aifNSQrE/s1600/the_doors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uYDLma09H0k/UD1TCldgzfI/AAAAAAAAA84/8o2aifNSQrE/s200/the_doors.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<b>The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years</b><br />
<b>Greil Marcus</b><br />
<b>Faber and Faber 2011</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...there's a lift in Jim Morrison's voice for the first two times he reaches for the word fire...always he communicates that as an idea that word is new to him...You've heard the word in the song, but you haven't begun to follow the fire as far as it goes – that's the feeling.</blockquote>
As teenager in the 1990s I can testify to the enduring relevance of The Doors. Even if now I hardly give them a second thought, for a few mean years of my own they were everything to me – moody, complicated (so I thought) and subversive. Looking back now it must have been the release of the Oliver Stone film a few years before that brought them to the cultural attention of pimply teens like myself, but at the time it seemed like every generation must have been into The Doors, that was how awesome and eternal they were.<br />
<br />
The Doors, according to Greil Marcus, were both a myth and, at the same time, the real deal. They were as stunning in success as they were in failure and much of this happened in the same song, in the same line sung at different performances. Marcus covers different gigs he attended and recordings he has since pored over – different versions of the same song played entirely differently each time. In precise detail he goes through every high-hat clasp, every swirling organ/guitar duel and every incantation of the Jim Morrison lyric. Marcus is a master of describing sound and band dynamics so that a song reads like a tight three act play. There is drama and intelligence in the songs and in the writing.<br />
<br />
Chapters cover performances of many of The Doors well known hits. There is a long extended chapter on the 'So-called Sixties' as he describes it, detailing the myth-building of The Doors brand as representative of the myth-building of the sixties as a whole. The book starts and ends with chapters on the song 'Light My Fire'. At times the territory he covers is as rambling as a Doors live performance, but he always makes interesting points along the way and the journey is worth it, if even just to get to the next performance.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Already in 1968 The Doors were performing not freedom but its disappearance. This is what is terrifying: the notion that the Sixties was no grand, simple, romantic time to sell others as a nice place to visit, but a place, even as it is created, people know they can never really inhabit, and never escape.</blockquote>
'The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years' has enough intelligence and cultural relevance to appeal to anyone who is into music and good writing about music. And Doors fans will find plenty of new insights and detail on the songs, band and times to keep them happy. Just don't expect any sensationalist exposé, this book is by and for the music, refreshingly stripped of the myths that often surround the Doors.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-361eaYSS4x4/UD1TLscLWdI/AAAAAAAAA9A/Gvh3CvMz5ak/s1600/retromaniaBformatprototype.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-361eaYSS4x4/UD1TLscLWdI/AAAAAAAAA9A/Gvh3CvMz5ak/s200/retromaniaBformatprototype.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>
<b>Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to its own Past</b><br />
<b>Simon Reynolds</b><br />
<b>Faber and Faber 2011</b><br />
<br />
In Paul Reynolds categorisation of the past my Doors would be an antiquity, their value would be as a historical reference. Retro as he defines it concerns artefacts from living memory. The Doors are older than my lifetime, Thriller by Michael Jackson isn't, and if I was to get a t-shirt of Michael Jackson stroking a tiger I would be succumbing to 'retromania', a phenomena sweeping the world according to Reynolds.<br />
<br />
He goes to great lengths to pinpoint the exact date when we became obsessed with our own past. He puts up various years by pulling out references from music, fashion, architecture and art. He decides ultimately that the decades following an output of pure originality is followed by a down period where we rehash past glories unable to move forward. With music he argues the 1970s and 2000s are two decades where this has happened.<br />
<br />
This book weighs in at a fairly substantial 400 pages and over the course of the journey we go into almost every facet of British and American music for the last 50 years. He often uses example after example to make his point, which mostly consist of interesting facts, stories and comparisons between obscure and not so obscure artists. Sometimes this gets a bit much and I found many of the essays rehashing similar ideas, but through a different lens. He is nothing if not thorough, but for me it felt like the ideas were loaded down by too many anecdotes.<br />
<br />
Anyone interested in pop-culture theory and particularly music, will get a lot out of this. And those who find themselves trawling through second-hand shops looking for that big find, might be interested in the cultural context in which they operate.<br />
<br />
This is certainly an interesting and thoroughly researched work on originality and creative reuse. And like all books that choose to talk about one band over another it will spark both negative and positive agreement.</div>
Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-37424715860776880062012-07-26T08:30:00.000+12:002012-07-26T11:49:34.635+12:00White Space and Noise: A Review by Pip Adam<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tWWEFnvfOSk/UAfgtWfr-sI/AAAAAAAAA68/CwLuRyyBxx4/s1600/bengal.9780864737618.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tWWEFnvfOSk/UAfgtWfr-sI/AAAAAAAAA68/CwLuRyyBxx4/s1600/bengal.9780864737618.gif" /></a></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-style: italic;">Pip Adam is a fantastic writer whose stories are often like wild, driving poems. Geoff Cochrane is a writer whose poems are often like stories miniaturised and then thrown inside a glass bottle. I can't think of anyone better than Pip Adam to review a brand new Geoff Cochrane book.<br /><br />Geoff is reading on Friday as part of National Poetry day (12.30 at Unity Books Wellington).</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<b style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<b style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Review of THE BENGAL ENGINE’S MANGO AFTERGLOW</span></b></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;">By Pip Adam</span></b></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I’m writing to Lynn Jenner, she’s in Christchurch. ‘I’ve got the new Geoff Cochrane,' I write. 'I love it,’ I write. And then I add, ‘But I would.’</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Over the years, Cochrane’s work has been a joy to me, a solace, a proof that art can be made in New Zealand which shows us ourselves in new ways. I’ve taken permission from it to search for beauty in the places I stand and walk and fall in. It may be my temperament, I'm often on a swing from sanguine to melancholic, or my experience, I arrived in Hanmer Springs wearing winter boots on a hot February afternoon. The highest opinion I have of myself likes to think I love Cochrane’s work because it’s so crafted, so pinprick sharpened that I recognise something in it that singles me out as a ‘good reader’. But, really, it comes down to this: his work makes a noise which resonates with a noise inside me made from the things I believe about the act of writing and the act of reading. We have a special kind of light in New Zealand and I also think we have a special kind of dark. In the world I run, Geoff Cochrane goes to Frankfurt and everyone gathered stops in awe of what can be made from our here and now through the lens of our particular light and dark.</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Cochrane’s work is at its best in collection. I find myself restless during the time between books, when poems are drip fed at readings or in literary journals. It’s like getting a taste that won’t be satisfied until the book comes out. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Bengal Engine’s Mango Afterglow </i></span><span style="font-size: small;">is a beautifully balanced work. There’s a rhythm to the structure of the book which you can see even by flicking through it. The small untitled pieces hiccup amongst the longer works and the blocks of prose. Lines, asterisks, rows of o’s – the typographical decisions point to a larger language, an orchestra rather than a quartet. Damien Wilkins hits the nail on the head in his back cover quote which identifies ‘those books of poetry that seem fuller than fiction’. There is something that ties </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Bengal Engine’s Mango Afterglow </i></span><span style="font-size: small;">together in a way which seems to transcend conventional narrative but creates a cohesive hole. I always think of </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Worm in the Tequila </i></span><span style="font-size: small;">as the diabetes collection and I think maybe this is the ‘not giving up smoking’ collection. Of course this reduces the work in a ridiculous way but there is something very special going on with the structure and concerns of this book and it seems to have something to do storytelling – with how we order and make sense. It’s a work held together by fine filaments of image and sound and humour rather than cause and effect. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Bengal Engine’s Mango Afterglow </i></span><span style="font-size: small;">will sit on poetry shelves, and it’s right that it should, it is form extreme, but at night, I suspect, it will grow limbs and beat up some of the more comfortable collections.</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Luckily, Cochrane publishes often and one of the prizes of publishing often is a currency which plays with time and space in productive ways. In </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Bengal Engine’s Mango Afterglow, </i></span><span style="font-size: small;">t</span><span style="font-size: small;">he Telecom XT network breaks down, the Arab Spring tightens, Charlie Sheen asserts his right to drink, and into this immediacy collapses the past and the future and alternative states. </span><span style="font-size: small;">There are spacecraft and stories of World War 2.</span><span style="font-size: small;">The inclusion of </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Reading Kundera in Christchurch</i></span><span style="font-size: small;">,</span><span style="font-size: small;"> a poem 'completed early in 2010, before the ruinous quakes’ has the strange effect of lifting the curtain on a haunting parallel Christchurch where things have been allowed to go on. The ‘rescript, reshoot’ played out in the beautiful </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Mirrory Sunglasses </i></span><span style="font-size: small;">is tantalising like gossip and a playful act of re-remembering. </span><span style="font-size: small;">This layering of the possible, the hoped for, the dreaded over the tangible, pervasive noise of contemporary life builds a tension or perhaps a contingency which seems to put everything up for debate.</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-size: small;">One of the aspects of the collection I enjoyed was its concern with economics. The series of </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Pinksheets </i></span><span style="font-size: small;">which are scattered throughout the collection resonate with the rattle of economic downfall. Under a title stolen from the stock market Cochrane explores sounds and images which at first appear to be from outside the world of high finance. The </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Pinksheets </i></span><span style="font-size: small;">talk about writing ‘When I want to read a poem, I write one’ and smoking ‘I’ll always line up with the smokers. / I’ll always line up with the smokers, / but I’ll also always smoke.’ and Hemineurin ‘Half an anuerin molecule [</span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Hemi- </i></span><span style="font-size: small;">+ (a)</span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>neurin</i></span><span style="font-size: small;">]. / Found to prevent convulsions in epileptic rats. / Used to sedate alcoholics withdrawing from alcohol. / No longer manufactured, alas.’ In their economic incarnation pink sheets are written daily and Cochrane’s work as diary-like snatches but their title also made me think about how everything is tied to money, how much of our literature is written by the rich and that this seems inescapable because everything is tied to money.</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5019805849236085167" name="1389e2aa7ae69628_138698704432cc6d__GoBack" style="color: #1155cc;"></a><span style="font-size: small;">It’s hard and unhelpful I think to pick out poems and lines because I really believe this book has to be read and re-read as a whole. Many of the works and perhaps the work itself turn on a dime, single words chosen, certain rhythms taken change everything. It occurs to me what an intense pleasure it would be to read Cochrane's body of work from beginning to </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Bengal Engine's Mango Afterglow</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"> like some massive fantasy series. I feel sure the books would have new excitements and joy if taken as a whole. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Bengal Engine’s Mango Afterglow </i></span><span style="font-size: small;">is a perfect combination of craft and experience, flight and trudge, noise and white space.</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<br /></div>
</div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-57972086077094919862012-07-02T12:25:00.001+12:002012-07-25T16:09:05.862+12:00The Search - Review of Douglas Lilburn's Two Essays<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-NZ">A Search for Tradition & A Search for Truth<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-NZ">Douglas Lilburn<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KNZpqtGNWxI/UA9xVak6Q_I/AAAAAAAAA8Y/q2dU5Imn8GI/s1600/26309-atl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KNZpqtGNWxI/UA9xVak6Q_I/AAAAAAAAA8Y/q2dU5Imn8GI/s320/26309-atl.jpg" width="236" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-NZ">The Lilburn Residence Trust in association with VUP, </span><span style="background-color: white;">2011</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">For the first time Douglas Lilburn's legendary talks on
music, art and internship have been published in one volume. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">Individually, they are interesting enough – the
nationalistic post-war pride and new-found identity coming through in his 1946
talk and then the questing and individuality in a 1967 revisit, the
re-interpretation of his earlier beliefs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">But it is side by side that these essays really sparkle. As
Lilburn points out, he started out learning church-organ music at a
conservative <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Zealand</st1:place></st1:country-region>
music school and by the end of his career was creating avant garde electronic
compositions. It is not either of these two things on their own that made
Lilburn a great artist, although he produced beautiful compositions all through
his career, it is the extraordinary transition between them and the constant
re-framing of his creative life that made him truly great. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">The introductions to each talk, by J. M. Thomson, first
written in the mid 1980s, provide a useful insight and background to Lilburn.
The Rita Angus sketches and paintings, some published for the first time, are a
lovely reminder of Lilburn's company and influence among visual artists and
poets, both of which he references heavily in his talks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">I'm not sure I identify with everything Lilburn says, but
that's not surprising considering he developed his ideas several generations
earlier in a <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Zealand</st1:place></st1:country-region>
I would hardly recognise. But I do identify with the journey, the way he
changed and embraced change. And always with one foot firmly rooted in tradition,
wherever that may be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">Lilburn reminds me that as an audience member or reader I
often forget that art is a process and not a product. And that is who this book
is for – anyone interested in the history and, by association, future of culture, music and
art in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Zealand</st1:place></st1:country-region>.</span></div>
</div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-18675931616288170692012-06-24T16:31:00.000+12:002012-06-25T12:03:05.549+12:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mmRJUGVzfLo/T-FRZkeY6KI/AAAAAAAAA5Y/77CO7rZEdMA/s1600/TheSistersBrothers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mmRJUGVzfLo/T-FRZkeY6KI/AAAAAAAAA5Y/77CO7rZEdMA/s320/TheSistersBrothers.jpg" width="211" /></a><b><span lang="EN-AU">The Sisters Brothers<br />
Patrick de Witt<br />
</span></b><span lang="EN-AU">Published 2011 <br />
Granta<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU">From the opening chapter, this story
of two hired guns on a road trip to <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:state>
smells slightly funky. You can tell right away this isn't a Zane Gray western
or another version of <i>The Horse Whisperer</i>. The characters they meet are
all a little odd, or even completely bonkers – the leery old voodoo woman, a
weeping man, the prospector who drinks mud, a small boy who is abused and then
abandoned by his family and a mysterious clairvoyant girl who poisons dogs. De
Witt throws in these seeds of the bizarre into the gritty dirt and mud of the
old frontier.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU">The plot is a classic road trip
set-up and for most of the novel the two brothers, Eli and Charlie, spend their
time getting themselves into, and narrowly escaping from, various kinds of
trouble. Quick to pull their guns, they kill almost without thinking and the
action is brutal and vivid, although always filtered through a lens of
stylised prose and comedy. Like, after callously leaving a wet, naked
boy and his demented horse to their doom, Eli thinks to himself, 'Here is
another miserable mental image I will have to catalog and make room for.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU">The writing here is beautiful and
always slightly off-kilter. The characters use educated language, no 'dang it',
or 'get my gun Pa' type stuff here. Charlie calls over to Eli at one point,
'there is something in the air, a fortuitous energy'. It reminded me of a good
Coen brother's film, the hilarious dialogue, stylised violence and pilfering of
historical elements.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU">I've seen responses to this book
that question the lack of landscape or historical detail, but this is a novel
about character and at it's heart, a stylish black comedy. A lengthy
description of Sierra Nevadas just wouldn't fit here and the history is a
backdrop. Eli and Charlie don't fit the romantic notions of cowboys on the
range. They are cold, hard killers, who live in their own tiny and deluded
universes. I'm not saying this novel isn't rich in sensory detail, it is. At
times you can almost taste the dirt, sweat and blood of a time and place that
was truly wild.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU">Eventually they arrive in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">San Francisco</st1:place></st1:city> at the
height of the gold-rush. The city is overrun with obsessed and possessed people, going slowly
crazy with gold-fever. Eli and Charlie with their skewed moral values fit in
nicely and the mission takes an unexpected turn. It is at this point that the
story really comes alive and it seems less like a bunch of random events on a
road trip and becomes something complex with causes and effects. This is needed
at this point as some of the scenes seem unrelated and not particularly pulling
the story forward in the early stages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU">The fraternal relationship between
Eli and Charlie is always shifting and changing and sits at the core of the
novel. As Eli moves through the story he starts to fall out of his little
universe and sees Charlie and himself from a new perspective. He begins to
question their choices and occupation, not so much with a conscience, but with
a desire for things to just be different. This aspect seemed spot on and is
what the made the novel real and compelling for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5.65pt; mso-line-height-alt: 10.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU">This is one of the most entertaining
reads I've had for awhile and I would completely recommend it to anyone who
likes their novels a little bit strange, a little bit stylised and touched with
dark comedy. I'm sure this novel will go down well with the younger age-bracket. <i>The Sisters Brothers</i> reminds me of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i>Vernon</i></st1:place></st1:city><i> God Little </i>by DBC
Pierre. Like <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Pierre</st1:place></st1:city>,
De Witt seems able to show America through the lens of an 'outsider' and then
extract something fresh and inventive from those well-worn wagon trails.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-81612305627118897952012-06-15T10:40:00.001+12:002012-07-26T11:52:19.035+12:00I Got His Blood on Me and Teju Cole<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7rlUffx4ZoQ/T9pmmh5OcOI/AAAAAAAAA5E/wjdSmspdxIM/s1600/bloodonme.9780864737687.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7rlUffx4ZoQ/T9pmmh5OcOI/AAAAAAAAA5E/wjdSmspdxIM/s1600/bloodonme.9780864737687.gif" /></a></div>
I'm reading my friend, Lawrence Patchett's, debut book of short stories at the moment, <i>I Got His Blood on Me</i>. It was brilliant, obviously, and I am biased, but having known Lorry for quite a while and been to many group workshops where he has read my poems and provided feedback on others' work, I think I've only actually read a handful of his stories. Most of which were unfinished and in an early draft, so I am partially fresh on these I think.<br />
<br />
And that was proven in the very first story which carries the title of the book. I read an early draft of this story and at that stage it was only about a third of its current length and had some 'time-travel' paradox type issues from my point of view. But wow, how much richer, more complex and more balanced it is now. I am so impressed with his ability to rework something. And that is one thing I know about Lorry, he is the hardest working writer I know. His stories are long and complex and I know from talking to him he wrestles with them, with the characters, the plot, the structure. It's not easy for him to write a story, which may sound like a revelation, but it's not. Most of writers I know struggle horribly with their writing, a story or poem can be a bit like a pit bull terrier at times, it locks its jaws on to you and won't let go. You can pull it by its back legs, put a hose in its mouth, but in the end you just have to hang in there, persevere with it. And what happens in the end is the reader gets a perfectly formed work like 'I Got His Blood on Me', the reader oblivious to all the work that has gone on behind the scenes.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
I went and saw Teju Cole at Unity books a couple of days ago. He was incredibly smart and interesting and I want to read <i>Open City</i> very much. He also has a beard and bald head. I like that. One interesting thing he said about his book is that he is interested in the narrative of small moments, of individual sentences and then the narrative of the grand idea behind the book. It's the bits in between, commonly known as plot, that he is not so interested in. Fair enough point of view I think and an interesting way to write a novel, more poem-like or short-story like perhaps, but interesting all same<i>. </i>But part of me thinks, why can't we have all three, why can't we have the sentence, the plot and the theme? If you can nail all those at once, that is a truly great work of art I think.<br />
<br />
<i>I Got His Blood on Me</i> attempts to do just that. The plot is clear, simple, right there on the page. The motives are explained, the characters are tangible, you don't have to scratch your head reading between the lines, there's no ambiguity (at least not from the author anyway). On a simple story level, they are a pleasure to read. But then you dig down, burrow below and there is that other stuff, the crafted moments and descriptions, and of course the smattering of grand ideas - the appropriation of history, biography and the life of the 'other'. And there's no cheesy, easy endings either, this is a work of literature, you have to think to get the full value out of it. But if you just want a good old 'romp' - these stories will provide that in spades.<br />
<br />
I will be reading more<i> I Got His Blood on Me</i> soon and will get back on that.<br />
<br />
Note: I also liked Teju's comment that he wants to 'use the least complex words to describe the most complex ideas'. That one's still sitting with me.<br />
<br />
Lorry has his own website now. See the 'links' section.<br />
<br /></div>
Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-83685710993141431902011-12-09T07:10:00.001+13:002012-07-25T16:12:59.285+12:00Poetry and ebooks - what're you lookin' at?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Warning: this post gets a bit technical and nerdy at times, but had to go there. It seems the tech nerds that design all this stuff don't understand what a poem is. I don't know if any of them will read this post, but poets/publishers won't solve this problem alone the designers of HTML and CSS will, let's remind them that not all text is prose.<br />
<br />
So anyway, I recently had a poem published in an ebook for the first time. Exciting, but also a bit scary. 4th Floor is a great journal, with a fantastic editor and brilliant contributors. So I was thrilled to have a poem in the anthology. Thanks to 4th Floor and Whitireia!<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.whitireia.ac.nz/4thfloor/images/ebook_cover.jpg?wax-srv=K88bknbE0Zk6hsE9P9TKWQ2B" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.whitireia.ac.nz/4thfloor/images/ebook_cover.jpg?wax-srv=K88bknbE0Zk6hsE9P9TKWQ2B" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">4th Floor ebook </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://www.whitireia.ac.nz/4thFloor/ebook.html">http://www.whitireia.ac.nz/4thFloor/ebook.html</a></div>
<br />
All was great until I downloaded the ebook and opened it in an ebook reader called Magic Scroll. I haven't tested on other ebook readers, but from what I understand they all should have fairly well established rendering of the ePub format.<br />
<br />
So anyway I read through Hinemoana's nice editorial and went to the first poem, 'Dear Grandmother' by Ren<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">é</span>e. And lo and behold, it was mushed up horribly! The very first line didn't fit on the page, it was broken arbitrarily.<br />
<br />
The line:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: 12px; line-height: 39px;">Husbands are a necessary part of the design</span></blockquote>
became:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: 12px; line-height: 39px;">Husbands are a necessary part of the </span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: 12px; line-height: 39px;">design</span></blockquote>
And let's be clear for those people (web developers?) who don't write poetry, this effectively ruins the poem. A line break in poetry is everything. It is in many cases what makes it a poem, gives it it's value. It is used for rhythm, as a pause, a beat, it can change the meaning of the words (people tend to read one line as a complete syntactical unit). It is even used to create a visually appetising image on the page, which is all part of the pleasure of reading poetry. I tend to spend just as much time if not more time editing line breaks as I do the actual words themselves. Okay so that rant is over, but what do we do about it?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
So I thought oh maybe this is an ebook publishing problem, like they forgot to turn on the 'poetry option' or something, and being an IT nerd in my other life, thought I'd do a bit of research and maybe help with the next one.<br />
<br />
And for the non-technical poets out there, an ebook is basically just a webpage. It uses HTML and CSS like a normal webpage to display text using tags and styles.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://web3mantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/html5-ebook-13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" src="http://web3mantra.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/html5-ebook-13.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I searched and I searched and it seems there is surprisingly little discourse on this out there (if anyone knows where people are discussing this then please let me know).<br />
<br />
I found many posts where some web developer provides examples of how to style a poem in HTML/CSS. Most of these were horrible, involving centring the poem and using prose syntax to try and fudge the shape of the poem. This doesn't solve any of the issues I've found with ebooks on small devices.<br />
<br />
But then I came across t<a href="http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/PoeticSemantics#Issue:_Explicit_Markup_to_Semantically_Express_Poetic_Forms">his issue raised by Dr Olaf Hoffman</a> to the W3C (who are responsible for improving this stuff). He is basically putting forward the case to add poetry elements to HTML. It is very illuminating as to why this hasn't happened yet when you read the responses to his suggestion. Developers seem to view poetry as a sub-set of prose, like say legal documents or shopping lists. And the argument never gets past that as far as I can gather. He is doing his best to explain the elements of poetry and how they differ from prose, but still, judging by there comments they don't seem to get it.<br />
<br />
The 'issue' remains unresolved as far as I can tell.<br />
<br />
Again for the developers that might read this, prose and poetry are about the same as Chinese and English. In a simplistic way I like to think about it as...<br />
<br />
Poetry = Is primarily about rhythm and words to create meaning<br />
Prose = Is primarily about words and sentences to create meaning<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://fitnessandweightlosscentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/left-brain-right-brain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://fitnessandweightlosscentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/left-brain-right-brain.jpg" width="302" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Left Brain Right Brain<br />
Prose? Poetry?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
...of course this is all fluid and there are hybrids of both of these. Obviously there is overlap. And there are historical reasons for the two approaches and why one now dominates the other. I would suggest reading Dr Hoffman's post if you want to go into that more. But suffice to say, they are two parts of something greater, our language.<br />
<br />
So what started out as looking for a guide on 'how to e-publish poetry' turned into an issue at the core of the world wide web itself! Jeez.<br />
<br />
I still can't believe poetry has been completely forgotten about?<br />
<br />
Okay, so I know poetry is a pretty underutilised form of writing these days, so it is (kind of) understandable that it got missed, but still, most people know about it don't they? Know what poetry is don't they? Apparently not.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
So what happens now?<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.scifiscoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/back_to_the_future.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://www.scifiscoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/back_to_the_future.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Well first of all the web seems to deal with the issue fairly well. There are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of places (millions?) where poetry is published on the web and thoroughly successfully too.<br />
<br />
But the web is different to an ebook. An ebook is also about accessibility and a book-like experience on a mobile device. So whether you have a tiny phone or a massive monitor you can read the same book easily. A great idea, but like I said, at the moment poetry on that little phone (and even on the big screen) looks rubbish.<br />
<br />
I see two things happening. One, we all get behind Dr Hoffman (not sure how to do that exactly?) and push for poetry in HTML. Which I think makes sense, but there is probably a whole bunch of people who need to be convinced.<br />
<br />
Or two, we don't do that and continue on. Either someone will make a 'workaround' for ebook readers to render poetry properly<span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">or poetry a</span><span style="background-color: white;">s we know it will disappear. Which is interesting I think. I'm not much into preservation, poetry does and will change with the times and with technology. That is how prose came about after all.</span><br />
<br />
But you know there are poems NOW that need to go on to ebooks, not to mention that last several thousand years of poems that would do well in a digital format.<br />
<br />
So please web developers, don't forget about us again. And if we can help move this along. Would love to, seriously.<br />
<br />
ADDENDUM: Some interesting articles on ebook poetry problems<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/240586">http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/240586</a><br />
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/14/poetry-and-ebooks-will-po_n_645677.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/14/poetry-and-ebooks-will-po_n_645677.html</a><br />
<a href="http://ageofsand.com/2010/10/can-we-trust-poetry-ebooks-the-case-of-allen-ginsbergs-collected-poems/">http://ageofsand.com/2010/10/can-we-trust-poetry-ebooks-the-case-of-allen-ginsbergs-collected-poems/</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-80559380843841787672011-11-29T10:31:00.001+13:002011-11-29T11:24:42.529+13:00Bird North (the original)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div>
<br /></div>
Apparently you can't be original. If you try to be original, you won't be. It will be forced, fake, cringe-worthy. For a while there, people concluded that there is no such thing as originality and everything is a copy of something else, so don't hide it, embrace the copy, the fake, make that the point of the thing.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4WEbocNtKh4/TtQHzUL3iWI/AAAAAAAAAy0/IyPxqRc6JZk/s1600/be_original.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4WEbocNtKh4/TtQHzUL3iWI/AAAAAAAAAy0/IyPxqRc6JZk/s320/be_original.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
I think originality is not about form, or style, or saying something new. It is about being honest, it's about finding the truth. And I don't mean the facts, I'm not much for the purity of fact, I mean the emotional truth. That thing where you don't hide from what has to be said, even if it is ugly or shallow or silly or stupid. I'm a bit bored of being told nothing is new, because I read writing all the time that is new and fresh and makes me feel like I'm back at high-school again, baffled and out-of-my-depth.</div>
<div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.victoria.ac.nz/vup/covers/bird.9780864736901.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.victoria.ac.nz/vup/covers/bird.9780864736901.gif" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There is plenty of ugly, silly, shallow and stupid men in <a href="http://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=bird%20north&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDIQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.victoria.ac.nz%2Fvup%2F2011titleinformation%2Fbird.aspx&ei=9wnUTrpqiKKZBfG35MkD&usg=AFQjCNGGiieKV6vBnwrDicW8lfckcayVcw">Breton Dukes' collection of short stories</a> and I loved them all. They made me cringe and gasp and think it's all just wrong. These stories are so wrong, why is there a sex scene in almost every one? Why don't these guys grow up and treat women better? How can they do such stupid things? But then that's the point, part of the reason it's so wrong is because it's so right. Some of these stories aren't easy to read and they might make you cringe. The trick is to ask yourself why.</div>
</div>
</div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-8306336540707806772011-09-15T13:05:00.003+12:002011-09-15T13:05:35.592+12:00Pick 'n' Mix<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.mixandmash.org.nz/images/logo-mixandmash.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.mixandmash.org.nz/images/logo-mixandmash.png" /></a>This is my entry for the 'Mix and Mash' competition which aims to encourage use of online content. Seems like a good idea to me. I think I would call this more of a Pick 'n' Mix, but I quite like the act of rearranging other people's poetry fabric. My Mum is into quilting and she makes the most amazing things out of old scraps of material she finds. She made one for my brother that has multi-coloured piano keys made from old clothes he wore as a child.<br />
<br />
Words in this poem come from Hinemoana Baker, Lynn Jenner, Airini Beautrais and Bernadette Hall. See <a href="http://www.mixandmash.org.nz/the-competition/categories/remix/literature-remix/">Mix and Mash website</a> for their original poems. This poem also borrowed some words from an American called Yusef Komunyakaa who recently won the Wallace Stevens award (past winners are pretty much a who's who of all the poets I love). His poem, <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22551">'The Day I saw Barack Obama Reading Derek Walcott's <i>Collected Poems</i>'</a>, also borrows heavily, I believe, from <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/220">Derek Walcott</a> himself. The circle is complete.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>The Garden of O</b><br />
<br />
we hear each others’ dogs<br />
crisscrossing the border<br />
<br />
moving from reverie<br />
to reverie. a concrete fence<br />
<br />
of flamboyant pumpkin vines, <br />
sweet, intoxicating, <br />
<br />
blood-orange <br />
bloom. we are ants if you like, <br />
<br />
a yellow backdrop<br />
to the sag of powerlines,<br />
<br />
an open mouth,<br />
a crow clutching the hand’s<br />
<br />
bright corrugations<br />
of being and nonbeing.<br />
<br />
as one watered<br />
by the wind<br />
<br />
and the sound of mountains,<br />
clouds of double consciousness.<br />
<br />
we never hear <br />
the dense blue shadow <br />
<br />
of each others’ voices.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-63434397736759031752011-07-01T11:45:00.003+12:002011-12-09T11:46:34.051+13:00Forgetercise<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRFLE7xUClALuQIF6665C3txIPUUw3LHM3v1TMzd8X_A4I0nWez"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRFLE7xUClALuQIF6665C3txIPUUw3LHM3v1TMzd8X_A4I0nWez" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 169px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 297px;" /></a><br />
This is a writing exercise modified by an exercise from Ann Lauterbach. Thanks Ann.<br />
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Forget everything you know about poetry or poets or language (I can do this pretty quickly, quite often I walk into the photocopy room at work and spend 5 mins looking around for the coffee machine, it's next door to the photocopy room). Now try to remember an experience you had of reading or hearing language that fascinated and/or baffled you. Now write about the place or time where that happened, don't worry too much about the words themselves, concentrate on the scene. Make that into a poem somehow. At this point you can unforget everything you know and make an awesome poem out of it.</div>
</div>
</div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-13064204842495167442011-06-23T09:16:00.012+12:002011-06-23T12:39:06.628+12:00The Hill of Wool<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mRVspgYozTE/TgJckSqOuPI/AAAAAAAAAiM/HI_8-D9sbwg/s1600/Pegler_WebbStreet.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 250px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 250px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621157063465810162" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mRVspgYozTE/TgJckSqOuPI/AAAAAAAAAiM/HI_8-D9sbwg/s320/Pegler_WebbStreet.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The Hill of Wool, Jenny Bornholdt (VUP, 2011)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Here is an image of the painting that appears on the cover of The Hill of Wool. It is a painting by by Johanna Pegler, 'Webb Street'. Johanna seems interested in the texture of planar surfaces, like ruts on a grassy hillside, choppy harbours, driftwood covered beaches, stuff like that. They are kind of decadent and driven in their obsession with these kind of details, to the detriment of other things in the paintings, like in this one the sheep and trees seem almost secondary against the harsh beauty of the hill. There aren't as important as the hill itself.<br /><br /><br />And why am I talking about a painting when this is supposed to be about a poetry book? Mainly because I think there are some parallels here between Pegler and Bornholdt.<br /><br /><br />At first glance the poems here seem like realist paintings, the things in the poem relate to real things in life. Like in 'Winter' where the family is on a skiing trip, but the focus is not on the objects but on the language about the objects, the snow, the names of ski runs:<br /><br /><br />(apologies, but some of the formatting is removed by this blog website. Grrr!)<br /><br /><br /><blockquote>As the bus winds up<br />the children practise<br />their snow vocabulary:<br /><br />Ridge Run,<br />Wedding Knob<br />Shirt Front<br />Escalator<br />Snowmat<br />Platter<br />The Chair<br /><br />At night, a quiet<br />horse, white<br />as you-know-what,<br />moves out from the trees<br />to shadow us<br />down the road.<br /><br /></blockquote><br />This poem intrigues me, partly because it seems almost perfectly formed (you'll have to buy the book to read the first half of the poem I'm afraid) and because there is this mysterious, silent horse at the end, an anti-horse of sorts, it stands in for something else, the you-know-what. A light-hearted take on a metaphor staple, but also with an underlying weight, where one thing stands in for another, where the horse is the snow and the snow is the horse and that is more important than the horse or the snow on their own as 'real' things.<br /><br />Horses feature in this book in a few of my favourite poems. Especially in 'Poem About a Horse' which is again perfectly formed and a beautifully witty example of the 'imagination poem' where we know the things in this poem aren't real, they are stated as memories or hopes, and are evoked so evocatively we can't help but believe in them, we see them in the reality of the poem:<br /><br /><br /><blockquote>[...] Yaks could be good. The yaks<br /><br />you heard about from the nice young man who sold you<br />your phone-the global roaming one. His uncle<br />was a yak farmer who lived next door to an Amish<br /><br />community. In exchange for the wool they helped him<br />build his house-big so the yaks could come<br />inside. Tables and chairs were nailed to the floor<br /><br />so the animals wouldn't knock them over<br />as they wandered about the kitchen. Yes<br />a yak could be good. [...]<br /></blockquote><br />The other thing I love about this poem and the reason it is more successful than some of the others I think is the length of the lines and exuberance of the voice and sentences. This poem is far less clipped and controlled as some others and the poem is all the better for it. The voice of is much stronger and comes through in a really delightful way. This poem is like a conversation, one where we are drawn into the voice as much as the images and the story. I was wondering why that appeals to me so much and I think part of it is Bornholdt's register, which is some ways is much like my own. It is the ordinary words that interest her, ordinary language, which has its own natural, subtle and beautiful rhythms, in a way that using a word like 'recliner' instead of 'chair' would break. The words themselves aren't waving flags, saying look at me, how great I am. It's the sentences the rhythm that is more important here. And for that reason, I think the longer lines, more complete sentences work better I think. They allow the real power of the words to come to the fore, a the voice to be strong and entertaining.<br /><br />The book covers a lot of other territory of course, there are bunch of poems about the poet's mother and father. Children run down the halls of many of the poems and language, memory and imagination drift through many. Like in 'Memory':<br /><br /><br /><blockquote>[...]<br />They say to make a house. You can pretend<br />the rooms are there and in them store fast<br />memories so they stay whole, more than just a tremor<br /><br />or a sense of something past. To do this, send<br />the years upstairs and down. Build shelves to last.<br />Evict the fact that sometimes we forget to remember.<br />[...]<br /></blockquote><br />I read a comic by Sarah Laing the other day on memory. She talked about 'The Rats of NIMH', a book I had completely forgotten about, but now that I remember being read it as a child how much I loved it and how it was so rich in imagery, the fields, the place where the rats lived. It is an amazing book. I can't believe I had completely forgotten about it. But that is how memory works. Little mines to be discovered I guess, and by discovering you are essentially reimagining them.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div>Another painting by Pegler, 'Norfolk, Repose'. I like this one because it reminds me of the Hauraki Gulf where I grew up.<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BfSyZBBhZT8/TgJuIBEaIuI/AAAAAAAAAiU/X6sNqHF5Y2Y/s1600/Pegler_Repose.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 250px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 250px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621176368916734690" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BfSyZBBhZT8/TgJuIBEaIuI/AAAAAAAAAiU/X6sNqHF5Y2Y/s400/Pegler_Repose.jpg" /></a> </div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-83575153822364868612011-06-17T09:53:00.007+12:002011-06-17T11:12:42.364+12:00New Post<a href="http://sweetnesstheory.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Sidebox-Kitten-Thinks-R.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 475px; height: 360px;" src="http://sweetnesstheory.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Sidebox-Kitten-Thinks-R.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Someone told me once you should never name a blog post 'New Post', but that's like not calling a kitten The New Kitten, when it's old enough you give it a name. When a blog post is older and house trained you give it a name. Kitten's are cute and you can't blame them for not having a name.<div><br /></div><div>The real blog, the one that will have a name, will be about the books I am reading now. Jenny <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Borholdt's</span> latest and maybe something else. I read 'A Poem About a Horse' by Jenny at <a href="http://theredroom.org/?p=786">http://theredroom.org/?p=786</a>. It was amazing. It had everything I love in a good poem. The Yaks, the Yaks! So I had to buy the book. More to come...<br /><br />In the meantime a gratuitous picture of a kitten.</div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-5830056474023573242011-06-16T09:53:00.006+12:002011-06-16T10:08:06.295+12:00New Review - Rae Armantrout's Money Shot<a href="data:image/jpg;base64,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" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 88px; height: 132px;" src="data:image/jpg;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD/2wCEAAkGBhAQEBASExATFRAUEhISFBIQFBUWGBYUFRAVFxUSFBUXHCkeGholGRUUHzAhJigpLSwsFh4xNTIqOCYrOCkBCQoKDgwNGA8PFCkYHR0pKS0pKSksKSwsKSksNSkpKSkpKSkpKSkpKSkpKSkpKSksKSkpKSkpLCkpKSkpKSkpKf/AABEIAIQAWAMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAbAAACAgMBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQIDBAYHBf/EADEQAAIBAgQEBQIFBQAAAAAAAAABAhEhAxIxQQQFYXEGIlGBkTLBE5Kx4fAUJFLR8f/EABkBAQADAQEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAgQFA//EAB4RAQADAAICAwAAAAAAAAAAAAABAhEDBBIyEzFR/9oADAMBAAIRAxEAPwDj6GJDIAtV3PU5JxahiNNpRkqXve+Vda9taHkyLa2W2mnT9yJjYxas+M66n/UrFwo4lFni4xbdKU8uV57UVE1Sm0jnfiPgsmJnTqp3r6tm1eEudJ5ISlZ5I5MqdWvKqJ61lKX5n0rHxZy9PBq5Kq09tPNulpppoY6bx3xv5M5KNDTGmIK296m5zTTGJIZCQAAAkMSGAnt3RZJ6Fb2G3e3eoGy+AeGz8ZTZYc29tHFWe2tOyN48X8th/SyjCKSo2/V6Xb9l8L0OeeEeZfg8WpWupRvvay71RvXMeZTxMPK4NKUZrNtWMW3evVdbmLm35NdHrzHxTEuTqVhkHZtfJNWN0OdP2khiixkAAAASGJDAT27jvUT2JYTuBWm6nuct59jPyyxKwUMV3V6qDS7u54qs37kJt0/cTWJWraYV1v7ULJSKXqX02JUOBIURkJAAACQxIMwBIUUDYJ9QHialb0J5q+hFR1Gin0L10IfhdSUKrckxOKGRTHmIDAAARl4PM5xjCKhh0ho3BVf1Wk9/qfyYiGJgZS5nNJeXDtkvkVXkzUr6/Vf1ovQrhx8oxy0w2kpKsopvzSq3V79ShkMRJ2p1GGsniuYSxNcqVXKkVS7SXr0K1jNJKkbeq6p/qkYikW+gwi0wujitbRvm2r9SuOXENutI7bLr/t19SMGiLdGMWi0rVjy6fHV6fJGU21sq60XWv2IRJEYeUkMAJVJDEhgRkKo5kbuvb7gUotjoivL/AMM7iuG/Cm4V0y17uCl+rfwSYqw/q+4pwE5eb3JuVWBFDFuxkAAAASGJDAUiC3JyIyX3AWBFOcU3aqVfS6OgcZyXAxViVw3nzKk1XRwik09bU31qtKGgYSpKDf8Akq/KO3ciw1PBTtptu/5Qzdi80yYbOrSL7EuNcZwjwsWUHfK6V9q/coWrt8GxeOIxXHYtNlCvfIqo8CMbnvS21iWbkjxtMIUGJfz5GWUAAACQxIYCkKo2HogFah1Lw1zCa4fDhmy1kotrV0Xrsu9Hp1OWG2eEeaOjhVZlRp1af1KiqrtdOh4c9drrT1rZbFHizl+KsbExZJVbSaTra683Wij+Y8BqiqjpPP8AhI4uDnyJZlKDlFTpVz0Ub3aVL00t153xGC4OUHdry26317UHDfyjEc/H4zv6xojHLV9xHuzgAABIYAAhvX3AAEzP8Oy/ucNbOSr7X/VABW/rK/F7w6TwU82HjJpU/DxGqKmiUkqrapofiLCSnBrVwrtslQAMXX9m/s+jxJavuwADe5oAAA//2Q==" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />I have a new review! But not here. At <a href="http://www.helenheath.com/4-jun-2011/guest-post-bill-nelson-book-review-money-shot-rae-armantrout">www.helenheath.com</a>.<div>It is of Rae Armantrout's latest book, Money Shot. I don't want to give anything away, but it stuck to the wall when I did the spaghetti test, so what does that tell you?</div><div><div><br /><div>Helen is amazing, she blogs all the time. Poems, interviews, reviews, it's like a magazine, but she doesn't have anyone to boss around, only herself. She is also the marketing person at Vic Uni Publishers. I don't think she has anyone to boss around there either. She works hard I guess. You should check it out.</div></div></div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-559214117195900502010-08-26T16:52:00.003+12:002011-06-15T10:24:17.004+12:00Dear Sweet Jenner<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uCojb7Dqyyo/THXztT0Si6I/AAAAAAAAAhQ/sXlk7ELCGVg/s1600/jenner-dearsweetharry.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509577678896925602" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 141px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uCojb7Dqyyo/THXztT0Si6I/AAAAAAAAAhQ/sXlk7ELCGVg/s320/jenner-dearsweetharry.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div>Lynn Jenner’s first book of poetry (Dear Sweet Harry, AUP 2010) really is something that is more than the sum of its parts. It is one of those books that you can’t put down and read from cover to cover wanting to find out what happens and not so much what happens next, just what happens.<br /><br />It centres around Harry Houdini and his life or at least the fictional representation of his life. There are letters, prose chunks and traditional lyric poems about Harry as well as Mata Hari and a whole bunch of poems that are more about Lynn’s personal stories or stories of New Zealand.<br /><br />This might give the feeling of something cobbled together (like most first books of poetry?) - what does NZ Railways have to do with Harry Houdini? And I suspect in some ways the book did evolve that way, but through form and voice and changes in pitch it all comes together as a complete book. It has that look about it too, that it has been crafted with a wholeness in mind.<br /><br />The result of this is that some of the poems seem to be there as linkers or to flesh out the story a little. Some of the letters felt a bit like this. And one could argue whether this is a weakness or a strength having these. I think that in this case, the book is better for it.<br /><br />And on the flip-side there are some beautiful poems that are amazing in their own right and don’t need the book around it to dish out their goodies. The title poem, Dear Sweet Harry, was one of these. The rhythm and tone is wonderful and perfectly handled.<br /><br />This book is cerebral without being a know-it-all, it is thoughtful yet plainly spoken, it sort of sets its gaze on you in a questioning way, without ever offering its opinion. A quiet surefootedness. A feeling not unlike you get when talking to Lynn in herself.<br /><br />This is a lovely book that comes together as a whole and has some wonderful poems in it. It deserves all the praise it is getting right now. </div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-55794258590367786242010-07-20T10:38:00.011+12:002010-07-27T13:36:55.820+12:00There's Something Compulsory About This<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uCojb7Dqyyo/TEThIGrPhLI/AAAAAAAAAhA/UwTUKkIdvo4/s1600/koiwi.9780864736314.gif"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 126px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495764974646035634" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uCojb7Dqyyo/TEThIGrPhLI/AAAAAAAAAhA/UwTUKkIdvo4/s200/koiwi.9780864736314.gif" /></a> <div><b><a href="http://www.victoria.ac.nz/vup/2010titleinformation/koiwi.aspx">Kōiwi Kōiwi by Hinemoana Baker (VUP 2010)</a></b></div><div><br /></div>I've been surviving on scraps of Hinemoana's work in journals for six years and now, finally, her second book has arrived.<br /><br />It strikes me first of all as completely different in voice and style to her first. Where that was trimmed and clipped, almost to the syllabic level this is more voluptuous and 'talky', there is more in here of what I have come to love of her voice, the raw emotion, the turns of mystery and the self-deprecating humour. This is definitely a solid progression from the first book and also, perhaps this is the benefit of waiting six years, it's range is massive yet consistent in quality. <div><div><br /></div><div>I loved <i>dismantling the crane, fortune cookie</i> and <i>the fossils:</i></div><div><br /></div><div></div><blockquote><div>[...] Outside</div><div>men in orange vests prepare</div><div><br /></div><div>to dismantle the crane</div><div>its four ropes of chain rise</div><div>like snakes from the bed</div><div><br /></div><div>of a dusty truck, link after link</div><div>[...]</div></blockquote><div></div><div><br /></div><div></div><blockquote><div>Her father visits for her 40th birthday. Don't think of it</div><div>as trying to conceive, he says. Think of it as catching a flight.</div><div>[...]</div></blockquote><div></div><div>- wow, what a way to start a poem...</div><div><br /></div><div></div><blockquote><div>[...]</div><div>Well I</div><div>said the depot manager</div><div>I feel like I've swallowed</div><div>a large white</div><div>brick state house.</div><div>The brick isn't real</div><div>it's a kind of cladding.</div><div>At one corner</div><div>a nest of spiders is building.</div><div>[...]</div></blockquote><div>And then there were some more readily available poems obviously influenced by her own childhood and her parents that were also up there in my list of faves:</div><div><br /></div><div>From <i>the squash club</i></div><div></div><blockquote><div>[...]</div><div>The whole place smelled</div><div>like my father's gearbag</div><div><br /></div><div>his headbands left overnight</div><div>in the wash-house.</div><div>[...]</div><div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>And then more sonically experimental poems like the astonishingly visceral language sourced from a music theory exam paper in <i>homebirth:</i></div><div></div><blockquote><div>[...]</div><div>(iii)</div><div>An emerging event two thirds of the way through</div><div>has a rising motion which gives way to</div><div>an exploding attacking sound.</div><div><br /></div><div>(iv)</div><div>Covers the full frame from root</div><div>(low thudding event)</div><div>to canopy</div><div>(floating bell echoes)</div><div>with the centre being occupied</div><div>by a wide band of white noise.</div><div>[...]</div><div><br /></div><div></div></blockquote><div>- floating bell echoes? Jealous.</div><div></div><div></div><div> </div><div>Hinemoana also said at the launch that the best gift we can give her is to talk about the book on blogs, twitter, whatever. In this current state of great books passing by unoticed and unreviewed I like this idea of relying less on the print media and just putting the word out there ourselves in our own biased, unprofessional and incoherent way - all of which I am repetitively guilty of. </div><div></div><div> </div><div>I was intending to write about it anyway, but I'm glad I could help her out in some small way because this book made me smile and not only because it was hilarious in places but because it was better than I expected it to be (on top of quite high expectations).<br /></div></div><div>The first two lines in one of the most mysteriously intruiging poems about a kayaking trip called <i>observation beach: a farewell </i>mirrors in an opposite, yet reflective way, this book I think. </div><div><blockquote>Soaked to my socks in spite of my spray skirt.<br />There's nothing compulsory about this.<br /></blockquote></div><div></div><div>And at the end of it I was soaked to my socks in lithe and slippery language, equal measures of mystery and truth and very much pleased that I had decided to leave my spray skirt on the beach.</div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-4307000817787796672010-07-12T22:02:00.010+12:002010-07-12T22:35:56.421+12:00Duets, sparklingWent to the launch of <i>Duets, </i>a chapbook project that pits (?) a NZ poet against a US one.<div>Edited by my friend Alice Miller and featuring Sam Sampson, Joan Fleming and James Brown from the NZ side. </div><div><br /></div><div>All good and all very different obviously. A nice selection I think. A couple of poems James read were particularly great, he started off by deprecatingly proclaiming himself "New Zealand's foremost writer of light verse." His poems were simple and funny, but mainly so tight, like little balls of poetry rolling down a hill, but not a scary hill, a nice gentle undulating one. There was poem that stood out from the rest, he decided to use the same phrase (the green plastic toy) in every sentence. It was amazing, read aloud anyway. Such a crazy constraint and what impressive skill to pull it off in the way he did. I won't give it away. You'll have to read it or better yet buy the chapbook. Anyway, there was some really interesting and varied stuff, Joan and Sam were great and a typically incisive intro by Bill Manhire too.</div><div><br /></div><div>Obviously the old chapbook budget didn't stretch to flying the American writers over, so when I get my hands on some copies I'll report back on them. I can't even remember exactly who they were, except Dora Malech was one of them (definitely got to get one of those) and an Andew someone? Anyway, stay tuned for those.</div><div><br /></div><div>What a great way to start the week!</div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-52337315144484877322010-06-03T10:26:00.004+12:002010-06-03T10:43:05.196+12:00Recycled Books<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uCojb7Dqyyo/TAbeOyELhaI/AAAAAAAAAg4/Lj2B5X_UJlI/s1600/mockingbird+house.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 100px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 100px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478310342281627042" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uCojb7Dqyyo/TAbeOyELhaI/AAAAAAAAAg4/Lj2B5X_UJlI/s200/mockingbird+house.jpg" /></a><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uCojb7Dqyyo/TAbeITBRpNI/AAAAAAAAAgw/epoJP1FfNPk/s1600/mockingbird+house.jpg"></a>The "Mockingbird" House<br /><br /><div>A <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/06/weapons-of-mass-instruction.html">tank made out of books</a>!<br />Why does everything look so great when it is made out of books? Is this the way of the future? When e-book readers have taken over, steel and would will be scarce, plastic extinct. Will I be building my house out of old readers digests?<br /><br />A house out of books, now that would be cool.</div></div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-72077610662733088092010-05-05T15:29:00.001+12:002010-05-05T15:31:12.567+12:00Walt Whitman's Blog<a href="http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/whitmanblog/">Walt Whitman has a blog</a><br /><br />Some things never change I supposeBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-51659738511133431982010-04-27T14:55:00.000+12:002010-04-27T14:55:48.329+12:00The art of list-making<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8537856.stm">BBC News - The art of list-making</a><br /><br />1) Start with a personal experience of list-making - like the time I wrote a list of things I didn't want to do that day. It was long.<br />2) Statistics on the wider use of list-making (include witticism on the nature of stereotyping and statistics) - should 25% of post, no more or single Rhodesian males between 27 and 29 years of age will get bored.<br />3) Add a picture - get more hits that way.<br />4) Sign up to Google Analytics to tracks radical increase of hits.<br />5) Conclude by writing a list as part of the discussion of lists. This is a defining moment and will be sure to increase hits even further.<br />6) Check the latest stats of hits.<br />7) Check again.<br />8) Reinforce to readers that it's not all about the hits. It's about the quality, the art. I write for me and me only. If someone else likes what I write, that is great, but essentially I'm here to please myself. Or at least organise myself. My thoughts. Organise my thoughts. Rationalise my thoughts. Make sure I don't get off topic. Focus I guess you could say. Yes focus. I like that.Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-81160982580520423752010-04-27T10:28:00.000+12:002010-04-27T10:28:35.734+12:00Poetry Daily: A Dozen Rainy-Day Couplets, by Killian O'DonnellA cool Irish poem.<br /><br /><a href="http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14725">Poetry Daily: A Dozen Rainy-Day Couplets, by Killian O'Donnell</a>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-68692307907113728842010-04-15T16:39:00.002+12:002010-04-15T16:42:29.874+12:00David Foster Wallace's first ever poem<a href="http://www.fictioncircus.com/news.php?id=533">David Foster Wallace poem</a> that he wrote when he was six.<br />God I hope no one ever does that to me.Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-42654189548668429052010-04-15T15:33:00.004+12:002010-04-15T15:39:25.863+12:00Rae Armantrout wins Pulitzer!<a href="http://www.10news.com/news/23130363/detail.html">Rae Armantrout has won the Pulitzer</a> with her wondeful book <em>Versed.</em><br />Congratulations to her!<br /><br />It was one of the better books I read last year. See <a href="http://thisiswriting.blogspot.com/2009/04/rae-armantrout.html">here</a> for my thoughts on it at the time. Although, having just read the post, I appear quite scathing. Must remember to be more balanced in the future. It really is a beautiful book.Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5019805849236085167.post-45218231950746641452010-03-08T19:19:00.004+13:002010-03-08T19:31:23.400+13:00J.D. Salinger<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uCojb7Dqyyo/S5SZhe_XgDI/AAAAAAAAAgo/2TXxqfBSKXk/s1600-h/200px-Frannyzoey.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 298px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uCojb7Dqyyo/S5SZhe_XgDI/AAAAAAAAAgo/2TXxqfBSKXk/s320/200px-Frannyzoey.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446146649931350066" /></a><br />Blow me down, if J.D. Salinger 'Glass Family' stories aren't the most intense, immediate, mysterious, theatrical and hilarious stories I've read in ages. I've always said I wanted to read <i>Catcher in the Rye</i>, but like so many other things, never did. Thanks Kate, for lending me <i>Franny and Zooey</i> and forcing the issue. The way Zooey spouts off new age eastern philosophy and then in the same breath berates his mother while she watches him shave is brilliant. I recommend Salinger to anybody. Of course, you have already been there haven't you, being far less stupid than me?Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09769754395956800214noreply@blogger.com0