Poems of the Plateaux

I'm sorry that the blog  is being neglected even more than usual. I'm moving right now (well I moved last weekend, but its taking a while to sort myself from one room into a whole house). So no time to blog.

Besides I'm not making any art at the moment, just making home which is itself an art. When things look a bit nicer I promise I'll give you a tour. Right now there's not much to see but piles of boxes and stray bits of furniture sitting forlornly in odd places waiting for their new assignments.

While you are waiting Bibliophila to resume regular posting I highly recommend this collection of poems about Denniston and Stockton Plateaux by the late Leicester Kyle. I have to thank Bronwyn Lloyd for letting me know about this site because the poems really resonated for me.

Poems and Interviews etc

I'm very honoured to have my poem 'Ponting's Genius' featured as the Tuesday Poem on Tim Jones' blog Books in the Trees. It's one of the Antarctic poems I will be reading on Sunday 28 August 3pm at ArtsPost, surrounded by my Imagining Antarctica exhibtion. As well as the Antarctic series I will be reading other recent poetry, mostly relating to same environmental themes that inform my visual arts plus plenty of science fiction poems like Cake (coming out in Enamel 3 next month).

And in the special bonus artist's talk portion of the event I will be discussing my visual art- the thinking behind this exhibtion, and my technique. Questions welcome (though you may find many of your questions answered in the interview that will be appearing in Books in the Trees later this week).

* * *

Here's some of the print media attention I've received this month.

In the Waikato Times Arts Page on 19 August. The lovely photo is by Jody Saturday, a photographer friend with an extraordinary talent for taking flattering portraits. Despite my wan, worn-out countenance lately she managed to make me look good, along with Melt. (The Waikato Times link takes you through to the full story)

In Riff Raff 3, Hamilton's 'edgy' arts magazine I got a full page of photos of my stitching.

Birdie Bowers' Hat

I've written another poem about an Antarctic hero and Harvey Molloy has published it as his Tuesday Poem this week at Molloy Notebook. I am honored to be included in the Tuesday Poem project (for the second time), and to be invited by Harvey, who I respect very much.

I was also pleased to see my name included in the Tuesday Poem roll call on Beatties Book Blog, but not so pleased that Graham Beattie managed to spell both of my names (and one of the names in the poem's title) incorrectly. Sigh.

Birdie Bowers' Hat

Birdie Bowers was universally loved
for his old-fashioned virtues:
hard-work and loyalty, the most
stoic and cheerful member of Scott’s party,
he was the kind of chap the Empire needed
and chewed up
and spat out.
(...)
Read the rest here.

Also, while you are indulging in some poetry, check out this poem I really like by Olivia Macassey called They Say In a Healthy Economy There Should Be 5% Unemployment, or What Has Social Welfare Ever Given You?

Miner’s Cook

Flying in, the sea is dark and demanding.

Our island appears like a jewel and grows

green until we circle to land,

then I see the red sore gouged at its centre

and my bile rises as the plane drops.

On the ground I am lost in the chaos

of unloading in a sudden dark that hides everything

beyond our beams. I’m looking for the bread,

fresh bread brought to last this first week

but by the time I’ve found it the loaves are gnawed to stale crusts

and I’m in despair with a hungry crew to feed.

I must push my fear and sorrow

out into the dark and be grateful when our neighbours,

the whalers, come over the hill with roast meat.

I stumble asleep among crates of food

and dream of home but when I wake up I’m still here

and a relentless dawn calls me to breakfast for thirty.

For days of sorting supplies and learning a new kitchen,

fuelling men between their shifts,

all I ever see is the grassy slopes sheltering our camp,

a wink of water behind us and a sky full of strange stars.

Finally there is time for a walk, up the hill:

I see again the bleeding gash I am feeding,

and vomit into the grass.

Poetry Day Winners!

Friday was National Poetry Day in New Zealand and it was great. This year I wasn't even envious of my poet-blogger friends reporting events in other cities because Hamilton had a full programme to enjoy.

Having finished installing Punctuated Equilibrium (complete with eponymous poem as the artist's statement) at the Waikato Museum I biked up to Garden Place for the launch of the Phantom Posters poetry poster project. The poster poems were all by various well-known New Zealand and international poets and each poem was read by a local politician or 'personality' before being ceremoniously pasted onto the poster bollard outside the Public Library.

I cheekily took a seat in the front row (no doubt displacing some celebrity) and invited my friend and fellow blogger Joan to join me. I took out my stitching to do as I enjoyed the sunshine and the poems. You can see a photo of me here, stitching as I listened, on her blog, Sempiterna Me... (if you scroll down you'll see she's written another poem about my stitching)

After that I went home for a long nap, in preparation for the next scheduled poetry event, an open mic at the library. I was a 'guest poet' and got to read second in the lineup- I seem to have been promoted in the local poetry hierarchy thanks to publicity about Two Kinds of Time being a finalist in the Rhysling Awards. There was a good turnout of local poets and our supporters.

The highlight of my evening was being awarded first prize ($300 of book vouchers!) in the Wintec Open Poetry Competition. I'd entered my poem, Ponting's Genius, which is now published online here. Richard Swainson, Hamilton's best MC, came up to me afterwards and remonstrated me for appearing to venerate an Australian cricket captain, though of course the poem is actually about Scott's Antarctic photographer.

There is another winner to announce for Bibliophilia's own National Poetry Day competition. Sue, from Wellington was the name drawn completely at random from my fruit bowl! Congratulations Sue, I'm putting your signed book in the post tomorrow.

If you missed out on the giveaway and you would like to buy your own copy of Voyagers, you can buy it through Amazon.com or other online book sellers.

National Poetry Day Giveaway

Gratuitous macro shot of My Antarctica

It does seem odd that while I didn't have my own internet connection for three weeks I was super conscientious about regular posting to my blog, then I got slack as soon as the connection returned. Instead I've been catching up with everyone else's blogs (eg Bookshelf Porn) and working on some other internet-based projects and sort of forgot about Bibliophilia for a few days. Oops.

But I'm back now and to celebrate, here's a giveaway!

The next few weeks of my life include an unusual number of public events. First up is National Poetry Day on Friday and I'm one of the guest poets at our local poetry event at the Public Library. I've written quite a few poems since I last did a public reading and I'm looking forward to sharing fresh material. Some of which is so fresh that I will probably fine tuning up until the last minute.

In honour of National Poetry Day, I'm giving away a *signed* copy of Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand edited by Mark Pirie and Tim Jones which happens to include my hard-working poem, Two Kinds of Time. (Also anthologised in the 2010 Rhysling Anthology, featured as last week's Tuesday Poem on Book in Trees, and was made into a limited edition artist's book (sold out) and a short film). All you have to do to go into the draw to win your very own signed copy of Voyagers is comment on this blog post before midnight NZ Time on Friday 30 July.


Keep an eye on Bibliophilia, and/or follow me on Twitter or Facebook to find out about what else is dragging me out of my introverted little world the next month or so. Also, keep an eye on the Waikato Times next week where I will be one of the local poets interviewed in the lead up to National Poetry Day.

Rhysling Anthology

I can't even begin to express how stressful and frustrating it is to have lost my internet connection at home. I've already missed out on a newspaper interview as a result and who knows what else is passing me by while I'm off line 23.5 hours a day.

But good old fashioned snail mail is still working and today the postie delivered my contributors copy of The 2010 Rhysling Anthology: The best science fiction, fantasy and horror poetry of 2009, edited by Jaime Lee Moyer. It feel pretty exciting to see my own poem inside the same covers as work by famous writers like Neil Gaiman.

It's a marvelous anthology, packed full of juicy interesting challenging and seductive poems.

Leaky Sink

One of the simple pleasures that I find most soothing from day-to-day is doing the dishes. Arriving at my pro-dishes stance came late in life, but the epiphany was worth writing a poem about. The poem came with a clear vision of the artist's book it should be made into. Since my vision demanded I learn letterpress printing, I embarked on that, much more complicated pleasurable pursuit, and eventually was able to print and make a small edition of handmade, letterpress books called Do the Dishes , possibly the zenith of my artists book and letterpress practice to date.


Sadly, at the moment, doing the dishes at my house is no pleasure. My sink is leaking, and even washing dishes in a bucket (not nearly so much fun) is a hazardous affair around the flooding. The plumber says he may come tomorrow. In the meantime I am trying to minimise my production of dirty dishes so as to avoid having to wash any in the next 24 hours.

Anyone care to join me in eating out?



Do the Dishes is available in my Etsy shop

Unrelated words and pictures

For the past week or so I have been observing with interest the action on our swan plant. Caterpillars eating and growing and then hanging upside down and turning into beautiful cocoons whenever I'm not looking. The cocoons start out light bright green and darken to emerald studded with gold beads. I haven't seen any butterflies yet, but I'm watching.

The only thing that these photos have to do with the following poem is that they were made last weekend. The poem resulted from a writing game shared with a group of local writers who meet to eat cake, drink tea and write together on a Sunday afternoon. This piece was the result of pulling 5 random words out of a hat and spending a few minutes trying to compose them into something I like. Can you guess which of the five words were from the hat and which ones I chose for myself?

She has fashioned a jest
from embers, from ashes
flinging words like sparks
out into the dark
laughing until she is soupy inside
delirious, feelings rising like smoke
until her rimu heart bursts into flames.

Good news and bad news

Two lots of good news to report; but briefly, due to the consequences of my bad news. Please do follow the links to find out more details than I have been able to include.

Breathe, my mangrove piece, has been selected as a finalist in the Uxbridge Estuary Art Awards 2010. I made the French knitted pneumataphores especially for the Awards, which encouraged research into the environmental issues facing the Tamaki Estuary. I was excited to have an opportunity to finally realise some of my ideas for representing mangroves in my art.

The Estuary Art Awards exhibition open on Thursday 11 February at Uxbridge gallery in Howick. I encourage Auckland readers to go along and see all the finalists. The exhibtion runs until 10 March.


The other bit of good news is that one of my poems, Two Kinds of Time, has been nominated for the 2010 Rhysling Awards. This poem just seems to run and run! Written for, and first published in the Voyagers Anthology, it also inspired me to make a (very) short film and a limited edition artist's book (which has sold out).

Tim Jones, one of the editors of the Voyagers Anthology took the initiative to write a media release about the nomination, which you can read on his blog, as well as on Scoop and Beattie's Book Blog. I'm very grateful for Tim doing this, since I am still devoting all my energy to my temporarily fulltime 'straight' job.


Bad news: yesterday on my way to work I was knocked off my bicycle by a driver opening his door suddenly. Fortunately I was riding very slowly so no great damage has been done. I am shocked, shaken and a bit bruised; my knuckles took the brunt of the collision of handlebars with door. I'm taking the accident as a sign of having reached my limit for full-time work, so intend to negotiate down to part-time hours by the middle of next week. Next weekend I'm moving, and then once ensconced my new studio-home, I look forward to blogging progress on my own, actual, creative practice again.

Shifting Margins

Antarctica: slow and steady

Ice flows
in long deep breaths
out of the mountains
grinding valleys and canyons
into boulders and dust
carried, eventually, out to sea.

I pant, I flood, I flicker
and soon disappear.

Ice melts, and sinks in the rising waters
hills become islands
and continents creep
driven by shuddering gouts of lava.

We fidget at the shifting margins
swatting new mosquitoes,
evolving new rituals,
engineering new brains.

Mangroves: finished

If Jellyfish Wrote History

Way back

before the sky was even blue

in the preCambrian eternity

while plankton were inventing photosynthesis

Jellyfish ruled the waves.

The biggest and the baddest,
the most beautiful
creatures in the sea

and back then, the sea held
the entirety of life
rocking in a shallow soup
of our Ediacaran Eden.

Jellyfish invented self-propulsion
and almost immediately, dance.

Jellyfish harnessed electricity,
stealth, and society.

Continent-sized families
floated in gelatinous communion

dominating the seas
for a stretch of time so vast
that the entire history of shell wearers
and skeleton bearers,
their millions of years
of evolution, extinction, adaption;

the slip-sliding of continents
from before Gondwana to geopolitics;
the ascendancy of the Himalayas
from muddy sea floor
to icy heights;

has all been but a shimmering
turbulence on the surface.

My blind emboss print of woodcut of fossilised impression of preCambrian jellyfish

Top jellyfish photo by Rachel Bolstad

Someone dies

for Aileen Grant (1.6.1937 -29.8.2009)

Someone dies and the world wobbles:

earthquakes and tsunamis for a husband, daughters;

and though the passing of a student is a smaller loss

the centre of gravity shifts a little in my life, too.

********

The night before your funeral my teaching is listless,

your absence felt as ballast overboard,

I’ve become used to your eccentric sweet intensity

pulling against the direction of the other students,

apologetically stubborn, heroically persistent.

Finding my way through generations of stories,

drifts of photocopying only you could treasure

and your perpetually erratic toolkit

distilled a bodhisattva spirit into my teaching.

You educated me in compassion,

better than I ever schooled you in making books.

May's winner and my week

And the winner of the May Giveaway is Robert Frazier from the Science Fiction Poetry Association in the USA. Congratulations Robert, who won a copy of Non-Linear Time, the book of the film. Non-Linear Time is available for only $10 in my Etsy shop.

Thank you everyone who entered by commenting on the May Giveaway post, there was a record number of entries (and comments) for this blog to date. Watch out for the announcement of the Giveaway for June soon.

Ignition programme with Membranes listing

My energy this week has been veering between beginnings and completions. I am working on proposals and planning new projects, as well as preparing for installing Membranes, my giant book, in the city for Hamilton's Ignition Fringe Festival mid-June. But mostly I am in a harvest glut at the moment with the equivalent of a table covered in tomatoes and zucchini that have to be dealt with right now, even while I enjoy the fruits of my labours.

Hand sewn, with a tricky centre-fold and an envelope of hand painted stickers, I don't do anything easy

Stacks of the Happy Bus zine are in various stages of paper engineering and assembly. A few have started their road trip already: if you are in Hamilton you can get Happy Bus at Auteur House. If you are anywhere else come to my Etsy shop, or if you prefer, contact me directly.

The front cover is very nice, but I love the back of Voyagers best.

My contributors copy of Voyagers arrived in the mail today. Lovely to be part of another beautifully designed book, and in such esteemed company. I blush to see my name in the contents with great poets I have admired from afar for so long, and delight to read what old friends have written. Voyagers can be had from Amazon, or the publishers.

A beautifully designed perfect bound book.

The still-nameless coral piece is rushing into the final stages. I have laced the crocheted reef onto its board, next is lacing the embroidery. I am ridiculously fond of the back of my embroidery which is about to disappear from sight forever more.

Embroidered bleached coral from behind

A frustrating shopping trip today did provide one happy find, the ideal frame for a piece of embroidered coral that was originally a test for my brain coral stitching (not the design I ended up using though), and then practice for lacing onto boards. I'm pleased with the result and with the perfect frame, have sorted out Sarah's birthday present for tomorrow (I hope she isn't reading this yet, but if you are, Happy Birthday dear!).

Anzac Chalk Poetry Friday 24 April

I'm looking forward to doing some chalk poetry in Hamilton tomorrow. It looks like Anzac Day will be rainy and so I will be writing Anzac poetry outside the Waikato Museum on 24th instead of the 25th of April.

This is a smaller scale chalk poetry installation and I am trusting that this time I won't be left barely able to walk for days afterwards, unlike my February marathon. I'm not writing my own poetry this time, as I don't have much war themed poetry to call upon. Instead I have been reading lots of other poets, old favourites and new discoveries, to choose a suitable selection. It's been fun taking an editorial/curatorial role. I look forward to sharing my choices with visitors and passersby.

If you are in Hamilton on Friday and want to come and see my chalk before the rain washes it away, I expect to be finished by noon. If you can't make it, I'll post photos this weekend.

Here's the poems I'm writing excerpts from, or in full.

John McCrae (In Flanders Field)

Siegfried Sassoon (The General)

Siegfried Sassoon (Prelude: The Troops)

J.S. Manifold (The Tomb of Lieutenant John Learmonth, A.I.F.)

R.W. Hamon (Anzac Poem)

Frances Cornford (Unshaken world)

Virgil (Aeneid X)

Cold Sailing

Kidnapped from my busy life

I find myself prisoner on a run-down ship

adrift in a cold sea of crumpled tissues

rocked by squalls of wet sneezes

wracked by shuddering coughs.

The skin around my nose has worn thin

and crackles with a glaze of dried salt.

I cower in my berth,

baffled by a turgid industrial dispute

which has put all services on go slow.

Every time try to I speak up,

demanding some normality,

my voice sounds strange in a new way.

Peering through the bleary porthole

I scan the horizon for some sign

of healthy life, preparing for escape

by emptying a raft of little bottles

down my swollen throat.