Tim Jones's Blog, page 21
July 7, 2014
My Most Recent "Book Watch" Column for the New Zealand Herald
I occasionally contribute to the "Book Watch" column in the New Zealand Herald.Here is my most recent column.
Shaman , by Kim Stanley Robinson – print and ebook - http://www.amazon.com/Shaman-Kim-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0316098078/
Loon is a teenager who is being trained as a shaman, mostly against his wishes, for his Ice Age tribe. The key events in the story are two journeys Loon undertakes - the first provides a strong opening to the story, and the second triggers off an exciting conclusion. Kim Stanley Robinson's great strength as a writer can also be his chief weakness: he knows and loves his material so well that he sometimes clogs up the story with it. But the in-depth imagining of Loon’s world, and the strong conclusion to the book, make this a recommended read.
Cinema , by Helen Rickerby – print - http://www.makaropress.co.nz/the-hoopla-series/
Wellington poet Helen Rickerby just keeps getting better. Her best work is moving, funny, and thought-provoking without being “difficult” – and Cinema is full of her best work. This collection is all directly or indirectly about the silver screen.
It includes poems about the art-form itself, poems about the effect cinema has had on the poet’s life, and a series of poems about the lives of Helen’s friends as if directed by various famous directors. (I’m still hoping for one about my life as directed by a tag-team of Sofia Coppola and David Lean.) Great stuff!
My Life, by Li Na – print and ebook - http://www.amazon.com/Li-Na-My-Life/dp/0143800051/
Li Na, winner of the 2011 French Open and the 2014 Australian Open, is my favourite tennis player. Her stubborn individualism has frequently led to conflict with the all-encompassing Chinese state sports system in which she grew up - conflicts unblinkingly documented here. But the core of the book is her relationship with her husband Jiang Shan, a former top Chinese player who gave that up to be the tennis equivalent of Li Na's caddy - and also, for a time, her coach, something that wasn't great for her marriage and which they wisely brought to an end. Fascinating even if you’re not a tennis fan.
Interstellar Overdrive: The Shindig! Guide to Spacerock , ed Austin Matthews - print - http://www.amazon.com/Interstellar-Overdrive-Shindig-Guide-Spacerock/dp/0992643422/
Spacerock is hard to define: think Pink Floyd before they settled down and got respectable, or Hawkwind’s mix of hard-rock riffing and spacey synthesisers. It’s progressive rock without the sonata structures; it’s heavy metal on helium. As a Seventies teenager, I have a taste for this sort of thing, and this book thoroughly covers beginnings (Telstar; the Dr Who theme), main practitioners and byways. It’s especially good on European bands: any book that can have me searching Slow Boat Records for old Amon Düül II albums has done its job.
You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
Shaman , by Kim Stanley Robinson – print and ebook - http://www.amazon.com/Shaman-Kim-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0316098078/
Loon is a teenager who is being trained as a shaman, mostly against his wishes, for his Ice Age tribe. The key events in the story are two journeys Loon undertakes - the first provides a strong opening to the story, and the second triggers off an exciting conclusion. Kim Stanley Robinson's great strength as a writer can also be his chief weakness: he knows and loves his material so well that he sometimes clogs up the story with it. But the in-depth imagining of Loon’s world, and the strong conclusion to the book, make this a recommended read.Cinema , by Helen Rickerby – print - http://www.makaropress.co.nz/the-hoopla-series/
Wellington poet Helen Rickerby just keeps getting better. Her best work is moving, funny, and thought-provoking without being “difficult” – and Cinema is full of her best work. This collection is all directly or indirectly about the silver screen.It includes poems about the art-form itself, poems about the effect cinema has had on the poet’s life, and a series of poems about the lives of Helen’s friends as if directed by various famous directors. (I’m still hoping for one about my life as directed by a tag-team of Sofia Coppola and David Lean.) Great stuff!
My Life, by Li Na – print and ebook - http://www.amazon.com/Li-Na-My-Life/dp/0143800051/
Li Na, winner of the 2011 French Open and the 2014 Australian Open, is my favourite tennis player. Her stubborn individualism has frequently led to conflict with the all-encompassing Chinese state sports system in which she grew up - conflicts unblinkingly documented here. But the core of the book is her relationship with her husband Jiang Shan, a former top Chinese player who gave that up to be the tennis equivalent of Li Na's caddy - and also, for a time, her coach, something that wasn't great for her marriage and which they wisely brought to an end. Fascinating even if you’re not a tennis fan.Interstellar Overdrive: The Shindig! Guide to Spacerock , ed Austin Matthews - print - http://www.amazon.com/Interstellar-Overdrive-Shindig-Guide-Spacerock/dp/0992643422/
Spacerock is hard to define: think Pink Floyd before they settled down and got respectable, or Hawkwind’s mix of hard-rock riffing and spacey synthesisers. It’s progressive rock without the sonata structures; it’s heavy metal on helium. As a Seventies teenager, I have a taste for this sort of thing, and this book thoroughly covers beginnings (Telstar; the Dr Who theme), main practitioners and byways. It’s especially good on European bands: any book that can have me searching Slow Boat Records for old Amon Düül II albums has done its job. You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
July 1, 2014
Fast Times In The Poetry Biz: Two Cities, Two Events, One Date (23 July)
As I'm sure you all know, the modern poetry business is a fast-paced affair, full of people in sharp suits and pencil skirts clustered around laptops discussing third-quarter profit projections (OK, maybe that's just business meeting stock photography for websites).
And sometimes, that poet life requires you to be in two places at once, a feat not even T.S. Eliot could accomplish without a lot of CGI. Such is the case on Wednesday 23 July, the date of both the Sydney launch of The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, and a poetry reading at Circadian Rhythm in Dunedin, MC'd by Shae McMillan, at which Rhian Gallagher and I are the readers.
Since I can't be in two places at once, I am sadly unable to make the Sydney launch, but my co-editor P.S. Cottier will be in attendance, as will publisher Dr David Reiter, and a number of poets represented in the anthology will also read.
Meanwhile, I'm very much looking forward to reading and hearing other poets read in Dunedin - my home town from 1976-1993, and a place I still have lots of friends.
If you can be in two places at once, or even one place at once, here are the details of those two events:
The Stars Like Sand Sydney Launch, 23 July 2014: Part of Live Poets @ Don Bank, 6 Napier St, North Sydney, 7.30pm. Here's the Facebook event and the Facebook event description:
IT'S THE NIGHT OF THE MASKED BARDS' BALL! (Bring one to wear if you want). KYLA LEE WARD will perform her book 'Land of Bad Dreams'. DAVID REITER will present 'MY PLANETS' .There is the Sydney launch of 'STARS LIKE SAND" Anthology of Australian Speculative Poetry, featuring many of Australia's best - from Interactive Press. Plus: Open Section - recite, sing, tell a story or play an instrument.There will be dancing in the courtyard. It's the Warm Winter Words Festival! Doors open at 7.30 pm. $7 admission includes hot supper and drinks. Readers from the anthology come in free. Further info/bookings: Convenor Danny Gardner (02) 9896 6956 Mobile 0422 263 373 or via dannylivepoets (at) yahoo.com.au
Come and commune with our guests in the cosy confines of historic Don Bank. Why not bring a friend?
Circadian Rhythm Reading, 23 July 2014: 8-10pm, Circadian Rhythm Cafe, 72 St Andrew St, Dunedin, with MC Shae McMillan, open mike, and guest poets Rhian Gallagher and Tim Jones. No Facebook event yet but here is the Facebook page for the Octagon Collective/Circadian Rhythm Reading Series.You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
And sometimes, that poet life requires you to be in two places at once, a feat not even T.S. Eliot could accomplish without a lot of CGI. Such is the case on Wednesday 23 July, the date of both the Sydney launch of The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, and a poetry reading at Circadian Rhythm in Dunedin, MC'd by Shae McMillan, at which Rhian Gallagher and I are the readers.
Since I can't be in two places at once, I am sadly unable to make the Sydney launch, but my co-editor P.S. Cottier will be in attendance, as will publisher Dr David Reiter, and a number of poets represented in the anthology will also read.
Meanwhile, I'm very much looking forward to reading and hearing other poets read in Dunedin - my home town from 1976-1993, and a place I still have lots of friends.
If you can be in two places at once, or even one place at once, here are the details of those two events:
The Stars Like Sand Sydney Launch, 23 July 2014: Part of Live Poets @ Don Bank, 6 Napier St, North Sydney, 7.30pm. Here's the Facebook event and the Facebook event description:
IT'S THE NIGHT OF THE MASKED BARDS' BALL! (Bring one to wear if you want). KYLA LEE WARD will perform her book 'Land of Bad Dreams'. DAVID REITER will present 'MY PLANETS' .There is the Sydney launch of 'STARS LIKE SAND" Anthology of Australian Speculative Poetry, featuring many of Australia's best - from Interactive Press. Plus: Open Section - recite, sing, tell a story or play an instrument.There will be dancing in the courtyard. It's the Warm Winter Words Festival! Doors open at 7.30 pm. $7 admission includes hot supper and drinks. Readers from the anthology come in free. Further info/bookings: Convenor Danny Gardner (02) 9896 6956 Mobile 0422 263 373 or via dannylivepoets (at) yahoo.com.au
Come and commune with our guests in the cosy confines of historic Don Bank. Why not bring a friend?
Circadian Rhythm Reading, 23 July 2014: 8-10pm, Circadian Rhythm Cafe, 72 St Andrew St, Dunedin, with MC Shae McMillan, open mike, and guest poets Rhian Gallagher and Tim Jones. No Facebook event yet but here is the Facebook page for the Octagon Collective/Circadian Rhythm Reading Series.You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
June 24, 2014
Tuesday Poem: Chrome Yellow Hypothesis, by Iain Britton
the house isn’t what it was
the voice of a radio predicts a storm /
it mimics a politiciancommentates on cricket
the radio possesses the eye of an orchestraanthems on walls / flags and coronation stuff / a platoon
route marches to Hill 44 /
the family has taken furnitureits god particles and disguised itself in bundles
the house isn’t what it seems ...
a square brick object at the mercy of orthodoxiesdousing gentiles in holy water / theychant / play / sing / love thine enemies Te Hahi o te Whakapono
the church (sermon-bloated)
hunches its white skull
beside the lake
passers-by are pulled in to drool
on historical grounds
where prisoners in wood
hug others in wood
where the lake laps music against stained-
glass windows / a flute’s voice
breathes on naked skin
a woman smiles
undoes her soul
for the cost of a camera’s sharp bite
life i observe is a sulphuric cloudraw and exposeda matter of confessions
this woman this mother
approaches the miracle makerswho each year split atomsby walking on air
she’s fascinated by silica
its crystals / this geothermal fragility
which domes the town
she opens herself to parklandfantasiesany stuntman would exploit
beside the lake
birds scrap
over chrome-plated godsendsplucked from moonstones
this mother this woman
goes into the house of
one room one kitchen one radio
a solitary figure clothing legends in bright garments what if
i place my lips on her lips / would forests buckle up / would ghostsreturn to their shelves to rest
she speaks to each gnome in her garden / paints
their hats gold
handles them carefully
each night they rough and tumble
squabble like her children
where invisibility is an asset
where in her house
love battles
love charges up a hill / e hoashe calls
and the radio responds
with the news / the weather
a boy scoops up a ball
and runs with itthrough a yellow cloud
Credit note: "Chrome Yellow Hypothesis" is from Iain Britton's collection photosynthesis, now available from Kilmog Press. This version is published, and reformatted to work better on a blog, with the permission of the author.
Tim says: After my hiatus, I'm back in the world of the Tuesday Poem, where I will try to get back in the routine of posting a Tuesday Poem every fortnight. It's a pleasure to (re)start with this fine poem by Iain Britton.
You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
June 14, 2014
The Stars Like Sand - Canberra Launch: Orbital Separation Achieved
Well, I'm back - back in Wellington from my trip to Melbourne and Canberra, where my co-editor P.S. Cottier and myself launched the anthology we've been working on for almost two years, The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry.
Each of us (Penelope | Tim) has already blogged about the Melbourne launch. The Canberra launch last Thursday, held at historic Manning Clark House, was also a success, with 40-50 people in attendance. The photos below show poets Lizz Murphy and John Jenkins reading their poems from the book, although most of the crowd is out of shot in these photos.
I enjoyed my trip to Australia a lot, thanks in very large part to the hospitality of my co-editor and her lovely family. Now I have a couple of solid weeks ahead of me as the judge of the Open Section of the 2014 New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competition, and then I have some writing to do!
Finally, watch out for some more publicity for Lost in the Museum this coming week - that's the new fantasy anthology with a touch of horror, set in Te Papa, that includes my story "The Big Baby".You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
Each of us (Penelope | Tim) has already blogged about the Melbourne launch. The Canberra launch last Thursday, held at historic Manning Clark House, was also a success, with 40-50 people in attendance. The photos below show poets Lizz Murphy and John Jenkins reading their poems from the book, although most of the crowd is out of shot in these photos.
I enjoyed my trip to Australia a lot, thanks in very large part to the hospitality of my co-editor and her lovely family. Now I have a couple of solid weeks ahead of me as the judge of the Open Section of the 2014 New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competition, and then I have some writing to do!
Finally, watch out for some more publicity for Lost in the Museum this coming week - that's the new fantasy anthology with a touch of horror, set in Te Papa, that includes my story "The Big Baby".You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
June 10, 2014
The Stars Like Sand: Awaiting Second Stage Ignition
The first launch of The Stars Like Sand has happened - and very good it was too! As my co-editor reports on her blog, we had a good group of poets from the anthology reading at the Melbourne launch - a double launch with poet Gemma White' first collection Furniture is Disappearing.
About 70 people attended the launch at Melbourne's Collected Works bookshop - you can see part of the crowd below, including one of the poets from the anthology, Sean Wright (with hat); publisher's representative Breanne Rodda (seated on floor) and Collected Works owner Kris Hemensley (at right) (image courtesy Satya Helen Patrice).
Now we're gearing up for the Canberra launch tomorrow night, and expecting another good crowd and another set of anthology poets to read!
If you'd like a copy of the book, it's making its way into bookshops such as Melbourne's Collected Works, and you can also buy it from the publisher and from Amazon.com.
You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
About 70 people attended the launch at Melbourne's Collected Works bookshop - you can see part of the crowd below, including one of the poets from the anthology, Sean Wright (with hat); publisher's representative Breanne Rodda (seated on floor) and Collected Works owner Kris Hemensley (at right) (image courtesy Satya Helen Patrice).
Now we're gearing up for the Canberra launch tomorrow night, and expecting another good crowd and another set of anthology poets to read!
If you'd like a copy of the book, it's making its way into bookshops such as Melbourne's Collected Works, and you can also buy it from the publisher and from Amazon.com.
You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
June 2, 2014
"Lost In the Museum" Now Available As Ebook and In Bookshops
UPDATE: Ebook now available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KTV5K0U
I mentioned in my previous post that I have a story, "The Big Baby", in the recently published anthology Lost in the Museum, which has just received an excellent review by Lee Murray in the widely-read Beattie's Book Blog.
Lost in the Museum is now starting to become available in bookshops. You can buy it from Retrospace in Auckland and Children's Bookstore in Wellington, and it should soon be available from Unity Books as well. The ISBN is 978-0-473-28320-9.
You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
"Lost In the Museum" Now Available In Bookshops
I mentioned in my previous post that I have a story, "The Big Baby", in the recently published anthology Lost in the Museum, which has just received an excellent review by Lee Murray in the widely-read Beattie's Book Blog.
Lost in the Museum is now starting to become available in bookshops. You can buy it from Retrospace in Auckland and Children's Bookstore in Wellington, and it should soon be available from Unity Books as well. The ISBN is 978-0-473-28320-9.
An ebook version is due to be released next week, so if getting to New Zealand bookshops is a bit of a stretch for you, you'll still be able to get hold of the anthology. I'll post details of the ebook when they become available.You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
May 24, 2014
We Interrupt This Hiatus For A Publication Announcement
While I'm still training a couple of dragons and therefore not quite ready to resume posting regularly, I couldn't pass up the chance to let you know that The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, the anthology that I have co-edited with P.S. Cottier, by has now been officially published, and I have recently received an early copy. (Penelope has lots of info about the book up on her blog - such as who is in it!)
You can buy the book as a paperback or ebook from the publisher or from Amazon.
Here's the Facebook event for the Melbourne launch on Friday 6 June: https://www.facebook.com/events/1502760696619431/ - all Melbournites and visitors welcome!
(Note to authors: we'll be posting out author copies after the Melbourne and Canberra launches next month.)
I should also mention a couple of recent short story collections I have stories in:
Fresh Fear: Contemporary Horror (sales link to Amazon)Lost in the Museum (link has info about the launch)
... and I'm pleased to say that I have a story appearing in the next issue of JAAM as well.
Normal hiatus will now be resumed, for another month or so - and then I might get around to put a fresh lick of paint on this dear old blog.
You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
You can buy the book as a paperback or ebook from the publisher or from Amazon.
Here's the Facebook event for the Melbourne launch on Friday 6 June: https://www.facebook.com/events/1502760696619431/ - all Melbournites and visitors welcome!
(Note to authors: we'll be posting out author copies after the Melbourne and Canberra launches next month.)
I should also mention a couple of recent short story collections I have stories in:
Fresh Fear: Contemporary Horror (sales link to Amazon)Lost in the Museum (link has info about the launch)
... and I'm pleased to say that I have a story appearing in the next issue of JAAM as well.
Normal hiatus will now be resumed, for another month or so - and then I might get around to put a fresh lick of paint on this dear old blog.
You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
March 17, 2014
It's All Fun And Games...
... until someone loses their dragons. I have three fierce dragons to chase at the moment - or are thy chasing me? There's the finishing stages of proofing for The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry - that stage when a book seems to be interminably 95% finished, but never quite done. There's the ever-extending Basin Reserve Flyover Board of Inquiry - as the co-convenor of the Save the Basin Campaign, quite a lot of my energy is going on that. And there's a major work project which is about half complete.
If they don't succeed in burning me up or out, all those dragons should be caught and trained by about July, but in the meantime something has to go, and I've decided that thing will be blogging. When the Seven Kingdoms are reunited under the flag of peace, freedom and the Westerosi Way - when the sun also rises - when at least two of those three projects are out of the way - I'll be back. Till then, au revoir!
>You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
February 28, 2014
Book Review: Sidelights, by Mark Pirie
Sidelights: Rugby Poems, by Mark Pirie (Wellington: The Night Press, 2013), available via Mark's website.
Sport, a big area of New Zealand life, has formed a surprisingly small part of New Zealand poetry. Mark Pirie has done a lot to remedy that lately, with his NZ cricket poetry anthology A Tingling Catch receiving a lot of very favourable press, not least from the prestigious Wisden Cricketer.
Mark is currently editing an anthology of New Zealand and international poems about football (that is, the round-ball variety). But when I was growing up, the world game was still called 'soccer' in New Zealand, as 'football' was reserved for use to describe the sport that all New Zealanders, and in particular all New Zealand males, were supposed to be obsessed by: rugby union.
I grew up in Southland, where rugby's hold was arguably as complete as anywhere in the country - at Gore High School, it was a source of great embarrassment that those half-despised, half-pitied sooks who played soccer had actually managed to string together a few winning games, while the school's rugby First XV, supposedly the bastion and exemplar of teenage masculinity, was completely useless.
(If women's rugby was played anywhere in New Zealand in the 1970s, it most certainly wasn't played in Gore.)
I only ever played one game of rugby, during which I invented the kicking No. 8 long before Zinzan Brooke had thought of the idea. And, despite my Pommy background and odd haircut, I did eventually get interested in the game and used to watch a lot of it - right up to the point at which the All Blacks won the 2011 Word Cup, at which point, to my surprise, my interest in the game evaporated almost completely. I still watch the occasional All Blacks match on TV, but no longer pay any attention to the domestic or Super 15 competitions.
But I remember those provincial passions, which is why I enjoyed Mark Pirie's Sidelights, and why my favourite poem from it is The Divided Country, which explores the eternal duality between Hurricanes and Highlanders supporters. "School Days at Wellington College" has a great last line which it sets up perfectly, and I also particularly enjoyed the sequence "Five All Blacks poems", which ends with a poem celebrating the moment All Blacks' captain Richie McCaw lifted the Webb Ellis Cup at the end of the 2011 World Cup tournament - that same moment that something in my brain appears to have decided that enough was enough.
Even in 2014, it's hard to be in New Zealand for long without rugby starting to seep into your life: Sidelights is a good first step towards an understanding; or a valedictory to an era, long lost or recently ended, of liniment, the Sideline Eye, and the crowd rising to "E Ihowā Atua".
You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.
