Tim Jones's Blog, page 28

Tuesday Poem: One's One And Only Haiku

King Arthur today

a sofa, two chairs

an occasional table



Credit note: First published in Learning a Language: New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology 2005, edited by Margaret Vos.



Tim says: Frantically busy. Running late. No Tuesday Poem posted last week - little chance of one this week. Facing being drummed out of the regiment,* possible court-martial. What to do?



Then - inspiration strikes in the form of P.S. Cottier posting a haiku. Note to self - adopt same policy - post a haiku! RSM McCallum thereby satisfied, honour of regiment intact. One problem: self not a noted writer of haiku, little inspiration to write one.



But! Chap rummages around in old files, finds the above - one and only haiku ever attempted, and by Jove, published too. Matter of Britain - most satisfactory. Not really a haiku in the strict sense but as Padre says, there are no atheists in a fox-hole. (Note to self: must ask Padre if he has experimental evidence of same. Poss. of survey, troops answering questions on religious belief or lack of while taking shelter from live fire. Would take troops' minds off their troubles, buck them up. Good for morale.)



*The regiment of Tuesday Poets. Jolly good show, everyone!




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.

An Interview With Gerry Te Kapa Coates

Gerry Te Kapa Coates (Ngāi Tahu) was born in
Oamaru, but has lived in Wellington for most of his working life. He has been a
writer since schooldays, initially concentrating on poetry with work published
in journals like Landfall. He works as an engineer and company director, but
has done many varied and creative things in his career - from journalism and
stage lighting design to working with Ngāi Tahu and Te Tau Ihu on their Treaty claim
settlements. A past published finalist in the Māori Literature (Pikihuia)
Awards in 2001, 2003 and 2007, his book of poetry and short stories The View
From Up There was published in 2011. He is now working on further collections
and longer works including a novel. An engineer/poet is a rare breed. He still finds
that working − and looking after mokopuna – takes its creative toll.




How long has The View From Up
There been in preparation, and is it a satisfying feeling that the book has
now published?




When
I started writing, being published was only a vague notion, although I
submitted a poem in 1961 to Canta (the University newspaper) that was published
under my pseudonym at the time ‘Jerez’. In a burst of enthusiasm in the early
80s I submitted – and was mostly rejected − by the literary periodicals of the
time such as Landfall, Islands, Poetry NZ etc. The advice I was given by
publishers later was that ‘poetry didn’t pay’ and to look at self-publishing,
which always seemed to me to be rather self-seeking. It’s always a salutary
feeling to walk into a library – or a book remainder shop – and see the
attempts of the thousands of authors seeking fame. So when Roger Steele, who
had previously given me advice to self-publish, offered to publish my
collection I was very happy, and even happier with the result and the feedback.
But getting any acclaim through reviews is still difficult for New Zealand
authors, especially for poetry.




How would you describe your fiction and
your poetry to readers unfamiliar with your work?




I’m
never sure whether ‘accessible’ is a good attribute, but I think my poems are.
They are relatively straightforward and rely on the use of words to evoke a
feeling, rather than fancy devices. The same reviewer who called them
accessible also said ‘I suspect the true test of a "good" poem is
when the reader is able to pick up a poem and find something of their own life
experience in it.’ Another well-read friend of mine said ‘I find many modern
poems hard to understand. The poet is so close to his or her subject that it is
impossible for an outsider to gain entry to his thought process. But your poems
are not like this. They have depth, but I was able to enter just a little
of your world, and share your feelings.’




My
stories often tend to have a Māori flavour, but again I want them to be a ‘good
tale’ whatever the reader’s background. If I see myself as an indigenous writer
– which I do – then I make sure the ‘politics of difference’ as Witi Ihimaera
says, is evident. But sometimes I’m just a writer – as in love poems for
example.




You have had a long and successful career
as an engineer, sustainability consultant, and director of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. Do each of these feed
into your writing, or is your writing something apart from any of these?




Yes,
many of my poems and stories are loosely based on my life-experience, but not
necessarily autobiographical – for example I didn’t fight in Vietnam, but I was
a protester against the war. Being deeply involved with Ngāi Tahu politics and
its Treaty Claim settlement process meant I was in touch with my roots, and
also aware of the red-neck anti-Māori sentiment that the settlement generated
in the form of Letters to the Editor. Apparently John Huria asked me at a panel
discussion at the Christchurch Writers’ Festival ‘Is writing a poem like
lighting an airstrip?’ according to Fergus Barrowman. I probably didn’t hear
him because the sound system on stage was so bad, but my answer (to Fergus) was
‘Maybe more like lighting a play - which I do as well!’ Everything – life,
career, reading – all feed into my work in some way.













The
View From Up There includes both stories and poems.
Was it an easy decision to include both in the collection, and are you
satisfied with how this combined approach has worked out?




It
was the publisher’s decision, but I hadn’t thought it through and the
difficulties it would provide for libraries and bibliographic listings to
adequately categorise it. In future I think that despite the book being more
interesting with a variety of genre, I will do poems and fiction separately.




In commenting on The View From Up There , author Phillip Mann says:



“I admire the grace of these poems, and the carefulness which keeps them clear and direct. I also appreciate the ease with which they are able to bring together the Maori language and English, achieving a synthesis that is uniquely true to the country.” – Phillip Mann
 
Can you tell us about the ways you have bought Te Reo Māori and English together in your work?




When
I first assembled the selection, I hadn’t realised how much Te Reo was implicit
in many of the poems. In the end I did a glossary that spread to 70 words and
two pages. Ideally a poem should be able to include Te Reo and English
seamlessly. But even a poem needs a footnote to put it in context. I can’t
recall how many readers have said they were so glad to discover the ‘Notes on
the Poems’ at the end, but usually after they needed it. Maybe next time
they’ll be footnotes.




Phil
also said after the book was published, ‘I think it is an excellent collection.
Your poems achieve what poetry does best. They explore those moments of
 realization and change which occur when life suddenly opens up before us,
sometimes terrifyingly so − as a when a loved one dies, or a car crash reminds
us of our own mortality or when suddenly we know we are happy and in love or we
confront a distasteful political reality. While the poems are personal, they
encourage us to see the universal in the moment for, as has often been said,
Death is our only certainty as in grief, and a car crash in New Zealand is very
like one in Finland or Peru, and love, it seems to me, is a flower which
thrives despite barbed wire, pollution, economic downturn or our own
tongue-tied silence. Which things said, I also admire the patient
craftsman who works on the words until they shine.’ I thank him for those
insights.




You were a guest at the Christchurch
Writers Festival 2012. Do you enjoy reading at such events, and the ‘public
performance’ aspects of being a writer?




That
was the first Festival where I’d been an invited ‘official writer’ although I
have read publicly before. I enjoy both the reading, and the selection of what
to read. At Christchurch, because it was a Ngāi Tahu writers’ panel, I chose to
read poems with a Māori context but at the end I read a new love poem I’d just written
the previous week. I was blown away by several responses including from an out
of town couple who felt deeply connected to the poem. Those interactions make
it all worth it.




Who are some of your favourite authors of
fiction and poetry, and in particular, are there authors and poets you
particularly enjoy whom you feel haven’t received the attention they deserve
from critics and the public?




The
poets I have been influenced by include (apart from the ones everyone has been
influenced by like T S Eliot etc) Robert Graves, e e cummings, Philip Larkin,
James K Baxter, Alastair Campbell and latterly Glen Colquhoun. At the
Christchurch Writers Festival I was also reacquainted with Riemke Ensing,
Bernadette Hall and Cilla McQueen whom I’ve admired. Also an amazing Māori poet
Ben Brown (Ngāti Pāoa, Ngāti Māhuta) whose performance readings are fantastic.



Fiction is more difficult to pin down. Short stories by kiwis Owen Marshall or Maurice Duggan, and by Alice Munro and Lydia Davis. And novels by authors from many countries. The Nobel prizewinners are a good start – the Norwegian Knut Hamsun’s epic Growth of the Soil or Sigrid Undset’s even grander Kristin Lavransdatter were a great influence. Also the so-called ‘Angry Brigade’ of British writers in the 60s.




The Steele Roberts website mentions that
you are working on a novel – would you care to say more about this?




An
extract from its early stages entitled ‘The Exploration of Space’ was published
in Huia Short Stories 5 (2003). It’s about a Māori rower who goes to Munich in
1972 with the Olympic team and has a love affair with an Israeli team member
who is killed, and how this, and his whakapapa history, affects his later life.
After mulling it around and writing more chapters I’m still quite a way from
finishing it. I need to deal with the ‘Enemies of Promise’ and start working on
it again, rather than my erstwhile career. Roger Steele said after my book
launch ‘This will change your life, Gerry.’ Although it’s less than 12 months
now, he was right. One of them is that writing has become more of a priority,
and hopefully some opportunities to become a writer in residence and have the
space to concentrate will arise. 




Book
availability details




The
book is available at Steele Roberts’ website http://steeleroberts.co.nz/books/isbn/978-1-877577-64-2
or elsewhere online by Googling the title or my name.




It’s
also available in New Zealand at quality bookshops such as Unity Books and the
University Book shop in Christchurch.




In addition to his Ulysses 2012, which was my Tuesday Poem this week, Gerry kindly allowed me to use another poem from The View From Up There to conclude this post.




Strawberries 





Nothing like a tube in
your neck

to make a grown man look fragile.

“Yes -I’m a part time plumber,” joked Pania

the vivacious nurse, ideal to buck up

tired spirits, except you looked a bit

too tired to be bothered with flirting

for the fun of it, despite your strength

and your manly chest - not the chest of  a

middle-aged man (as they would put in the papers)

You, at this time, in
this place

this home away from home

can only be described as looking wan.




There’s nothing like
hospital food

to push you back to life and remembering

what it was like to be eating with gusto

be well again, able to race up stairs

pee over a fence and do all those things

that being in bed proscribes - a catheter

and a bed pan in the wings do inhibit

freedom of movement, of action.

Sorry about the
strawberries - I forgot

you’d not be eating right away

but partly they’re there for titillation

if not for you, for Pania and her laughing eyes.




And you, out of the
privacy of the

operating theatre back in the light

(although it’s really
blinding in there -

just seems dark with
the loss of consciousness

and the mystery of it
all) with your tripes only

partly intact, what
now. Can you recapture that

zest for life and use your libido in other ways?

I admire your strength
and acceptance,

for in the end we all have to face it alone

whatever ‘it’ is - things that stop working,

sensations that dull, appetites that get lost
strawberries that crumble into dust.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.

Tuesday Poem: Ulysses 2012, by Gerry Te Kapa Coates

You and I are not now that strength

which in the old days could

move earth and heaven




But we have grown old together

rather than matching each in aging

which is our strength and comfort.




What happened to your body

happened to my eyes and I

no longer see you getting old.




You are still just a version of 33

though there are times when my

rose tinted glasses fail, but seldom.




We can still move the earth, maybe

not heaven at the same time, except

perhaps in the morning on a good day.




We can forgive each other much

now that nothing − yet everything − still

matters in this, the journey of the souls.




Something ere the end may yet be done,

be realised, that this life was indeed a bed

of roses of which we could not get enough.




- 2012




Credit note: This poem is not previously published, and is reproduced by permission of Gerry Te Kapa Coates, whom I'll be interviewing on this blog later this week.




Tim says: "Ulysses", by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is one of my favourite poems - certainly my favourite 19th-century poem - and I have previously used it as a Tuesday Poem on my blog. So, when I asked Gerry to supply a Tuesday Poem as a teaser for my interview of him later this week, I was delighted when he sent "Ulysses 2012", which is full of ingenious references to its great original as well as being a lovely poem in its own right.




The Tuesday Poem: Is justified and ancient, and it travels across the land but usually winds up here.

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.

Book Review: Triptych Poets, Issue Three

First of all, a disclaimer: P.S. Cottier, one of the three poets represented in this collection, is a friend of mine. I'd actually turned down an opportunity to review her recent collection The Cancellation of Clouds for this very reason, but I decided I felt comfortable - to use a John Key-ism - with reviewing a book in which her contribution makes up a third: hence this review!



A few years ago, I reviewed AUP New Poets 3, which included chapbook-sized contributions from Janis Freegard, Reihana Robinson, and Katherine Liddy. Triptych Poets: Issue Three, published by Blemish Books in Canberra, follows the same pattern. Here the three poets are P.S. Cottier, Joan Kerr, and J.C. Inman.



I liked two of the three sections of the book a great deal, and though I didn't enjoy J.C. Inman's section as much overall, I think it contains some fine poems. So let's look at each section in turn.



P.S. Cottier: "Selection criteria for death"



What can I say? I really like P.S. Cottier's poetry, and I like this selection just as much - in fact, maybe a little more - than her collection The Cancellation of Clouds.



Her poetry is a powerful and inimitable (at least, I haven't ready anything else quite like them) concoction of dark humour - humour that often seems powered by an underlying anger - vivid and often witty description, and most of all intelligence. Sometimes, as in the political poetry of "Abbott's Booby", that anger steams off the page.



"Intelligence" can be a double-edged sword in poetry - too often, poets confuse it for academicese and an excessive devotion to critical theory - but that is not a problem here. There is no sense of deliberate obscurity in these poems, but there is the sense of a powerful mind at work, teasing out the poems' diverse strands.



Because P.S. Cottier often uses long stanzas, it can be hard to excerpt a few lines of poetry to show you what I mean, but these lines from "How To Wrestle An Angel" give you some idea:



Clutching is advised; hold him tight as an idea,
well-loved and convenient. Wriggling will occur,
and it is imperative that the wings be kept from play.
What ring could hold an angel, should he unfold,
flex and soar? No ropes will ever net him.
He will reach out with as many arms
as Kali, as many voices as there are prophets,
hoping to flick slow minds into new holds.



Don't let the title mislead you. There is plenty of life here.



Joan Kerr: "Dying Languages"



Though Joan Kerr's poetry is quite different from P.S. Cottier's in many ways - the stanzas are often shorter, the point of view cooler and more detached - her poems share the first selection's virtues of intelligence and imagination. I found her poetry a little more opaque than P. S. Cottier's - at times I didn't know what she was getting at, but I think that is because a lot of her poems refer to colonial and post-colonial moments I don't have the historical background to fully appreciate.



Perhaps because its subject matter is closer to my own experience, my favourite poem in this selection is "My Father's Steps", which in two-line stanzas ranges freely over 80 years of the life of the narrator's father, with these beautiful closing lines that expand the scope of the poem:



His mind was the world we lived in once,



from Aeschylus to Xenophon, the Odyssey

to Soapey Sponge's Sporting Tour,



Dante to Beachcomber, Pepys to Perelman.

Ninety years, spanning three thousand years



close into distance, silence and the moon

going its way across this little world.



But there are striking and memorable lines in many of the other poems. How about this, from "Prizegiving":



My friend has won a prize for twenty years

of hanging on:

her fingers whiten

on the edges of the world.



Images like this show what a talented poet Joan Kerr is.



J.C. Inman: "Lovers and Brothers"



The bio at the front of J.C. Inman's entry lists him as a "frequenter of the Canberra poetry slam scene" and frequent performer at festivals. The poems in "Lovers and Brothers" are good poems, and I can see them working really well in a performance setting, but for the most part I didn't find these poems as satisfying as I did the poems by P.S. Cottier and Joan Kerr.



That's the easy part - the hard part is to say why. I think it's because poems that go across well when performed because of their directness and impact can sometimes be less interesting when read.



The opening of "I Dream Of Fidelity" is, I think, a good showcase for J.C. Inman's poetry:



In the dark I could not separate the snores from the sobs

The smell of love hung dank in the spaces between us

Like semi liquid steam.



You were already sleeping when I met you in your dreams

Half formed and imperfect, standing in the Field of Infidelity,

(a field of impatiens and forget-me-nots)

               where the only sport is fucking



It's got vigour and energy, and a good image in the "field of impatiens and forget-me-nots", but I don't think it's as rich as P.S. Cottier's or Joan Kerr's work.



This is J.C. Inman's first published (part of a) collection. As he
adjusts his work from what works best in performance to what works best
on the page, I think there will be more and better to come.



Conclusion



I'm hard to please, aren't I? I want to read poetry that is neither
obvious nor obscure, poetry I can at once understand without too much
extra reading and not entirely 'get' on the first attempt. It's a pretty
narrow sweet spot, and if I applied these criteria to my own poems, I'm
sure that a good number of them would fail the test.



As the poet said, don't be sad 'cos two out of three ain't bad, and in this case, I'm going to say two-and-a-half out of three ain't bad. Triptych Poets: Issue 3 is worth your time and attention.


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.

Tuesday Poem: Before Science Stepped In, by Rod Usher

Before science stepped in with its fancy footwork

A raw youth, I'd scan nights for a shooting star

Crooning like Como to catch one and pocket it

Could it really do the magic? Unhook a girl's bra?



Ha! They're not stars, mere fragments of comet

Arcs of burnout in the black canopies of June

Older now, sadder, I leave science to the boffins

Rave on about breasts to an understanding moon.



Credit note: "Before Science Stepped In" by Rod Usher was first published in Eye to the Telescope 2, a special Australian and New Zealand issue of the Science Fiction Poetry Association's online journal, which I edited. The poem has been selected as a finalist in the Science Fiction Poetry Association's Dwarf Stars Award for the best short-short speculative poetry published in 2011, and will appear in the 2012 Dwarf Stars Anthology. It is reproduced here by permission of the author.



About the author: Rod Usher is an Australian writer
living in Spain. His poems have been published in Island, Meanjin,
Quadrant, Going Down Swinging, et al. He is a former literary
editor of The
Age and senior
writer for TIME magazine in Europe. His third novel, Poor
Man’s Wealth (2011), is published in Australia and New Zealand by HarperCollins, and is available in paper and e-book formats.



Tim says: A well-executed short poem is a joy to behold, and I very much like the way "Before Science Stepped In" links scientific and romantic disillusion while still holding out the consolation of the "understanding moon".



The Tuesday Poem: Is actually the Tuesday Poems - each week's hub poem and all the other poems linked from the left of that page.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.

Tuesday Poem: On Contemplating The Statue Of Courtney Love Outside The Front Entrance Of Nelson College for Girls

The sculptor has caught Courtney in the act of running away,

her uniform already half removed, the blue of the blazer (optional)

offsetting the pallor of her skin. She lasted just one term

yet is the most famous Old Girl of them all.




No telling what she’s running from: maths, tyranny,

the restraints – petty? essential? – that fence her round.

It’s all in her past, or in her genes. Hardly the College’s fault

that they caught her in the middle of a very difficult year.




As for what she’s running to: the hardest of all fates,

doomed to be more famous for whom she loved

than what she’s done. Kurt is still better known

than Hole, than Celebrity Skin, than the sound of her guitar.




Courtney is caught in the act as she makes a break for town.

One foot is raised, one shoe slipping off.

One hand grasps at nothing, or punches the air.

In the shadow of her plinth, a small boy sells lemonade.




Credit note: This is a new, unpublished (and very possibly unfinished) poem.




Tim says: I wrote this poem in Nelson, inspired by walking past - you guessed it - the front entrance of Nelson College for Girls. Some parts of this poem are true: Courtney did attend Nelson College for Girls for one term, it was a less than ideal experience for all concerned, and a small boy did have a lemonade stand further along the street. The lemonade was very sweet, but also very welcome on a hot Nelson day.




The Tuesday Poem: Is just a poetic click away for all of y'all.
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.

Poetry At The Greytown Arts Festival and at Meow Cafe

Poetry in Greytown



I had a good time last month reading poetry and meeting poets and poetry lovers in Takaka and Nelson. Soon I'll be joining eight other poets at another poetry destination I haven't visited before: Greytown.



I'll be there as part of a nine-strong crew of poets reading at the event Poetry: a lasting peace, which is part of the Greytown Arts Festival. Here is the lovely poster, designed by Madeleine Slavick who has organised and will MC the event, which is on Saturday 20 October at 5pm at The Village Art Shop, 98 Main St, Greytown:







Here is the Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/events/290166134417646



Some of the participating poets may also be lurking in Greytown during the afternoon, surprising people with poetry. Whether there is a local body bylaw against such activities in Greytown will be an exciting part of the discovery process. (I understand there is a law against wearing rubber-soled shoes on the streets of Nelson, a law which I repeatedly violated last month. Hah!)



Poetry at Meow Cafe



It's Hammer Time! I'm going to be an MC the
week after next: Saradha Koirala, Harvey Molloy and Helen Rickerby are
reading their poetry on Tuesday 23 October at 7pm at Meow Cafe, Edward
Street, Wellington, and I'm MC'ing. Hope you can make it!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.

5 Reasons To Vote Takahe For Bird Of The Year 2012 ... 5 Days Left To Vote

You have five days left to vote for the takahe as Bird of the Year 2012 - or, if you prefer (though I can't imagine why), some other bird. And here are five reasons to do so. Several of them are even true.



1. There are only 260 takahe left, and apart from their remnant natural habitat in the Murchison Mountains, they live only in sanctuaries. They need your support.



2. Takahe are incredibly cute. Check this one out:







3. If elected, takahe will reject the baubles of offices, unless the baubles of office consist of the right sort of tussock bases, in which case the takahe will accept them faster than you can say Porphyrio hochstetteri.



4. Many of humanity's greatest works of art are about takahe. Ke$ha's "Tik Tok" is her empathetic response to the takahe's threatened countdown to extinction. Homer's "Odyssey" is about a takahe called Kevin, and his twenty-year adventure to get home to his beloved Murchison Mountains. And as for Kanye West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" ... well, some things are better left unsaid.



5. The Vote Takahe campaign will not stoop so low as to fill up its final reason with irrelevant but highly-ranked search terms in a misguided attempt to boost the campaign's Google search rankings. And Rihanna, One Direction, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Coldplay and Nicki Minaj fully endorse our position on this.



Oh, and because you've been good, here are some more factual-type facts about the takahe:



• The takahē is an endangered flightless bird indigenous to New Zealand.

• Takahē once lived throughout the North and South Islands and were thought to be extinct until rediscovered by Geoffrey Orbell near Lake Te Anau in the Murchison Mountains, South Island in 1948. 

• Today’s population is around 260 birds at various sites including the Murchison Mountains in Fiordland as well as the pest-free islands Tiritiri Matangi, Kapiti, Mana and Maud and mainland sanctuary of Maungatautiri, near Cambridge.

• Some takahē have lived for over 20 years in captivity, but in the wild few would live to more than 15 years of age. 

• Since the 1980’s, DOC has been involved in managing takahē nests to boost the birds' recovery. Artificial incubation of eggs and rearing of chicks is carried out at the Burwood Bush rearing unit, Te Anau, where five pairs are held to form a small breeding group. 





Remember! Vote Takahe , tweet #votetakahe and #birdoftheyear, and disrupt opposition political gatherings with your enthusiastic pecking!


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.

Tuesday Poem: The First Artist On Mars, plus an Announcement

The First Artist on Mars



Well, the first professional artist

There were scientists who, you know

dabbled

but NASA sent us —

me and two photographers —

to build support for the program.



The best day?

That was in Marineris.

Those canyons are huge

each wall a planet

turned on its side.

I did a power of painting there.



You can see all my work

at the opening. Do come.

Hey, they wanted me to paint propaganda —

you know, 'our brave scientists at work' —

but I told them

you'll get nothing but the truth from me



I just paint what I see

and let others worry

what the public think.

Still, the agency can't be too displeased.

They're sponsoring my touring show.

That's coming up next spring.



Would I go back? Don't know.

It's a hell of a distance

and my muscles almost got flabby

in the low G. Took me ages

to recover — lots of gym and water time

when I should have been painting.



But Jupiter would be worth the trip!

Those are awesome landscapes

those moons, each one's so different.

Mars is OK — so old, so red,

so vertical. Quite a place

but limited, you know?



Credit note: "The First Artist On Mars" was first published in Blackmail Press 15 (May 2006) and was included in my second poetry collection, All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens, where it forms part of a sequence about the exploration of Mars called Red Stone.
That sequence was inspired by Kim Stanley Robinson’s superb Mars
Trilogy, but this rather conceited artist is entirely my own invention.



Tim says: That note first appeared on Helen Lowe's blog, on which she kindly published "The First Artist on Mars" as a Tuesday Poem in 2010. I wouldn't normally 're-use' a Tuesday Poem in this way, but it seemed appropriate this time, because TFAOM was also included in Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, the anthology Mark Pirie and I co-edited in 2009 which was published by IP, and ... (drumroll please!) ...



P. S. Cottier and I have An Announcement: We are going to be jointly editing an anthology of Australian speculative poetry, to be published, all being well, by IP in 2014. Like Voyagers, it will have both a historical and a contemporary component - so we will be trolling the archives for the history of Australian speculative poetry, but also calling for submissions from contemporary poets - though it will be a while before that call is issued, so (if you happen to be Australian) please don't send your poems to us yet!



Unlike Voyagers, it won't be restricted to science fiction poetry, but rather will cover the full range of speculative poetry, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, and magic realism. We'll say more about that in the call for submissions, too.



I am really looking forward to our working on this project together, as if I were the Barney Gumble to her Linda Ronstadt, though I hope no snow-ploughs will be involved in this one. Keep watching the stars, and the market listings!



The Tuesday Poem: Is not a thing of rags and patches, nor yet a wand'ring minstrel, but rather a still point in a turning world.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.

Tuesday Poem: Watching The Birds

An
old woman in a bathchair

appears
on the lawn

hair
freshly combed

rug
newly straightened.




Her
attendants

relieved

move
away

two
hours future-proofed.




She
is watching the birds

the
impudent birds

blackbird,
thrush

sparrow




looking
for bread

raven,
crow

corvidae

tugging
at rings




waxeye

fantail

grey
warbler

trying
to perch.




The
old woman

stares
straight ahead

eyes
wide in delight

watching




roc

moa

elephant
bird

vast
as the house




she
shared with her mother

when
Father was gone to the war.

They
push at her face with their beaks.

An
old woman. The insolent birds.




Credit note: This poem was first published in my second poetry collection, All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens.




Tim says: There is something lacking from this poem: The Takahe, which I encourage you all to vote for as New Zealand's Bird of the Year 2012. 




The Tuesday Poem: Can be found in all its multifarious magnificence on the Tuesday Poem 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.