Tim Jones's Blog, page 47

Tuesday Poem: Now My Love Is Not The Same, by Sergei Esenin, translated by Tim Jones

Now My Love Is Not The Same



(to Kliuev)



Now my love is not the same.

Ah, I know, you grieve, you

Grieve that pools of words

Have not spilled from the moon's broom.



Mourning and rejoicing at the star

Which settles on your brows

You sang out your heart to the izba

But failed to build a home in your heart.



And what you hoped for every night

Has passed your roof by once again.

Dear friend, for whom then did you gild

Your springs with singing speech?



You will not sing about the sun

Nor glimpse, from your window, paradise

Just as the windmill, flapping its wing

Cannot fly up from the earth.



Tim says: Sergei Alexandrovitch Esenin (or Yesenin), 1895-1925, was a Russian poet of peasant origin who lived and worked in the period before, during, and after the Russian revolution. Well-known and much-loved as a poet in Russia, his work has received less attention than it deserves in English-speaking countries, where he may be best known as the ex-husband of Isadora Duncan.



In the final year of my BA in Russian, which I completed in 1995 at Victoria University, having started it several years before at Otago, I translated 15 of Esenin's poems into English, and wrote an essay about him, as my final-year project. The translations are still pretty rough about the edges, but I'm keen to get them out into the world: I did this a little bit last year in the Esenin Translation Project on LibraryThing, and from time to time, as I tidy them up, I will publish some of those translations here.



I'll say a little more about Esenin, his writing, and the poetry of the time as I do so.



Notes:



The "Kliuev" of the dedication refers to Esenin's near-contemporary, poetic mentor, and (according to some biographers) lover Nikolai Kliuev (or Klyuev), one of the earliest peasant poets to gain some measure of acceptance in pre-revolutionary St Petersburg. The essay I wrote to accompany my translations notes:



Kliuev and Esenin began to perform together in public, dressing in idealised peasant style to flatter the expectations of their audience. Esenin took to accompanying himself on an accordion; although the tal'ianka and garmonika are important motifs in his poetry, his skill in playing them lagged behind his skill in writing about them.



An "izba" is a Russian peasant hut.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.

Bougainville Library Project Book Fair This Weekend

There's a book fair being held this weekend in Wellington to raise funds for a library in Bougainville on behalf of the Bougainville Library Project.



The book fair runs from 10am-4pm on Sat 6 November and Sun 7 November at the Portrait Gallery, Shed 11 , Wellington Waterfront.



The Bougainville Library Project also has a Facebook page.



This book fair sounds like a win all the way round for book lovers and for Bougainville, so I hope that, if you're in Wellington, you'll be able to make it along.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.

My Story "The New Neighbours" Is Included In The Apex Book Of World SF, Volume II

Earlier this year, I was delighted to hear from author and editor Lavie Tidhar that my story "The New Neighbours", first published in my short story collection Transported (2008), had been accepted for inclusion in The Apex Book Of World SF, Volume II, scheduled for publication in mid-2011.



At the time, the news wasn't public, and so I duly sat on it. But I sat on it too long - engrossed (embroiled?) in revisions to my current novel manuscript, I missed Lavie's September announcement of the Table of Contents for the anthology.

Apex Book of World SF, Volume II: Table of Contents



Rochita Loenen-Ruiz (Philippines)–Alternate Girl's Expatriate Life

Ivor W. Hartmann (Zimbabwe)–Mr. Goop

Daliso Chaponda (Malawi)–Trees of Bone

Daniel Salvo (Peru)–The First Peruvian in Space

Gustavo Bondoni (Argentina)–Eyes in the Vastness of Forever

Chen Qiufan (China)–The Tomb

Joyce Chng (Singapore)–The Sound of Breaking Glass

Csilla Kleinheincz (Hungary)–A Single Year

Andrew Drilon (Philippines)–The Secret Origin of Spin-man

Anabel Enriquez Piñeiro (Cuba)–Borrowed Time (trans. Daniel W. Koon)

Lauren Beukes (South Africa)–Branded

Raúl Flores Iriarte (Cuba)–December 8

Will Elliott (Australia)–Hungry Man

Shweta Narayan (India)–Nira and I

Fábio Fernandes (Brazil)–Nothing Happened in 1999

Tade Thompson (Nigeria)–Shadow

Hannu Rajaniemi (Finland)–Shibuya no Love

Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Mexico)–Maquech

Sergey Gerasimov (Ukraine)–The Glory of the World

Tim Jones (New Zealand)–The New Neighbours

Nnedi Okorafor (Nigeria/US)–From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog7

Gail Har'even (Israel)–The Slows

Ekaterina Sedia (Russia/US)–Zombie Lenin

Samit Basu (India)–Electric Sonalika

Andrzej Sapkowski (Poland)–The Malady (trans. Wiesiek Powaga)

Jacques Barcia (Brazil)–A Life Made Possible Behind The Barricades



I'm delighted to be included in such a rich lineup of authors from around the world, from Argentina to Zimbabwe, with such fine authors as Ekaterina Sedia and Nnedi Okorafor, plus many others whose work I don't yet know and look forward to reading. Science fiction is so often thought of as being an Anglophone preserve, and in particular the preserve of American and British writers: good on Lavie, and Apex, for demonstrating through this anthology series, and through the World SF blog, that this is not the case.



In the meantime, I suggest you check out The Apex Book of World SF, the first volume in the series, which received this detailed review by Andy Sawyer in Strange Horizons.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: Baxter Between the Wickets, by Michael O'Leary

Tim says: This week, I've chosen an anthologised poem that is also part of a novel. Confused? You won't be...



A Tingling Catch



"Baxter Between the Wickets" is one of several poems by Michael O'Leary in the excellent anthology A Tingling Catch: A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009, edited by Mark Pirie, which was launched at the Long Room of the Basin Reserve, the test cricket ground in Wellington, on Sunday. I had the great pleasure of reading my poem Swing at the launch.



I was going to spend some time telling you how good A Tingling Catch is - starting with this cover painting of the Basin Reserve by Jocelyn Galsworthy, who, I think it's safe to say, is the world's leading cricket artist, and continuing with the selection of poems (mine, of course, modestly excluded!).

But now I don't have to say how good it is, because Graham Beattie has done so admirably on Beattie's Book Blog.



Out of It



So let's move on to the book from which this poem is extracted. Out of It (Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, 1987) is presently out of print, but Michael is planning to reprint it in 2011 - and if you can't wait till then, the entire text of the novel is available online. I read Out of It recently, and enjoyed it very much.



The frame of this novel-with-poems is a cricket match at Eden Park between the "Out of It XI" and New Zealand. The two XIs are:



NEW ZEALAND OUT OF IT



1) Dipak Patel Jimi Hendrix



2) Ken Rutherford Monk Lewis



3) John Wright (V.C.) Te Rauparaha (C)



4) Martin Crowe Oscar Wilde



5) Jeff Crowe Jim Morrison



6) Jeremy Coney (C) Alfred Jarry



7) Richard Hadlee Janice Joplin



8) Ian Smith Bob Marley (V.C.)



9) John Bracewell Herman Goering



10) Lance Cairns Lord Byron



11) Ewen Chatfield James Joyce



12TH MEN



12) Martin Sneddon James K. Baxter



Baxter, then, is on the field as a runner for an injured Jim Morrison, and "Baxter Between the Wickets" represents his thoughts as he is called through for three runs by Te Rauparaha, the "Out of It XI" captain. Michael tells me that the "Colin" of the poem is Colin Durning, an old friend of both James K. Baxter and Michael O'Leary.



Baxter Between the Wickets



Morrison hit Chatfield down to deep cover and sent Hemi, grey-hair, grey-beard flying like sails, off for a run. The chief ran like the wind so that Baxter, who was obviously the least fit of the two, was stretched to the limit but made it home for three runs.



"Ha Ha! I bet that got the old cogs in the wheels turning, John. I thought the old guru of the New Jerusalem was struggling a bit there."



"Yes Dennis, but he made it and his thinking must be matching his physical triumph at this moment."





Man! He has called me again

From that place inside me – the unworthy



Servant! He called me three times

When I, in my mortal dung heap mind



Would have settled for one

And all the lice in my beard jumped out



For fear of this terrible century's (looming) speed

Who will torment me now, at night



Who will remind me of Him –

And sin! Which this mad old devil



Commits with every eyelid bat, every thought

Kei te Rangitira o te ngati porangi, ahau –



I stand at the end of the crease Colin

Knowing He only wants what He knows I can do





This poem, and the text which immediately precedes it, is taken with permission from Michael O'Leary's 1987 novel Out of It.



Finally, this poem also ties back to my post from early October responding to Scott Baxter's query about the influence of James K. Baxter on New Zealand poetry. Here, that influence is alive and well, if not incredibly happy at having been called through for more than a single!



You can check out all of the Tuesday Poems at 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.

Welcome To My Blog

Welcome! You'll find my recent posts listed on the left-hand side of this blog. Since I'm between posts at the moment, here are some of my books, and how to get hold of them.



My short story collection Transported, which was longlisted for the 2008 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, has recently become available for the Kindle.
My fantasy novel Anarya's Secret is available in hardback, paperback or ebook format.
Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, an anthology I co-edited with Mark Pirie, won the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collected Work. You can buy Voyagers from Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle e-book, or buy it directly from the publisher at the Voyagers mini-site.
For a great sampler of NZ science fiction and fantasy, try A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction, which includes my story "The Last Good Place".
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 Kerry Popplewell

Kerry Popplewell has lived in Ngaio, Wellington, with her husband Bruce for many years in a house that looks over to the hills running south from Mount Kaukau; it gets all of the sun and most of the wind. They have two adult children and more grandchildren than they ever anticipated, though the only other permanent residents aat the moment are a large black Labrador called Louis and a Burmese cat called Bailey - both 'hand-me-ups' from one of their children. (Their home has always had cat(s) or dog(s) or some combination of both.)



Born near the end of 1940, Kerry spent the war years with her mother at her grandmother's home in Pahiatua. When her father returned from the Pacific theatre, the family moved to Napier where she grew up. She still feels a real connection with Hawke's Bay, especially with the Kaweka and Ruahine ranges where she and her husband have often tramped. Both her parents were teachers, her father Jim Reidy being the first principal of Colenso High School. She thinks teaching must be a form of hereditary insanity since, having gained an MA in English at VUW and studied at the University of Chicago, she returned to lecture in English for nearly ten years before resigning to care for her children; and, once they started school, she taught Mathematics as well as English at Onslow College for fifteen years.



In 1995 she took a year's leave without pay, travelled overseas for some months and decided to retire early. It was then she started to write poems: "I'd always meant to be a poet but it took me a while to realise that to be one you had to complete poems!" Several courses she took at the International Institute of Modern Letters helped her start to do so.

Leaving The Tableland was launched in May 2010. I think that was the best-attended book launch I've been to - there must have been over 100 people there. For those who were not present, what led you to choose that particular venue, and what made it such a success?



I thought that if I were to have a launch, I'd like it to be a party for friends as well - and, as many of those we know well are trampers, the choice of the Tararua Tramping Club hall seemed fitting. One of my friends suggested it, possibly in jest, and I thought 'Why not?' It felt good being in a familiar place, even if the absence of an oven meant we had to buy a small portable one for $8 on Trade Me to heat the pastries! Roger Steele, my publisher, said he'd never had a launch in a tramping club hall before but he got keen on the idea and insisted we heat cheerios in a billy over a primus.

Do your work on your poetry in your head as you walk, or are the two - writing poetry and tramping - quite separate activities?



Mostly separate, though I do remember composing a haiku climbing up a ridge above Gollan's Valley. Odd phrases, rhythms or ideas may come to me tramping but as for a poem, I need - literally - to have a pen in hand. But of course the places I tramp in and the experiences I have in the mountains provide material for my poems - as do all the other facets of my life, be it family, friends or faith.



If it isn't an indelicate question, when did you first think of putting a collection of your poetry together?



Hmm. The really indelicate question would be asking why it took me so long to do so! Right from around 1996 when I started not just to write but also to submit poems for publication I thought I'd get round to collecting them sometime.



Was the path from initial idea to published collection straightforward?



No, but mostly because of my advanced skills in procrastination. Then, in 2006, a friend suggested I apply for one of the Manuscript Assessment Awards the New Zealand Society of Authors offer each year. I was fortunate enough to be given one and even more fortunate in getting James Norcliffe as my assessor. After all the detailed advice he gave me, I felt I really had to get moving. Even so, it was probably a year after Roger Steele agreed to take on my book that the collection came out - I needed to do a good deal more work on it myself.



You taught for many years. Was teaching something that helped or hindered your poetry - or is that too simplistic a question?



In my case, I think 'hindered' as teaching, no matter the subject matter or level, will absorb every bit of time and creative energy you are prepared to give it. But then teaching was something I truly enjoyed, so I'm not consumed with regret for all those unwritten poems! Other poets are able to combine writing and teaching very successfully.



Did a particular person inspire you to start writing poetry?



I think the poets I read did that - but certainly Helen Hill, the teacher to whose memory my collection is dedicated, encouraged my own efforts. I must have been a trial to her in some ways, pestering her to read the whole of Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" and "Lycidas" to our fourth form (Year 10) English class. Later I appreciated her reluctance! Helen Hill was also responsible for introducing me to tramping so she certainly had a big influence on my life.



Which poets do you feel have had the most influence on your own work?



Keats truly floored me when I was 14 - not only was I going to be a poet, I was sure I too would die at 25. A year or so later, it was Hopkins who had me giddy on words and rhythm. Then, in my MA year, Joan Stevens introduced us to Philip Larkin and if I had to single out one poet whose work has almost surely influenced mine, it would be him; but then, behind Larkin as it were, is Wordsworth whose attraction for me grew slowly but surely. On the other hand, the poet on whose work I intended to do my doctoral dissertation (something I never quite got round to!) was the Orkney poet, Edwin Muir. Of course there are all the other poets whom I have at one time or another 'discovered' - Edward Thomas, Dickinson, Auden, Herbert - not to mention New Zealand poets from Bethell to Bill Manhire. I'd find it hard to say though whether or not they've influenced my own work in a particular way.



Has having a book published changed how you feel about the role of poetry in your life?



Not really. Though I'd like to think I might become more disciplined in setting aside time to write and more diligent in sending work off for publication. I remember Elizabeth Smither at a workshop some years ago advising us to 'Send Something Somewhere' every month - I wish I did.



Now that Leaving The Tableland has been published, do you have another collection, or some other writing project, under way?



Well, I'm probably at least a third of the way towards having enough poems for a second collection - very few of the poems in Leaving the Tableland were written after 2005 and they've slowly been accumulating since then. Also, because I left it so long to get out a book, there were a number of other poems I'd like to have included but couldn't. I recall Roger Steele saying that a volume the size I'd had in mind was "a little immodest for a first collection". I'm sure he was right. (He was kind enough to suggest I could save some of them for next time!)



Book Availability



Kerry's collection Leaving the Tableland is published by Steele Roberts (2010) and available from the publisher or in selected bookshops for $19.99 (RRP).



A poem from Leaving the Tableland, Take me back to the Bay, was my Tuesday Poem this week.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: Take me back to the Bay, by Kerry Popplewell

Take me back to the Bay



1



Take me back to the Bay,

back to the Sixties too —

when what was to come

was certain to be

as bright and wide as the sea.



2



Dust tastes concrete-white;

feet flinch on riverbed and beach.

Heat haze deletes the hills.



Mushrooms erupt in damp paddocks

alongside the distraction of blackberry,

the leaf shoals on shingle roads.



There's a nip in late afternoon air,

snow on Kaweka. In August

bare willows burn orange.



Pink and tentative, flowers

put out feelers on fruit trees,

querying their cue.



Tim says:



"Take me back to the Bay" is reproduced, with permission, from Kerry Popplewell's first poetry collection Leaving the Tableland, published by Steele Roberts (2010) and available from the publisher or in selected bookshops for $19.99 (RRP).



My next post this week will be an interview with Kerry Popplewell.



You can read other poems from this collection which have previously been selected as Tuesday Poems, Portrait: Pahiatua, 1942 on Helen Rickerby's blog, and Leaving the Tableland on the Tuesday Poem hub blog.



Check out all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem hub 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.

Welcome To My Blog

Welcome! You'll find my recent posts listed on the left-hand side of this blog. Since I'm between posts at the moment, here are some of my books, and how to get hold of them.



My short story collection Transported, which was longlisted for the 2008 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, has recently become available for the Kindle.
My fantasy novel Anarya's Secret is available in hardback, paperback or ebook format.
Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, an anthology I co-edited with Mark Pirie, won the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collected Work. You can buy Voyagers from Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle e-book, or buy it directly from the publisher at the Voyagers mini-site.
For a great sampler of NZ science fiction and fantasy, try A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction, which includes my story "The Last Good Place".

You should also check out Helen Lowe's Australia/New Zealand F&SF Author Series, which she's organised to celebrate the release of her novel The Heir of Night.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.

That Tingling Feeling

How To Order A Tingling Catch

I had hoped to do a full past about A Tingling Catch, the newly-published anthology of New Zealand cricket poems edited by Mark Pirie, but time has slipped away. I still hope to write that post next week, but in the meantime, I can let you know that A Tingling Catch is an excellent collection which libraries and cricket fans alike should make sure they have.



A Tingling Catch has its own blog, and Mark has now put up a post on How Do I Order A Tingling Catch? It's worth checking out.



Helen Lowe's Aus/NZ F&SF Author Series



To celebrate the Aus/NZ publication of her new novel The Heir of Night, Helen Lowe asked a number of Australian and New Zealand fantasy and science fiction authors (plus Julie Czerneda, a Canadian author with strong Aus/NZ connections) to contribute to a series of guest posts on her blog on why they love fantasy and/or SF.



The series as a whole makes fascinating reading. My own contribution, on J. G. Ballard, Kim Stanley Robinson and pitching a tent in the wide space between, was picked up and republished on the big US blog io9, which was a nice bonus for both Helen and myself.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: N.E.V.

N.E.V.



So few ways out of the narrow valley

so many footprints along North Road



Sliding down Blacks Road on the black ice

off to work through the hoarfrost of morning



Walking the dog at Chingford Park

parking the car at Bethune's Gully



There's a photo I still look at:

twenty years ago now, four of us under the pines



ready to climb Mt Cargill

on a still afternoon in summer



Twenty years on, and we're scattered

two of us walking the hilltops of Wales



me in Wellington, wondering

when it will truly feel like home



and the dog in the soil

of a house in North-East Valley



pushing up the daisies, and the frost,

and the life that flickers on the hillside's bones.





Tim says: This poem is from my first collection, Boat People. It was on my list to read at the Ballroom Café this past Sunday, but I trimmed the list by a few poems, and this was one that I omitted.



In any case, it may mean more to Dunedin people than to Wellingtonians. I lived in Dunedin for seventeen years, the last 12 of them spent at 20 Gillespie St, North East Valley - the "N.E.V." of the title.



I enjoyed the Ballroom Café reading a lot. I was my usual nervous, distracted self before the session started, and the awful weather didn't help, but lots of people came along despite the weather, there was an excellent Open Mike section, the musical interlude from the Gracious Deviants was very enjoyable, and by the time I came to read, I was relaxed and ready to go.



My son Gareth came along, and did an excellent job running the book sales table. And, since Lewis Scott couldn't be there, Neil Furby came down from Auckland to MC, which was definitely above and beyond.



Now I'm looking forward to November's session, when another Tuesday Poet, Saradha Koirala, will be the featured poet.



You can check out all the Tuesday Poems at 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.