Janis Freegard's Blog, page 19
March 4, 2013
Shenandoah
US-based literary magazine Shenandoah (Vol 6 No. 2) features a selection of poems by New Zealand poets, including Hinemoana Baker, Emma Barnes, James Brown, Kay Cooke, Natasha Dennerstein, Nicola Easthope, Cliff Fell, me (Janis Freegard), Rob Hack, Bernadette Hall, Siobhan Harvey, Anna Jackson, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Frankie McMillan, Maria McMillan, Emma Neale, Bill Nelson, Chris Price, Maraea Rakutaku, Harry Ricketts, Sandi Santorelli, Alice Te Punga Somerville, Tim Upperton, Sugar Magnolia Wilson and Sue Wootton. You can listen to audio versions of the poems too.
You can also read an essay on NZ poetry by editors Lesley Wheeler (who visited New Zealand on a Fulbright scholarship last year), Max Chapnick and Drew Martin, and enjoy additional poems by Robert Bense, Roy Bentley, James Brasfield, Nancy Naomi Carlson, Melissa Dickson, Richard Foerster, Brandan Galvin, Jeff Gundy, Jared Harel, Ben Howard, Luke Johnson, Susan Ludvigson, Tom Reiter, Austin Segrest and Corrie Williamson.
There is also flash fiction by Grazie Christie, Michael Devens, Trudy Lewis, Ryan Rising, Evelyn Somers , Melissa Wyse and Julian Zabalbeascoa.
My favourite poem so far is Emma Barnes’ poem Ohio.
Over and out.
February 25, 2013
February 14, 2013
Alice Spider Gets a Kick-start
Well, the Alice Spider book from Anomalous Press is fast becoming a reality. You may have met Alice before, but this will be the most Alice there’s ever been in one place. This is how she will look:
The stunning artwork on the cover is by Kristen Necessary.
There is one last hurdle. The lovely people at Anomalous Press are making six chapbooks altogether (small collections of poetry, of up to 40 pages) as a labour of love and have launched a Kickstarter campaign to get the funds together for printing. They need $US5,000. If you would like to support them – and receive books, postcards and other goodies in return (this is a pre-order type deal rather than a charity drive) – here’s where you can pledge the amount you would like to pledge and a description of what you will receive. Yes, I’ve already put my money where my mouth is, and huge thanks to everyone else who is supporting the campaign.
The Kickstarter link shows all the chapbooks being published and they look great!
February 11, 2013
Tuesday Poem – Cactus by Janis Freegard
Tuesday Poem – Cactus by Janis Freegard
I’ve uploaded a video of me reading my poem Cactus on to my Blogger blog. Cactus was published in Landfall last year. You can check out the other Tuesday poems by clicking on the quill to the left.
January 21, 2013
Tuesday Poem – Safe at Home, by Laurice Gilbert
Safe at Home
Night, and there is nothing outside my bedroom window
No red corrugated iron shed, by day ringing with the sound of Dad’s tools
No aviary of zebra finches peeping into the kitchen window below
No fairy flowers on the fuchsia, no posies on the hydrangea
No washing line to swing from, kicking the top of Dad’s birthday kowhai
No swing of thick grey pipes from the council tip, carrying me high enough to reach the wash-house roof
No square of lawn piled high with leftover wood, sometimes a princess’s castle, sometimes a pirate ship
No outside toilet populated by whirling dervish daddy-long-legses
No hole in the side fence where I slip past the leathery taupata to visit Jeannie, who feeds me chocolate cup cakes and Robinson’s lime cordial when Mum is in hospital
No hill where the Governor-General lives surrounded by pine trees; where a Bad Thing happened to a lady so we are forbidden to play in the spicy darkness with the cushioned floor; where the policemen check up on you if you do
It is night so there is nothing outside my bedroom window.
Except, of course, for passing spaceships flashing their comforting red and green lights.
Welcome to the first Tuesday poem of 2013! This week’s poem is from the recently launched collection ‘My Family and Other Strangers’ by Laurice Gilbert. Laurice says:
“The poem is based on a memory I have of a childhood night when I couldn’t sleep and I got up and played with my paper dolls (I’d have been about 7 or 8). In those days there wasn’t much light pollution, and it was very dark outside. I saw the flashing lights off in the distance just before Mum came in and told me to go back to bed.”
I enjoy the way this poem evokes childhood memories and preoccupations, and I especially like the comforting spaceships.
Laurice Gilbert is President of the New Zealand Poetry Society, and has had poems published in many journals and anthologies such as Island (Australia), The Book of Ten (UK), Shot Glass Journal and Fib Review. ‘My Family and Other Strangers’, Laurice’s first collection, is available from: http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/mf%2526os As well as reflecting on childhood, family and parenting, Laurice’s collection includes a section on Vincent van Gogh.
January 13, 2013
Alice is a Vamp and a Tramp
A selection from The Continuing Adventures of Alice Spider is now available as a limited edition hand-made pamphlet, published by Anomalous Press and featuring line drawings by Jill Kambs. It’s available from Vamp and Tramp booksellers in the States ($US45). More adventures for Alice coming soon!
December 10, 2012
Tuesday Poem – Rona remembers sorrow, by Reihana Robinson
Rona remembers sorrow
He covers my eyes with his downy pelt,
he rolls me into his marsupial pouch.
I taste the dirt and tang of earth and sex.
My heart lies thumping in its cage.
Now and then I stick my neck out
and deflect my lover’s prowess.
He shudders his love into me, knowing
I am absent.
He strokes me as if I were made of feathers
and hollow bones, as if I were the only
fragile invention.
We both know there is nothing to be done.
In a swivel of space I see
half of earth.
She moves in a daze, understanding
only the animals.
She is wondering if she will make it to the
millennium party.
She coughs
like in the old days.
For this I stick my neck out.
A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Skyline in Wellington (top of the cable car, stunning views of the harbour) for the launch of Reihana Robinson’s new poetry book, Auē Rona, published by Steele Roberts. There was wonderful poetry, delicious food, fine company and a most entertaining speech by Roger Steele who pointed out that all three winners of the PM’s literary awards this year (Sam Hunt, Greg O’Brien and Albert Wendt) are poets. There was even the chance to buy one of Noa Noa von Bassewitz’s woodcut prints, which feature in the book (and yes, there’s now one on our wall). It was lovely to meet Reihana, finally. We featured together in AUP New Poets 3 in 2008, but had never actually met.
Auē Rona is a re-telling of the legend of Rona and the moon, but it’s also more than that. These are poems of love, grief and defiance, poems that move from the moon to Cape Reinga, to the wider Pacific. In her notes to the collection, Reihana writes:
“The traditional story of Rona and the moon opens as she is collecting water for her children. A cloud covers the moon; she falls, spilling the water, and she curses. As punishment she is torn from earth and taken to the moon, still clutching her calabash and holding a ngaio tree. Auē Rona. Oh Rona. Oh grief. Oh sorrow.”
Reihana Robinson’s writing has also been published in a number of journals including Landfall, Cutthroat, Hawai’i Review, Trout, Melusine, JAAM, Takahe, Cezanne’s Carrot and Blackmail Press. She lives in the Coromandel. You can listen to a Radio NZ podcast featuring Reihana here and visit her website here.
November 26, 2012
Tuesday Poem – Flax, Tui
Flax, Tui
you can see they belong together:
the upthrust floral tube
clearly shaped to fit a bill
pollen-dusted anthers
tantalising on slender filaments
the stem yields under the weight
as she lands with a fluster
white bow-tie shining against her breast
she plunges into the burnt orange
takes her fill
I spent last weekend at a highly enjoyable and productive poetry workshop led by Vivienne Plumb and attended by a lovely group of fellow poets. This is what I wrote after our nature walk exercise.
Don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday poems.
November 12, 2012
Tuesday Poem – Which Way, a group poem by Sarah, Jen, Mark and Janis
Which Way?
Where do you think you’re going?
Your smile has many teeth.
Who do you think I look like?
He wondered if he would ever make it home.
How could you do that to me?
I hide my frown in my drink, but no-one notices.
What month were you born?
The sun is hot and my skin sighs.
Why did she wave to him?
The smudge of fingerprints on glass.
What’s your favourite type of weather?
The shadows on the ceiling look like owls’ eyes.
What kind of animal do you like best?
Blue stars twinkle in the vase.
Are we nearly there yet?
I am in love with someone, but I do not know what will happen.
An hour passed,
but which way?
Horse, Chair, Denver
‘Which Way?’ is a group poem written by Sarah, Jen and Mark from one of the writing groups I belong to. Usually in this group we write fiction or non-fiction, but this month, we decided to try something different. The exercise was based on one I did with Bill Manhire when he stood in for Greg O’Brien once, in a poetry workshop I attended. The idea is for each member of the group to write a couple of questions and a couple of statements on separate pieces of paper, after which the questions and answers are matched at random. I stuffed up the order a bit when I was assembling our poem, which is why it ends in a question. But I think that works.
Exercises like this can be a great way to get the ideas flowing. By juxtaposing things which weren’t originally intended to be together, you can find some unexpected connections and tangents to follow.
(People familiar with Bill Manhire’s poetry may notice that the horse in the photograph is naked.)
