What I'm Reading: "broadsheet 7″

Recently I mentioned that I had received my contributor's copies of broadsheet 7: new new zealand poetry (The Night Press) edited by Mark Pirie. broadsheet is  a  by-invitation publication and  I was pleased to be able to contribute Starman and also Penelope Dreaming from the Ithaca Conversations sequence. Since receiving broadsheet, I have also been enjoying the process of working through the journal, savouring the work of my fellow poets. Because I like to take poetry slowly, rather than galloping through, I haven't finished yet. And because I always work through from beginning to tend, I haven't yet reached the featured guest, Anthony Rudolf of the UK, or the other poets in the latter part of the journal.

So, like Arnie in Terminator 2, I'll be back … But for now I can say that I am very much enjoying broadsheet 7 and there are both poems and lines within them that delight, from Emma Barnes' opening poem, Sacral:

" … I play quartet notes. I play

crotchets. The string wound

around me bodily. I am tied

in the bowing of a cello

in the crowing of a crowd.

The crowning of your head

The cawing of you crawling.

You open your eyes and say:

"What magic is this?" …"

to the magic realism of Basim Furat's Students of Hondori (translated by Abdul Monem Nasser; edited by Mark Pirie):

" …The cries of sellers there

awaken in me an adoration for an ancient land

where jewels are words, river water is sold in jars

and sea scent covers the stalls …"

and Sarahda Koirala's delicate irony in Portrait:

" … But after the photo you took a day off

brightening the shadow on my face

cast by the open window

and air-brushing the hair from my eyes."

These are just a small sample of the many fine poems on offer, but I hope they tempt you to dip into broadsheet 7 for yourself.