And a-bloody-gain

Just a brief post to say that we’re ok. I was with my sister-in-law in a shop upstairs in Riccarton Mall when it hit, and I have to say it wasn’t an entirely pleasurable experience. But we’re ok, and back home safely. And deeply impressed with how well everyone behaved – plenty of fear, but no panic.

It will be very nice when we finally stop having these shakes.

On the other hand, there’s nowhere on the planet better prepared to cope with them, sod it.

Kia kaha guys.

Signing off for 2011

Hard to believe the year is nearly over. Feels much longer. And much shorter. So much has happened. So much lost.

We did the Cathedral walkway last weekend – a friend who has already done it commented tat it was a bit like being told someone had died and then being shown the bed they’d died in, already remade. I know what she meant – the empty spaces are less distressing than the piles of rubble, or the buildings with tattered curtains flapping through broken windows. And I felt pretty calm and resigned to it all as we were walking around.

Until we got to the cathedral.

I’m not a Christian, and I’ve got no personal ties to the cathedral. Except the ones we all have – that it was the symbolic heart of the city, and something we regarded with affection. And seeing it like that had me in floods of tears before I even knew what was happening. It’s not like the Knox church, which is strangely beautiful in its bare bones. This is a stricken building. The remains of the rose window; the statues with grass growing around them; the scaffolding. I’ve never appreciated the Chalice quite so much before, but having it there, whole and straight, gave me something to look at when I couldn’t bare the sight of the cathedral any more. But then you look back again, and notice more – the broken stained glass. The little cupola, tucked away under the trees. And the naked sky behind, where there used to be buildings.

But then you move on – literally, as well as figuratively. As much as you can, anyway.

Looking back at this year, I’ve been a pretty busy woman. Only ten poems completed, but one of those was “Fare”, which must count for a couple of extras, surely! And I have drafts of the same number again in various stages of completeness, so that’s not too bad. I’ve judged three competitions; been a guest reader in Invercargill, Auckland, Dunedin, Greymouth, and even Christchurch (Hagley Park, plus Beat Street – thanks guys!). Reviewed two books for the NZPS (and you can read those reviews here and here) and a couple for myself; read a lot of other poetry, good and bad. Discovered Christopher Logue’s Homer, and dallied with Don Paterson Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets (very interesting, and I’ll be blogging about it next year). Taught two classes in Christchurch, and ran two workshops out. Got my restricted license; buried both my grandmothers; got turned down by CNZ. And that’s without even considering the earthquakes, the snowstorms and the Rugby World Cup.

One hell of a year.

On the immediate horizon, I’ve got my minimum numbers for the two Summer Poetry classes. So the sign-up dates have now been extended to a week before each class. In other words, if your summer leaves you feeling restless and in need of some poetry focus, there is time yet for you to decide to join us.

A new Reading for Writing class will begin on March 10th, running for five weeks, Saturday mornings 10.30 am to 1.30 pm at the South Christchurch Library Learning Centre. It’s $45, and limited to 18 people, so if you want to sign up for that then sooner rather than later would be advisable. (Details and contact form here.)

And plans are afoot for an even more extravagant Guy Fawkes weekend in Greymouth – a poetry train! A group trip across the mountains on the TranzAlpine from Christchurch to Greymouth, possibly with a workshop on board as we go, and then a reading and workshop(s) over the weekend. And possibly a reciprocal tour by West Coast poets, making the journey in reverse the following weekend (or month, or …) and giving a reading in Christchurch. The frighteningly efficient Greg O’Connell is on the case, and I’ll post details when they come to hand. Mark the weekend of November 3rd and 4th 2012 in your diaries.

Congratulations to Helen Lowe, for being selected as the 2012 Ursula Bethell fellow – sharing the title with Dunedin poet, David Eggleton. I understand Helen is planning to use the time to work on #3 in the marvelous Wall of Night series. Hooray! Congratulations also to Marisa Cappetta, who has won this year’s Margaret Mahey award for the best 1st year folio at the Hagley Writers’ Institute. Hooray again!

So that’s it from me for another year. To keep you alternating between amused and horrified while I’m away, feel free to check out this list of the world’s 11 Most Unintentionally Creepy Christmas Ornaments, which serve to remind us all that Santa is an anagram of Satan. Auckland’s Santa made #1. You have been warned. Merry Christmas!

Blown away by Logue’s War Music

I started this post back in April, but life (and “Fare”) got in the way and I didn’t get it finished. But today I discovered that Christopher Logue died recently, and so the great project that triggered this post originally will never be completed.

The book that triggered the post was Christopher Logue’s amazing War Music. It is mind-blowingly brilliant. Filmic, page-devouringly readable, and gloriously musical. It begins:

Picture the east Aegean sea by night,
And on a beach aslant its shimmering
Upwards of 50,000 men
Asleep like spoons beside their lethal Fleet.

It’s a retelling of three parts (books 1-4 and 16-19) of Homer’s The Iliad, the story of the Siege of Troy. Logue didn’t read Greek (ancient or modern), but was persuaded to make the initial attempt by someone who was a scholar of the relevant period, and who essentially provided him with crib sheets and other people’s translations. And from this, he constructed the most readable recap of this slice of ancient history you’re ever likely to read.

The first part he wrote was published as War Music: An Account of Books 16-19 of Homer’s “Iliad” in 1981. Then he leaped backwards in the story and came up with Kings: An Account of Books 1 and 2 of Homer’s “Iliad”, and then The Husbands: An Account of Books 3 and 4  of Homer’s “Iliad”, published in 1991 and 1995 respectively. My volume collects the three in chronological (rather than publication) order, which certainly made it easy to follow the story. How good were they? Well I stayed up all night reading because I couldn’t put them down until I was finished. And as soon as I did finish, I went online to track down and order the next two –  All Day Permanent Red and  Cold Calls . (Yes, still in the wee small hours!)

He was working on what was to be the final installment of the sequence (series? Epic?) when he died. Drat him! Why couldn’t he have held on a little longer, and waited until at least a complete draft was finished? How inconsiderate!

Seriously though, get your hands on a copy of War Music. It’s available in plenty of libraries (check World Cat for a copy near you). Even if you’ve never read Homer, or thought that the Trojan War was a battle between condom manufacturers, this book will still blow you away. (Possibly not the best choice of phrase, in retrospect.) Hell, even if you’re  history buff who doesn’t read poetry, read this!

Poem – Trumbull Stickney “Sir, say no more”

Sir, say no more.
Within me ’tis as if
The green and climbing eyesight of a cat
Crawled near my mind’s poor birds.

– Trumbull Stickney
(1874 – 1904)

 

I love good metaphor poems. I remember reading this many years ago, and a garbled version of it has stuck in my head ever since without being attached to an actual poet. So it was quite pleasing to come across it again in my trusty Oxford Book of Short Poems, and attach it properly.

Trumbull Stickney was an odd figure, apparently one of the ”Harvard Pessimists”, all of whom died young. (What is it about poets and early death? Why does it seem almost normal to end a poet’s biography with some variation of the phrase and died tragically young?)

What I love most about this poem is how unexpected the image is, and how exactly right. Green and climbing eyesight is spot on – can’t you just see the cat slinking up the tree, along the branch? Can’t you see its shoulder blades way up above its back, the way the movement slows and gets even quieter with the sounds of that last line – the shift from ee and ie and t in the third line to the lower, softer aw and er and m and d in the last? And couching it in someone else’s voice is clever too – those first two lines suggest someone not at all literary (but why? hmm …), which makes the accuracy of the image all the more surprising and pleasing. A good reminder that poetry is all around us, on the lips of anyone. We just have to wait, and listen.

Poetry Workshops for Summer 2012

After a certain amount of deliberation (ok, not that much), I’m offering two poetry workshops for the Summer – a Billy Collins Weekend, and a Poetic Endings Masterclass.

The Billy Collins Weekend – Saturday 21st & Sunday 22nd January – will be a Reading for Writing class, where we’ll look exclusively at Billy Collins poems. As well as the usual close reading and writing exercises, we’ll be looking at the place he occupies in American poetry and thinking about the two big Billy Collins meta-questions – what makes him so popular, and is he a good poet? It should be a lot of fun, and should be suitable for a pretty wide range of abilities.

The second class – February 4th and 5th – is a bit higher level. We’ll be looking at how poems end, both at the level of the line (i.e. why do we break lines, what alternatives are there, and what effect do they have?) and of the poem itself. It will be pretty strongly influenced by James Longenbach’s The Art of the Poetic Line and Barbara Smith’s Poetic Closure – not that anyone else needs to have read them: just a warning of where most of my ideas will be coming from, in case you do know their work and disagree with them. (In which case it should make for a very interesting class indeed!) I haven’t decided yet whether to ask participants to submit poems for this one – case studies are useful, but I’m aware there was some disappointment after my editing masterclass on the part of people whose poems weren’t examined. We’ll see.

Both classes are being held over weekends, starting at 10.30 am and finishing at 1.30 pm, Saturday and Sunday. The cost is $40 each, and there’s a limit of 18 places. Technically the cutoff for enrollment is Christmas Eve, although in practice I’ll probably accept latecomers as long as I get my minimum number signed up before I have to finally confirm the room. (So, in other words, if you’re interested, sign up asap!)

The venue for both is the Fitzgerald Room in the brand new Lincoln Event Centre. Yes, I know some of you are going ‘Lincoln? Way out there in the middle of nowhere?’. In which case I can only assume you haven’t been to Lincoln very recently. From the centre of Christchurch it takes me barely 30 minutes to drive. (More like 15 to 20 minutes, if you come from the western suburbs). The Selwyn Star bus (route #81) runs every half hour on Saturday and every hour on Sundays. Hop off at the pub, turn north, and walk two blocks. Get in early and have a coffee or something to eat at Coffee Culture or Hillyers (seriously yummy pies!). It truly is easier to get to than most locations around Christchurch. Then there’s the peace and quiet …

The official Summer Class Info page (complete with a contact form for those of you who want to put your names down) is here.

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