Love this cover. Love the editorial by Chloe Lane which starts 'Monet flung himself into the Seine...', love the crazy piece What Depressions Look Like by Amy Howden-Chapman which ends '... We may have to build ourselves back up and out with green jobs, toothpicks and gum. I can see a new skyline of saliva bubbles, ladders, and clean smiles.' Love that Amy - one of the most creative thinkers but worst spellers and grammarians I know - has an Oxford comma inserted between 'ladders' and 'and'.Love that Anna Taylor with her fresh first collection of stories out has The Beekeeper in here which starts 'When she was seventeen, my mother saved her own life just by walking across the lawn to the washing line...'
Love that there's a lot of 'Adams' in there [got a son with that name so it jumps out at me] - Pip Adam [the writer] with a piece called Pushing, Pulling and a series of Charlotte Simmonds' poems one of which begins: 'Before 6.30, Adam eats a pie, cracks a bourbon, smokes pot and a couple of cigarettes and/listens to punk rock...' Love that when I read it aloud to my boy, he nods 'yeah, that sounds about right...except for the punk rock...' Love that there's a poem by funky Johanna Aitchison called what seagull wants and a series of poems by my Montana-winning friend Airini Beautrais all about tricks of various sorts with her lovely off-centred view of the world: ' While you are stopped on a street corner/your future lover cycles past you/and does not notice you there...'
Love that Lawrence Patchett talks about 'Hawera and the Morrieson question' - which includes how Ronald Hugh's cousins Shirley and Heather threw away his papers without thinking 'because he wasn't as famous then' and how his writing attic is now stored in a paddock. Love that Hue and Cry calls itself a 'literary slash art journal'.
Love that it has cheered me up.
Because my friend Kirsty Gunn, who has cut a swathe through literary Wellington with her cry of 'death to the narrative arc' and 'I am not a writer, I am an artist' , and who has been so wonderfully stimulating and opinionated and generous as Randell Cottage fellow, and made life such fun for the winter she's lived here, is soon to head home to the UK and Scotland.
I just want to hue and cry.
5 comments:
Some would say that the 'serial comma' (comma before the 'and' in a list) is correct, but has fallen into disuse in recent times.
I'm sorry I didn't get to hear Kirsty speak. It seemed like such a fleeting visit! Hope she got lots of of the residency.
Hi Rachael, Yes that serial or oxford comma - it made me smile to see Amy had one in her essay when she normally eshews grammatical niceties. The course I teach at Massey encourages students to reclaim it for clarity's sake, and I have a friend - an Oxford don - who declares it the only way to go. So, go Amy!
You missed a treat with Kirsty - but she will be back. She's loved her visit and has made plans of various sorts to be more connected to NZ in future.
It is, quite simply, a marvelous magazine. Long may it thrive. We are all much better of for it.
What do you reckon the chances of me hanging on the coat-tails of Kirsty's success by eschewing the correct use of punctuation in my stories? :)
I can feel your happiness, Mary!
Hue & Cry is an excellent publication, and improving all the time.
Wonderful to hear Kirsty speak in Wellington. Almost like a call to arms, combined with friendly comfortable chat. Thanks for organising and chairing.
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