Tuesday Poem: Orphans by Michele Amas

We are losing our parents,
3 mothers of friends
this month, like a middle-age 

phase we’re going through. 
The aunts and uncles
too, my name I see 

beside the telephone
of one,
I’m down as next of kin 

beside the lawyer
Mr Dick Crush, 
I don’t know 

which is more ridiculous. 
Under the blankets
I calculate the cost 

of death and travel. 
You are in the wardrobe
trying to trap 

a mouse with your shoes. 
It’s hopeless I say
where are the adults 

when you need them. 
I’m still standing on the beach
in my togs and bermuda shorts 

waiting for the parents 
to find
a park 

You can hear Michele read Orphans here. She is an actor and director as well as a poet, so this woman knows how to read a poem. She did the MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters the same year I did, but Michele's collection of poems won the Adam Prize for best folio. It is a damn fine collection published as After the Dance (VUP 2005) and shortlisted for the Best Book of Poetry at the Montana NZ Book Awards. She's just returned from Menton where her partner, Ken Duncum, was the Katherine Mansfield fellow. 

Here's an earlier post on Michele's poetry, especially her marvellous Daughter.  

One very good reason for posting Orphans: I have a good friend who has just lost her father, and she's not the only one. We met up with another friend in the same position when we were having coffee, and she said straight up: 'We are orphans.' They talked about the strangeness of not having parents in the world, now or ever (something that hasn't yet happened to me). That feeling of wondering where the adults are when you need them. 

When I read the last five lines of Orphans, I am immediately at Scorching Bay the summer I was 11. Radios. The smell of sunblock. People on towels. Feet burnt by melting tarmac. Waiting for Dad to find a park. And when he does Mum will plaster us in sunblock and open a book and read until it's time to unpack the picnic. Dad will let us three hang onto his broad back, and he'll take us out past the rock pools into deep water. 

Dad, don't let go. And looking back there's Mum safe on the beach, waving, and here's Dad, his big hands pushing the water away, oblivious to my brothers trying to shove each other off. I'm hanging on as tight as I can. Everything right then seems immense and good. 

This poem is posted here with permission of the author - thanks Michele. Do check out another wonderful poem at the Tuesday Poem hub by award-winning NZ poet Brian Turner. Just click on the QUILL in the sidebar. Then from there, there are 30 poets with Tuesday Poems .... 

Bravado: two poems and a cheque

Bravado Issue 20

Rejoice! The first of my poems in a literary journal since 1980 when Today made it into Landfall. At university at the time, I found all sorts of people read Landfall including my lecturers. They were delighted for me, but it felt to me like my personal little poem was terribly exposed. So after that I shied away from lit journals and kept my poems safely inside boxes and folders.

Quite honestly, there was an element of disorganisation involved too, especially when I went offshore. And I was busy - journalism called - travel called - and eventually, children called. The poems, I guess, were just not loud enough.

Now they are, thanks to the internet. Being able to email submissions - for a persistent procrastinator - is a lifesaver, there are wonderful people on Facebook and in e-newsletters who remind me of poetry deadlines, and I am kept on my toes every week with the Tuesday Poem. Thanks, too, to Bravado. Great name for a journal, and I'm sorry to hear through the grapevine that this might be the final issue.

Oh I love that cheque! $10 a poem! (Note the date on it.)

You can find The Construction of the Nest on my blog here and Harp here.

Top Ten Posts: Shakin' Sylvia and Jivin' Jean and all the rest

After a day sorting out the dreaded boat shed, discovering useful things like the small red balls that go in the Harry Potter game and a pick-up for an acoustic guitar, I have spent a little time sorting out my blog and found similar treasures.

Here's one: a new gadget called 'Popular Posts' which shows my top ten posts ever.  Spot it in the sidebar to the left. 

I am not surprised to see Sylvia Plath heading the list. On 'feedjit' below - and my statcounter - I see how often people search out and find Sylvia. She fascinates as a woman writer of genius who pushed the envelope and died too young.

Number two on the list is my poem on the Christchurch Earthquake, illustrating the 'after shocks' of that event - shocks that are still being felt physically, emotionally and financially.  Reading the poem on National Radio would have given it a boost. Jim Mora is the erudite host of Radio NZ's current events hour, The Panel, and he loves poet guests to read their stuff.

Third is Jean Batten (pictured) - who fascinates for similar reasons to Plath. Poets reading from Best NZ Poems are next up, followed Kate De Goldi's runaway success 10 PM Question.

After that, two light-hearted posts -- one on a funny novelist's t-shirt, and the other is a found poem on bongos that is so light its barely there. A lot of bongo players out there?

A pair of sestinas follow: Andrew Johnston's The Sunflower which inspired my Southern Man which comes straight afterwards. I am thrilled Andrew's poem is getting extra airplay here - it is a masterpiece and deserves it. And my sestina is one of the things I am most proud of this year. It took me over 20 hours to write (I went down the wrong track with the rhyme-scheme to start with), and when I finished, I was exhausted and bursting with pride. It felt like I imagine running a marathon would feel.

Southern Man was another poem I was able to read  on air, and subsequently had the most responses of any poem of mine ever - southerners and people who knew Alan (the Southern Man) rang and left messages, emailed, and stopped me in the streets and at parties. One woman yelled something over her shoulder as she cycled past one day. We were both heading towards the mountains I'd described in the poem and they shone in exactly the same way.

Number Ten is Emily Dickinson's poem Hope. Another woman of genius. A brilliant small poem.

Given my focus on poetry recently via Tuesday Poem (click on the quill in the sidebar to go there), and the increase in followers to this blog as a result, it's no surprise poems hold sway on my all time Top Ten. That could change of course. With summer holidays coming, I am planning to finish the children's novel and get on with Precarious. I won't have much time to blog, but do expect some posts on the difficulties of making hay while the sun shines.

my body's the home of a wandering miner

Sonnet xxiii from The late great Blackball bridge sonnets

by Jeffrey Paparoa Holman

In the house of my body I carry that river.
In the depths of my being I’m water. My

body’s the home of a wandering miner
too old to go down and too tired to go on.

continue...

more on the book here

Wanting coal - man the cost. Twenty nine die in Pike River mining disaster.

Today we reel at the news of 29 dead inside the labyrinth of tunnels that is the Pike River coal mine. The news alone horrifies - and the whole country is mourning those men (some no more than boys) and thinking of their families today. I guess there are also many like me who are wondering how it is - with the obvious dangers involved - that men are still used to retrieve coal from under the earth in this manner. 

My grandfather started his working life in the mines in the north of England but hated it, and quit to work at sea. For many there isn't this choice. They know mining is dangerous but it's ready work and work they can do -- and some, like the 17 year old who died at Pike River at his first day on the job, regard mining as an exciting career. All these men trust the mining companies will have their back.

Interestingly, the Pike River mines investor fact sheet on the Pike River website describes how the coal is mined and transported and what it's used for but it does not once mention the men who walk into the kilometres of underground tunnels on a remote mountainside every day to drill out the coal. It does not include a single picture of a miner at work. 

Which makes you wonder really about both the company and the industry. Who are they looking out for? What price are they willing to pay? And should we let them? 

Extract:

In the Pike River mines Pike River metallurgical hard coking coal is particularly sought after by coke makers and steel mills because of its high quality, including the lowest ash content in the world at one percent, and very low phosphorous levels. 

*

Two mining methods are used.  The first involves large cutting machines to  create roadways in the Brunner seam and the second uses hydraulic monitors (water cannons) to break up the coal face at the rate of 2,000 tonnes-a-day using high pressure blasting. The crushed coal is washed down flumes into a low pressure water pipe which carries the coal 10 kilometres downhill to a coal preparation plant for cleaning, grading, and stockpiling.

From the coal preparation plant, the coal is trucked 20 kilometres to the nearest railhead near the small community of Ikamatua and loaded onto coal trains for a 250 kilometre journey to the east coast export port of Lyttelton.  

***

In light of that, here's an adaptation of the old poem 'For want of a nail' that gives investors a fuller picture of the Pike River mine:

For Want 

Wanting machines - steel the cost. 

Wanting steel  - coal the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost. 

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost. 

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost. 

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost. 

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost. 

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost. 

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost. 

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost. 

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost. 

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost. 

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost. 

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Wanting coal - man the cost. 

Wanting coal - man the cost.

Mary McCallum

Tuesday Poem: How she holds her head

for Christina      

Hell I believe is the carpark at Pak’nSave on a Saturday         

the lost souls -

all those hunched and bunched and loaded up somewhere

between

the trolley lane and the sliding door

devils? too many

shrieking for off-cuts of luncheon from the deli counter

angels? one

appeared in front of me once slipping between the Odyssey

and a Corolla

on her way to the entrance (someone sounded a horn)

insouciant

in jeans and a velvet singlet  and a flash - when she laughed – 

a tongue stud

arms swinging unhurried and wide   nothing in her hands but rings

no child

no wallet   no cell phone  not a damned thing 

and a back so

straight and strong you knew it could   without any

trouble

support a pair of wings 

        

Mary McCallum

Click on the quill in the sidebar to get to the hub Tuesday Poem by a poet from Northern Ireland Michael Mckimm, and selected by Hinemoana Baker ... and 30 other Tuesday Poets in the live blog roll. 

Tuesday Poem: Under the Influence

For Bill 


A poem is flawed or

it has no purchase on the world 
for his own reasons
God will turn it away.

*

A poem is polished

but must appear effortless

as if you’ve rubbed it with

your elbow in passing.

*

A poem hesitates

line by line

for a poem knows nothing

not even who is speaking.

*

A poem knows

so little it stutters

small asterisks
spits out stars.

*

A poem can begin its life

with nothing

but a patter of sounds or

a cadence of voices.

*

A poem can begin its life

fully formed

with an end in mind that has

a man call his dog called Bone.

*

A poem must believe it can

go over the page

even if it stumbles

in the attempt.

*

A poem has a way                                                                   

of leaning on words

so their hearts beat

louder than usual.

*

A poem strings

the heart beats together

and is a small throat

to let out the sighs.

*

A poem tiptoes

into people’s lives

and tiptoes out again

it will always wear disguise.

Mary McCallum

I have just got back my old hard drive and found a wealth of poems on it. This is one of them. I wrote it after former NZ Poet Laureate and Director of the International Institute of Modern Letters Bill Manhire talked to our MA class about his poetry in 2005. 

Bill was my poetry tutor back in 1981 and was around and about when I studied fiction at the IIML in 2005. 

czech menhir

Some poets are touchstones - that place you go back to reorient yourself. For so many of us who've gone through the IIML (and haven't) Bill is a menhir*. Contrary to some reports, he doesn't dole out advice or tell poets how to write, he just offers up possibilities and then starts immediately to question them. Like a poem, Bill 'stutters small asterisks/spits out stars'. All the rest of us can hope is that we one day do the same. 

*from whence comes Manhire 

FOR MORE TUESDAY POEMS -- CLICK ON THE QUILL IN THE SIDEBAR. Jen Compton is the guest poet at the TP hub this week with an Australian poet.

Congratulations to Wellington poet Diana Bridge who is the winner of the 2010 Lauris Edmond Award for Poetry worth $NZ1000.   

Hand me down World 'extraordinary' - Guardian

"There's a brutal and even uncomfortable integrity to a novel in which many fictional conventions are eschewed. Hand Me Down World is not an overtly intellectual exercise, yet it demands that the reader think and then think again. Jones is a daring writer who can be relied on to ignore expectation, and is becoming one of the most interesting, honest and thought-provoking novelists working today."

Brilliant review of Lloyd Jones' latest novel from The Guardian. 

How to Write when the Boat Shed is Howling

How hard it is to write when the Boat Shed starts calling out in an unseemly way from the front of the property. I imagine it hunkered down there like one of the Wild Things in Maurice Sendak's book, grinning and disruptive and loud.

It's full of everything but boats in fact - heaving instead with unused ski gear, boxes of old toys, kids' books, videos, photos, camping gear, unhung paintings, tools, cans of paint. And it's not a tidy archive - it's a tip. Not helped by middle son doing various things related to fixing cars in there.

It is crying out to be cleared out. And not just so there's a clear space in there for my son to teach guitar or my daughter to have summer sleepovers. But also so I can get on with things. The emotional weight of each and every item in there is huge - there would be some things that weigh the same as the planet I'm standing on. So how can I even consider lifting them into the car to take to the hospice shop or to my son's friend Dan's girlfriend who has the sweetest daughter?

Maine writer Susan Landry has blogged on the 'messy room' and the weight therein, and pointed out that some of us see things as heavy when in fact what we're carrying is just a giant feather. She says blithely, 'I'm going to clean out the messy room'. But she and I know it won't be that easy. Check out her wonderfully named Twisted Knickers blog for her giant feather picture... a much nicer image than a raging Wild Thing (shut up can't you? I'm trying to blog). 

A young American blogger has another solution. He is living and espousing a minimalist life as a way to find true freedom. It sounds very like the way my Buddhist friend lives, although this chap (aged a mere 26) is more extreme. He lives with only 57 things including clothes. One of his rules is to get rid of things he hasn't used in a month. He also talks about throwing away photos he doesn't look at and burning notebooks of unpublished writings. Just thinking about that makes my skin prickle. I am aghast and excited all at once.

This chap, with the only-in-America name of Everett Bogue, says living with 57 things releases him from the past, from emotional baggage, from all that weighty stuff pulling us away from the freedom and wonder of the living moment. I'm not sure how much 'past' I had to discard at 26, but good on Everett for starting the way he means to go on -- that way he will never have a Boat Shed howling in his ear day and night.

So something to think about.

I couldn't get down to 57 things. Full-stop. It would be like losing an arm not to have my books and my precious collected things (being suitably vague here). And I really do need more than two pairs of jeans, a pair of cut-off jeans, a hoodie and a selection of purple and grey tank-tops to get through the days (see Everett's list at the bottom of the post). I'm not as bad as some friends who feel strongly that to be happy and free to live as they want to, they need stuff. They are like bees with pollen on their legs and bodies, lifting off heavily into the sky. Without it, they wouldn't be bees.

I'm bee-like, there is no doubt - although living with a minimalist husband has made me think differently and work hard (to good effect) on shedding things. Although I'm not sure 'shedding' means shifting them into the Shed.

I do know that cutting back further to - oh I don't know - 5700 things would definitely free me up emotionally and, no doubt, creatively.  And I say that without a hint of sarcasm.

A friend who has just turned 50 reckons she's going to follow Everett's lead and try to get down to 50 things. Clear the decks. Write what she always wanted to write. Good on her. She will be my inspiration. And I'll keep checking up on Everett and Susan too. I see it as a step-by-step thing. Today the boys' old bikes tomorrow the bag of Issy's first shoes (perhaps keep one pair.)

And as for those old notebooks.... I'd need a permit for a bonfire that big. So maybe not now. Really, I have work to do.

Everett Bogue on detroying your past lives  and on living with 57 Things here. His list: 

1. MacBook Pro
2. Macbook cleaning cloth
3. iPhone 4
4. iPhone earbuds
5. Black Yoga Mat
6. Moleskin notebook
7. Pen to write in moleskin notebook
8. Surly Steamroller Fixie
9. Helmet
10. Bike lock
11. Frye Boots
12. Belt
13. Gray Converse Allstars
14. Tom’s Shoes
15. REI two-person backpacking tent
16. Sleeping bag
17. Gray hoodie
18. Wind breaker
19. Sunglasses
20. Army jacket
21. Tweed jacket
22. Black heavier jacket
23. Gray backpack
24. Black Diamond Gray Backpacking bag
25. Jeans
26. Jeans
27. Cutoff old jeans
28. Purple tank
29. Purple tank
30. Gray tank
31. Gray long-sleeve sweatshirt
32. Gray long-sleeve T
33. Coffee tank
34. Gray v-neck
35. Gray v-neck
36. Black v-neck
37. Blue v-neck
38. Purple T
39. Gray T
40. Gray T
41. Black T
42. Toothbrush
43. Deodorant
44. Swim Trunks
45. Keys to apartment + bike lock
46. Minimalist “wallet” (really just a paper clamp that I keep my cards and cash in)
47. Gray sweatpants
48. Brown sweatpants
49. Brown button cowboy shirt
50. Gray button-down
51. Socks (about 10 pairs)
52. Underwear (about 10 pairs)
53. Sewing repair kit for clothes
54. Travel towel
55. Knit hat that Alix made me
56. 1 TB harddrive
57. 500 Gb harddrive (looking into cloud backup options)

Tuesday Poem: sweet. bass & bongo thread

[a found poem] 

sweet. bongo …

sweet. bongo man

comfy ...

comfy

i love bongos ...


i love bongos man

comfy the …

comfy the beat  …

"every black knows ...
"

“every black knows how to play bass"
(Southpark)

token, this ...


token, this is so …

nice  …

nice duo

gj …

gj

comfy the...

comfy the beat

not bad for a ding ...


not bad for a ding head with an afro



this is pretty 
…

this is pretty cool



have you tried Arabic drums …

have you tried Arabic drums: tabla or rek

thanx man ...

thanx man we use tabla –  darbuka too  

sounds real nice! ...


sounds real nice! I’m getting into bongos

thanks alot …

thanks alot glad …

comfy…

comfy

cool ...


cool man

cool man that’s …

cool man that’s just sweet

sweet …

sweet. bongo man

sweet …

sweet. bongo man

                                                          mary mccallum

 I am the new owner of an acoustic bass guitar. It's such a beautiful thing. My friend Heather wants to play the bongos. One day we hope to jam together at the Thistle Inn where, it seems, Wellington's bongo players gather. 

Meanwhile, I search through the internet hoping to find some cool acoustic bass and drum jams. And after I've watched the clip I can't resist the thread. Like this one. The repetition and language in the simple couplets couldn't be a more perfect drum. I just need a four-line thread about bass guitar now...

More Tuesday Poems at the hub site - click on the quill in the sidebar.  

Coming up: Bougainville Book Fair Weekend & Randell Writers Residency Deadline

Ten thousand books on offer at the amazing Bougainville Book Fair this weekend in Wellington - many of them new donated by publishers, booksellers and authors - and for a great cause. 

And - authors, authors, authors gives us your projects! Randell Cottage, Thorndon, needs a NZ writer in there for six months from next April - lovely house, great stipend ($20k) and a terrific team to support you (I am a trustee).  

Tuesday Poem: What You Take with You

My father eats cherries and pistachios. My father

eats fruitcake. My father eats Seville marmalade

with a teaspoon. As he eats, I see how neat his

hair is above his ears. It is a silvery grey like polished 

pewter. I know he used nail scissors to cut it. His ears

are like his mother’s, I think - they will continue to grow

until they are noticeable. She had large ears by the time

she died, but seemed unconcerned. Her skin,

she would say, was soft French skin - touch it! - the more

the better! I remember them both helpless with laughter

at a kafenion in Pireaus     - Stasou! - Stasou!

It hurt to laugh so much. When my father laughs he stamps his feet. 

Cherries and pistachios.

Cake.

Marmalade.

I give him some to take home.  I have nothing else to give him. But

I want to, I desperately want to find something more. I want to load

him with things that are rich and red and salty and sweet. He puts on

his leather coat and wades backwards into the dark.

                                                    

                                                                                        Mary McCallum

And here is a first ever review of a poem of mine. I am still grinning ...

and for more Tuesday Poems click on the quill in the sidebar.

Note: title change at 8.33 pm Tuesday Nov 2.