Tuesday Poem - 'Spirited Questions Overheard' by Michelle Leber

SPIRITED QUESTIONS OVERHEARD

Very Old Madame Yin Asks Very Old Minister Yang:

The evening, too brief for idleness, must you chatter

on the subject of fresh air and unobstructed spaces?

Tossing — more than ideas in your bed,

why are you restless like Mounting Stag?

Too much happiness? Perhaps you need

ask physician if extravagant joy is injurious to the Heart?

Very Old Minister Yang Asks Very Old Madame Yin:

Memory prefers a nap — again I enquire

which part of you is like a watercourse?

After your name circles my lilies,

silver hair flowing like Celestial Horse,

can doubt and panic be left behind?

I cling to your answers — for what purpose

did we meet halfway up the mountain

to glimpse light and dark in each other's eyes?

From Notes On Text

extravagant joy is injurious to the heart (from Huang Di Nei Jing

translated by Ilza Veith).

I feel so very fortunate to be right in the thick of so much

marvellous poetry-making. Recently I went to the launch

of Cocky's Joy by Michael Farrell (Giramondo) and that is

a book and a half. As Laurie Duggan writes in the blurb —

“You feel there's a language being created here and yet it's

your own language.” So true.

And I came home to re read The Yellow Emperor by Michelle

Leber (Five Islands Press) to bring myself to the point where

I could pick just one for my Tuesday Poem deal, and there was

another wonderful book, a book and a half, under my hand.

Two wonderful books in one night! And of course the language

Yellow Emperor is couched in. What very difficult choices the

poet made, and with what a deft hand she made them. With

what subtle and seductive artistry. I did find this book a bit

of a struggle at first. Michelle has given us a foreword and

some after-notes to place us in the historical/legendary

milieu — just enough, not too much, not too little — so I

wasn't lost in that sense. What lost me was that I pride myself

on being a bit of a literary detective, and I could not penetrate

where this book had come from! I could sense an aftertaste

of Arthur Waley, and maybe a soupcon of Ezra Pound. But

none of my reading, which has been westerncentric, could help

me place the provenance. Of course, Michelle has been a lecturer

and clinician of Chinese Medicine for over twenty years. That

has informed the book. But what helped me in the end to get a

grip, was a certain sort of elliptical and enigmatic French film,

where the rules of engagement in conversation have a rock/

paper/scissors tone, and wit always wins.

To quote the last lines of the last poem in the book 'QI, Blood

And Essence' —

'Remember, the emperor and I

know where you live.'

http://fiveislandspress.com/catalogue/yellow-emperor

Tuesday Poem - 'Two boys on roller blades' by Carolyn McCurdie

Two boys on roller blades

They've set up a goal:

some wooden struts

wedged in the gutter, strapped

to a power pole

and a sheet of black vinyl salvaged

trimmed, for this.

They flow across the road

up and back and around

loose, lazy

as if it's the camber of the road

that lifts them, drops and lifts

till a neighbour's car in careful low gear

washes the boys to the side

in a cross-current.

Hockey sticks dangle, wait.

Then wrists flex; they check,

snag the pockmarked puck, flick it

whack it, gulp into the goal.

Circling again, no words

just eyebrows.

I am just back from a big trip to New Zealand to launch the three new

Hoopla books from Mākaro Press. (And a few gigs on the side with my

good mate Coral Carter who came along for the ride.) I think I can safely

say that all three Hoopla poets (me, Bryan Walpert and Carolyn McCurdie,

plus our sidekick Coral, plus of course our esteemed editor and publisher

Mary McCallum) had a great time. But then - and how we were

staggered and almost on the point of dumbfoundery - our books entered

the NZ bestseller list. First Bryan, then Carolyn, then me. Then Carolyn's

book shot to number one! Well knock me sideways and tickle me with a

feather! Cheers to Mākaro Press and all who sail in her.

It was hard to pick just one poem from Carolyn's debut book. It is so fresh

and well grounded, so charming and perspicacious. But I went for the lads

and their hockey sticks, for reasons that will be obvious.

http://www.booksellers.co.nz/book-news/nzs-bestsellers/nielsen-weekly-bestsellers-lists-week-ending-saturday-25-april

Carolyn McCurdie is a Dunedin writer who has worked as a teacher

and librarian. Winner of the New Zealand Poetry Society’s International

Poetry Competition and the Lilian Ida Smith Award, she is a long-time

contributor to New Zealand’s leading poetry journals, and has published

an ebook of short stories and a children’s fantasy novel. Carolyn is a member

of the Octagon Poets Collective and helps to organise live poetry events in

Dunedin.

http://www.makaropress.co.nz/makaro-books/the-hoopla-series/

Tuesday Poem - 'from Mr Clean & The Junkie' by Jennifer Compton

Mr Clean & The Junkie

(Mr Clean & The Junkie is imagined as a film script, and is about a

young man called Jon Klein who works as a money launderer at the

casino for his father, a local crime boss. He is stuck in a winning streak.

But then he meets Justine who is a gambling junkie and who loves to lose.)

from The journey begins

Jon knuckles down and, with a nod and a glance

from Clancy his croupier, manages to lose

twenty grand by morning smoko.

He sighs with relief

and indicates

he is going to take a break.

As he strolls out of the building

under the starlit ceiling,

he sees The Junkie walking towards him.

Not towards him. Towards the entrance.

She has crossed the road. She walks straight past him.

And she tries to keep it going past the security guard.

But he has her by the elbow. She goes down on her knees.

Lenny in the bunker pulls up her face on all his screens.

The guard who has four sisters and hates this place,

gets her upright with a gentle fist, points to the street.

Lenny shrugs and makes her disappear.

He's sad because … he's sad.

She makes a strange gesture with her head that's

hard to read. As if she is wringing her own neck.

She walks backwards away from everything she craves.

The camera that tracks her retreating, now turns,

like the ravenous eye that it is,

onto Jon, watching him watching her go.

That's just a taster for you to be getting on with.

Now I am off for 3 weeks (April 15 – 30) to New Zealand to launch

my verse novella Mr Clean & The Junkie which is being published

by Makaro Press as part of their Hoopla series along with Bryan

Walpert's Native Bird and Carolyn McCurdie's Bones In The Octogon.

Three launches!

Palmerston North City Library – 6-30 pm – Thursday 16^th April

Wellington -The Fringe Bar Allen Street (just off Courtenay Place)

4pm – Sunday 19^th April

Dunedin Public Library – 5-30 pm – Wednesday 22^nd April

And my good mate Coral Carter is coming along for the ride and we

are going to do some readings together.

Wellington

Monday 20^th April

NZ Poetry Society Reading - Thistle Inn 3 Mulgrave St Wellington City 7-30 pm

Sunday 26^th April

Poets To The People - Hightide Cafe 44 Marine Parade Paraparaoumu Beach 4pm

Dunedin

Wednesday 22^nd April

Circadian Rhythm Cafe – 8pm

Auckland

Tuesday 28^th April

The Thirsty Dog – 469 Karangehape Road 7pm

Wednesday 29^th April

Lounge – Old Government House cnr Princes St/ Waterloo Quadrant 5-30 – 7pm

http://www.makaropress.co.nz/makaro-books/the-hoopla-series/

Tuesday Poem - 'Fickle' by Beth Spencer

Fickle

At Anglesea Park my new friends
invite themselves to lunch
but don't bring a thing.
(Where's the manners in that?)

Their eyes follow each loaded fork

but when I offer carrot and salad,

after an initial flurry of excitement, they decline.

They peer shyly across the wooden picnic table

leaving me to carry the bulk of the conversation.

Then one gets up on the table top showing off

orange dancing shoes. Another ruffles a white pelisse.

A third creeps a little closer, confidingly,

on the seat beside me (enthralled by my story).

Until a car pulls up

and paper cups of hot chips emerge

(with a couple wrapped around them)

and suddenly I'm alone.

I had the good fortune to be on a panel with Beth Spencer at the
Newcastle Writers Festival recently. Oh, it has been so many years

since we were at the week-long Five Islands Press workshop down in

Wollongong. And an equal joy to read her new book 'Vagabondage'

(UWA Publishing) which is as light as a breeze, and dark as a buried bone,

and it tells you the whole sad story – without boring you for a minute.

Quite a feat that. Quite a coup. My only conundrum was which one to

choose for my blog. Spoilt for choice. Couldn't pick between them.

So I went for a trip to Frankston to take my library books back and

told myself something would happen that would help me choose.

And there was a woman in a car with the window rolled down and a tub

of hot chips – and a hundred hundred avian friends clustering around.

http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/vagabondage

Now available as a kindle ebook at Amazon -- http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00URD7558
Or visit Beth's website at www.bethspencer.com

Tuesday Poem - 'When he read the poem in the room above the stairs' by John Jenkins

When he read the poem in the room above the stairs

1.

When he read the poem in the room above the stairs,

the walls had been repainted and a new skylight put in.

As he looked to see that his pages were in order,

he noticed old photographs of people – older poets

that he had once known – had been removed,

and a glass-topped bench with vases on it.

The approach from the lane, a mirror still on the stairs,

and when he glanced, had hardly recognised himself.

As he began to read, the poem had stayed

exactly the same as always, not a comma or a character

or pause had ever been replaced. And, as his voice

rose to meet it, he realised how little ever changed.

He was still himself, for better or worse. As always,

the audience sat courteously, still listening, and fragile.

Whether full or empty, the room was just a room.

2.

When he read the poem in the room above the stairs,

he imagined it was full of blind people, and it was hard

to read their expressions. So many dark glasses, black

as the shiny coffee served here. He rubbed his eyes.

He knew he'd have to discard the poem he once thought balanced

and complete, and continued in a brave, quiet panic.

At which point the room filled with light, which dazzled

off the walls and lit up cups. It shot sharp lances

from the sides of things, so intense it made his eyes well

with tears. He thanked the room, which had shrunk in the glare

to the size of a pinhole. Putting the thought away, he smiled.

3.

When he read the poem in the room above the stairs

people felt they could hear things they had forgotten.

As he read, and they listened, his voice reached out

across the space, or was suspended in the air. Beyond

the room, he remembered wind and rain, sighs shot through

with longing, sounds climbing like some impossibly high staircase

of emotion, that was not his and seemed to belong to no one.

The audience, in contrast, heard sounds of journeys never made.

As he read, all these things could slip away, back into silence:

they were accounted for, and finally done. The poem returned

to absence where words had been, a listening without regret.

So he raised his voice, and looked down where a girl

was doodling the word more in a cold winter's morning.

But it was summer now, and the room flashed past, shuddering,

as if at speed, merging into other words not yet written.

He read until the poem was entirely given away. At the end

of this, he knew it was not raining outside, and could not be.

He would always be in this room. Had always been, forever.

Beside him, another self sat and wondered. At last, he sipped

his coffee, sailed out, still listening carefully. Below the stairs,

out in the air, found the marvellous street and sun.

I didn't know this poem was by John Jenkins when I first read it.

I was judging the Melbourne Poets Union's annual competition

in 2013 and of course I was looking for a winner. There were

five or six contenders, but this poem bent me all out of shape

with its magic, and the more I read it, the more it thrilled me.

So easy-peasy, I had a winner. And then I found out it was by

John, who I had met here and there around the traps but I

wouldn't have said I knew him, or his work. Now I know him

a lot better.

For his bio and poems from his most recent book Growing Up

With Mr Menzies (John Leonard Press 2008) check out this link.

http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/jenkins-john

 

Tuesday Poem - 'Pink Forget-Me-Not' by Jennifer Compton

Pink Forget-Me-Not

It's a sport — she said.

Don't plant it near the blue

it'll breed back.

She shrugged. It'll breed back

anyway, they always do.

One season wonders.

I put it in a splendid isolation

game and pink and different

not as leggy as the blue.

Next season there were some pinks

scruffy and thwarted, then

they were gone. I couldn't keep them.

But, as my son said —

Bees can fly over the house.

Down the line

one petal, small as a baby's toenail

pink as

in a thrusting vernacular of blue.

My new book Now You Shall Know from  Five Islands Press is out

and we kicked our heels up at the launch at Collected Works in 

February. What surprised me is the young members of the editorial

team seemed to quite take to my gardening poems in the last section 

called - ... somehow urgent. And then I read this one at the Ron

Pretty Poetry Prize award night, and it went down quite well. In fact

I had discussions with several people about gardening in general

and forget-me-nots in particular. Of course I should have mentioned

in the poem the impudent way a forget-me-not will latch seeds onto

your socks in pursuit of its territorial imperatives.

Tuesday Poem - 'Demonstrably Peg' by Barbara Lightner

Demonstrably Peg

Sun tumbles down a morning.

                        Old Peg (as we are wont to call her)

greets it innerly, bigly;

a big strong woman with a big gold tooth,

      she's off to the newest demonstrable.

Today it's off to the Big Occupy,

     Peg grinning out

whoopily.

(We have not all and always been gracious,

nor will we, we watchers, and neighbours,

we prim-proper enforcers.)

Front to face, old neighbours, grouch friends,

      hypocrites over the back fence, well wish her,

                         (but really! her age at that?)

finger points,

      head shakes and tongue clicks;

                          (my goodness and after all! Tsk. Tsk.)

Oblivious, our Peg neverminds,

            goes about her overnight duffle to pack:

     nightgown, tooth stuff and unders;

             the journal, the poems,

the special dark chocolate lovingly tucked;

       oops! the small change for the phone call,

               a list of which lawyer to call,

in case of arrest be prepared is her thinking.

Six-thirty bright morning

            to the bus barn, in at the side door,

            through to the questions,

                        the turnstile,

the smell of the oil-and-tire-stinky barn,

            to the bus;

where high on anticipatories,

     Peg settles back of the driver,

fierce red hair in a bun

        a bit abob of her,

     her bosom ever-so-slightly apuff

           with her pleasure.

A grunt and a whoof-puff of noise,

                 and out goes the bus,

            with its down-the-street-whines,

                 (we behindsides; Peg

rolling along in her lack of responsible way);

resplendent in her happysuns day,

               waving

                         her good (o! good gracious!)

        heart felt and goodbye.

I came upon this exuberant character-driven poem in the latest issue

of Rabbit, a local Melbourne magazine, that is also exuberant, and

fresh as paint, fresh as a daisy, full of delights, and new voices.

http://rabbitpoetry.com/

Because the poet is new to me I will add her biography that is in the

back of Rabbit. Because when I read the poem and really, really

liked it, I turned to the back for the biography to see where on earth

she was. Milwaukee, so it seems.

Barbara Lightner lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. She received

a BA in English Literature from Smith College. She has been published

by Verse Wisconsin, Poesia, New Verse News, and Occupoetry.