Tuesday Poem - man with children by Ross Donlon

man with children

suddenly on my garden wall

a child's frowning face

her arms folded waiting

then a burst of jigsaw words

but about her hat

her black and orange hat and lost

oh well I say looking up and out no adult

where did you leave your hat where was it?

but no at the slow man a cat a lost cat

saturday afternoon with radio sport

talking to a welcome stranger child

the street and front yards empty

oh he'll come home for his dinner the cat

but now a second child scrambling up so

two cross puppets hanging on and puffing

a small girl and her smaller snuffling brother

reporter faces stern with breaking news no

the cat was there pointing near and nowhere

we all three look but all is innocent of cats

then a woman enters centre stage opposite

looks across I wave my spade say hi

call my name gabble black and orange

and of the children who came like the past

too far to shout four of my own

she looks away and down the street

makes a waving motion like sowing grain

I shoo my hands to make them fly

but later the sun and the sport disappearing

small steps scramble up shout found him

then run across the border road to safety

Ross Donlon lives in Castlemaine and runs the excellent Castlemaine readings in the Guildford Pub. They are a treat and a half and the open readers compete with a keen edge for the Castlemaine Cup. Which is always an egg cup and is sometimes of stunning incongruity. I have seen a Barbie egg cup handed out and I have seen it accepted with due gravity. These readings are tons of fun, packed to the rafters, and the standard of poetry is out there somewhere in the stratosphere. Ross is very inclusive and when funds allow he flies in poets from all over Australia. It's a hub for poetry, or a crux, or a choke point, or even, maybe a grand convergence.

But there is a lot more to Ross than this event which he husbands along. He's a poet. Sometimes his work is droll, and sometimes he essays more troubling subjects. I like his angles. I like his attention to craft. I find his work attractive.

One of his most attractive poems is The Blue Dressing Gown which recently won the Wenlock Festival Poetry Prize in the UK and Ross will be appearing at the festival in May. I hope to be able to post it here later in the year.

Tuesday Poem - Jun by Johanna Aitchison

Jun

one of the coldest things i did in japan was walk across the finger boards

of the green onion café and sit down on a bar stool and speak my lines

(including one super-polite word which i read from the back of my hand)

one of the most linguistically difficult things i did in japan was to memorise

how to say in japanese i am so sorry to hear about your son jun dying and

here is 3000 yen for flowers for his grave

one of the saddest things i did in japan was teach to jun’s photo on his empty

desk i asked the students to count the students in the class the students said

do we count jun

This poem has been haunting me since the terrible events in Japan. So Johanna has kindly allowed me to post it and share it.

I was running a loose sort of poetry night at Barista in Palmerston North while I was Visiting Literary Artist at Massey University last year. And Johanna came along which was great. Very cool poet girl that she is. She had spent three years teaching English in a Japanese fishing village so one of the first poems she read to us was Jun. Oh we liked it. We liked it very much. I suggested she enter it for the NZ Poetry Society competition because I was sure Viv Plumb would like it. And guess what, Viv Plumb did like it and it won. So that was all very cool.

When I say we liked the poem, of course we liked it feelingly. It is about a terrible loss and how to find the words to express your sorrow for the loss, and how to make a gesture which is appropriate, and then how to continue on living with that loss.

Johanna's second book – a long girl ago – was published by Victoria University Press.

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/vup/2007titleinformation/longgirlago.aspx

Tuesday Poem - Everything Is For A Very Short Time by Jennifer Compton

Everything Is For A Very Short Time

                                  

                       The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse

                      Edited by Ian Wedde and Harvey McQueen

                                                    1985

There is no question of regret - I write hastily, in the shadow of my hand –

we left off loving - I'm not good I'm not peaceful I'm not wise – collapsing

out of Heaven – good intentions - other disappointments - such an ecstasy

of bewildered weeping – we had to be terrible news – in these terrible times.

Nothing innocent lasts long – the tragic scent of violets – in a broken vase -

her face moves like the face of a thief at the window – her face unclenches

like a fist – yes, the cold has come again – with a diffident explanation.

Theology and a patchwork absolute – the bare longing of the imagination -

treacherous as an avalanche poised above – and the white snake dead too -

the translucent hyperboles of art – saying Bravo Bravo to the Invisible -

eyes lit up by eager, cruel fires – as the taniwha is raised up from its den -

prodded into stuttering rage – his gnarled his dazzling his stubborn heart -

where the visions start – among immortal things – and all this in fidelity

to death - the iron bells toll – my story comes to its end. But picture me.

Cento from – Mary Ursula Bethell, Michael Harlow, Meg Campbell, Brian Turner,

Ian Wedde, Bill Manhire, Hilaire Kirkland, Allen Curnow, Tuini Ngāwai (Translation

by Kumeroa Ngoingoi Pēwhairangi), Tony Beyer, A.R.D. Fairburn, Christina Beer,

Elizabeth Nannestad, Sam Hunt, K.O. Arvidson, Denis Glover, Heather McPherson,

Murray Edmond, Alistair Campbell, Fleur Adcock, C.K. Stead, Janet Frame, Keith

Sinclair, Waikato (Translation by Margaret Orbell), M.K. Joseph, Kevin Ireland,

Charles Brasch, Vincent O'Sullivan, James K. Baxter, David Mitchell, Keri Hulme.

I am an absolute fusser I know but I felt quite devastated when this poem was published in the recent Poetry NZ and the layout was a dog's breakfast. Layout, the picture on the page, means a lot to me. But thank heavens for Tuesday Poem and I have redress.
Cento comes from the Latin word meaning patchwork quilt, and I like to write them from time to time when I am feeling inchoate. And because I live in Australia most of the time I like to dwell sometimes in the familiarity of the canon of NZ poetry. I spent hours reading through the book. It was a refreshment.
I also notice now that the book was co-edited by Harvey McQueen, who was a Tuesday Poet, who I didn't get a chance to know because he died soon after I joined. Vale Harvey. I loved browsing the book and taking what I wanted from it to tell my own story.    

Tuesday Poem - Mitsubishi Moments by Chris Wallace-Crabbe

     Mitsubishi Moments

     At peak of summer

the paddocks have all turned blonde

     like Toorak mothers.

     Those flying foxes

object to the horrid phrase,

     Bats in the belfry.

     Humans are not quite

the full sixpence, but can still

     flatter, flirt and charm.

     Presence absorbs them

and they do self-expression

     at outdoor cafés.

     With large speaking eyes

she hinted she was part of

     these exciting times.

     Like avenue elms

green political leaders

     turn out all the same:

     one learned from Stalin

the strong magic of changing

     municipal names.

     The migrant from Prague

trundles in his wheely bin

     past the limp yucca.

This poem is from Telling A Hawk From A Handsaw published by Carcenet Press in 2008.

http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781903039939

This is a cracker of a book, and has a reproduction on the cover of a detail from an intriguing painting by Kristin Headlam. Chris is a fine reader with stage presence and I have made several reasonably energetic efforts to hear him. Chris was born in Melbourne and you do see him around the scene quite a bit. Which is great because he is a nice guy with it. He's an Emeritus Professor and is now the chair of the newly-formed Australian Poetry Ltd. I picked this poem because I liked its clarity and melancholy wit. It's funny, I think, in a sad sort of way. With Chris's work you don't have to ponder the craftmanship – that's a given. For NZ readers, Toorak is more or less Remuera.

Tuesday Poem - Epicentre by Jennifer Compton

Epicentre

I woke up dazed

some taniwha had risen

underneath my bed

straight up from

the centre of the earth

and humped like

a green horse

first time under the saddle.

Then the noise

a peremptory growl

travelling away from me

as swiftly as a train.

How unusual and strange.

I couldn't write a poem

for every earthquake

I have lived through

they all have their little quirks

but every other one had rumbled

towards me, done its worst

shivered, rippled, shook

then galloped away.

The house and I settled

down, drew our breath

and the earth turned.

I have been a bit knocked about emotionally by this new earthquake in Christchurch which has caused so much damage and suffering. So I hadn't sorted out my Tuesday poem. Then I remembered the only poem I have written about an earthquake. Because I was born in Wellington I have been through lots of them. But nothing major. I'm lucky. I thought of this poem because I have a friend who lives in Lyttleton which was the epicentre. So my only epicentre experience came to mind. It was in Martinborough, actually.  

Tuesday Poem - Dad by Rachel McGladdery

Dad


Rolling in one night on sea legs
made entirely from White Lightning,
he bowled up at mine and fell in through the door.

I helped him up and sat him down
and once propped upon a chair with a cup of tea he told me he had AIDS.
"Oh Dad" I said and went to hug him.
He held his hand out like a nicotine stained starfish.

" you don't have to bleach the cup"

I held him sadly as he sobbed into my shoulder,

"Don't treat me like a leopard"

I hooked up with Rachel on Facebook. She lives up there in Britland and I live down here in the Antipodes and we haven't met in the flesh but I follow the story of her life via her status updates, and maybe she follows mine. Sometimes we have a bit of a witty chitchat. She seems to have a lot of success with her poetry and she deserves to I think. Her work is so sharp and astute and full of flavour. Very tasty stuff, indeed.

Rachel McGladdery has been writing poetry seriously for around 2 years. She has performed at many venues throughout North West England. She won the NXNW Slam in August 2010 at The Tudor House Wigan and also won the title of Liverpool Lennon Poet 2010 in November 2010 and was awarded with her trophy by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. She has been published in Mental Arts Virus Magazine, Preston is my Paris Zine, Word Soup Year One, Dragonheart Press - Winter Poets,and is due to have a poem in a new Forward anthology published in February 2011 'When I speak to you of love...'. She also has work published at The Pygmy Giant. Rachel was Featured Poet in the Poetry Kit's series, Caught In The Net #72. You can see more of Rachel's work here: http://writeoutloud.net/poets/rachelmcgladdery.
Rachel lives in rural Lancashire with her 4 children and 2 cats and is a closet birdwatcher.

Tuesday Poem - Life sentence by Vincent O'Sullivan

When the man from the Arts Council mistakenly

knuckles my door in the hope an artiste

might be found on the premises,

                                                   when this woman

with frankly, Norks, you wouldn't believe them,

asks do I have faith in the beyond,

or Arkansas, as he's known around here,

a stud-nostriled bogan with musically

simian taste,

                    he or his gravid sister

wanting to borrow my 'focking tape-deck bro',

there's a queue, veritably, to my front verandah,

each expecting feedback as though manna's by right,

why, I quote Akhmatova

                                      at them, my one

stab at truth in a tricky world, 'The Venice,'

I tell them, 'the Venice of Doges is next door.'

I chose this light-hearted and, yes, tricky poem, from Vincent's most recent collection, Further Convictions Pending. But it wasn't easy to pick just the one poem. I dithered a lot. I was being lead by the nose and up the garden path, forward and back through the book. Yes, the one about the rat with the timely front tooth. Or the one about the squadroned vaginas of the tulip beds. Or the one about the eyes from different people who are introduced to each other in the optician's office. So true! But no. I picked this one because it was too delicious to resist. Sly wit, and naughtiness. Norks is naughty. And so is artiste. I just wish I knew why one of the supplicants is called Arkansas. I have been making up stories about why he is. And pondering whether it is pronounced as it is written, or in the Cholmondeley way it is pronounced in the States. Sigh. Just the one inscrutable in a world I recognise spoken into life by a voice I trust. Just the one pebble to stub my toe against. Do I want to explained to me? No, I don't actually. There is a reason for it, maybe connected to the gravid sister, just as there is a reason why the the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice was styled the Doge, but I am not in the know about that either.

Further Convictions Pending poems 1998-2008 Victoria University Press http://www.victoria.ac.nz/vup/2009titleinformation/furtherconvictionspending.aspx