New Zealand Poet Laureate

Shadow stands up #2

: Tuesday, August 30, 2011

On August 4th I was handed the New Zealand Poet Laureate tokotoko in the company of my old friend Cilla McQueen and a gathering of friends, family, and the terrific people from the National Library. Then a crowd of us went and had a long, celebratory lunch. On Friday 12th I went to Dunedin for Ralph Hotere's 80th birthday celebrations and on Sunday joined Bill Manhire and David Eggleton for a poetry reading in Ralph's honour. A good time was had by all. On Friday 19th I went to Wellington for the launch of Peter Black's extraordinary book of photographs, I loved you the moment I saw you. More good times. The following Friday it was back to Wellington for the launch of my novel The Catastrophe at Meow, followed by gigs from poet John Newton's band The Tenderizers and Damien Wilkins's The Close Readers. The good times were still very good but getting tiring. This Friday in Auckland is the launch of Haka at the Auckland Centre of the National Library of New Zealand, then up to Whangarei with Donna for the Northland Spring Book Fair on Saturday, she to talk and sign copies of her novel Surrender, me to give a poetry reading. I'm sure we'll have a good time. There's more to come - Going West Books and Writers Festival at Titirangi the following weekend, always an enjoyable event.

What I'm noticing is what began on August 4th. I'd have been at all the events this month, and would no doubt have enjoyed them just the same, and felt just as agreeably clobbered, but I've begun to be gently nudged into public view as a poet, and this will take a bit of getting used to. But in the spirit of good will I've encountered this month, taking my cue from the encouragement I've had, I'm posting another section of 'Shadow Stands Up', the sequence of poems I'd just begun to write when I heard about the Laureate award. Nudging it out into view.

Please don't squeeze me until I'm

yours reads the greengrocer's sign

on his ripe avocados

whose enticing location

in a tilted tray on the

footpath outside his shop says,

we live in a country of

ripe words, which is why the im-

print of memory may be

all that mars the surfaces

where the outlines of trees can

seem to rise up at any

time and become the shadows

of runners circling the park

a green Link bus goes past with

me in it, thinking, 'How can

I know what memory is

going to offer me unless

I can feel it's ready to?'

Shadow Stands Up

: Thursday, August 04, 2011

(The National Library warmly welcomes Ian Wedde to the position of New Zealand Poet Laureate. We think he’s going to do rather well.)

Mix and Mash has returned for its second year, offering big prizes and instant fame for the best remixes and mashups made with New Zealand content. Ian has kindly made his poem below, “Shadow Stands Up”, available for use in (or out of) the competition.

Shadow Stands Up

Shadow stands up under the
trees in Victoria Park
whose own filigree shadows lie
across matted russet leaves
on the sodden green turf that
the morning’s tai chi moves
barely mar – I see this from
the Link bus window as we
cross the intersection at
the bottom of the hill where
Kathmandu’s winter sale fails
to persuade me there’s much to
gain from any promise of
warmth other than what I get
when, while rain rattles against
the bedroom window at dawn,
I press my ear to the smooth
skin between Donna’s shoulder-
blades and hear, in the hollow
chamber where she’s making dream
words, a voice that’s not the
same as hers say eerily,
‘Shadow stands up.’ It’s morning.

“Shadow Stands Up” is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 New Zealand (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).

This is a first hesitant draft of what may be the first poem in a sequence of poems I now plan to be writing over the Laureate term. For me it’s been a great coincidence, to get the news about the Laureateship at pretty much the same time I’d begun to think about this sequence, which at this early stage is called "Shadow Stands Up" – which could easily change.

At the moment I think its themes are to do with memory, first of all – how memory stitches time into patterns and narratives that can’t exist in rational ways – and also to do with ghosts. Enough said. I am breaking one of my own rules here, by showing a version of something I’ve only just begun to write. With luck and some persistence, what seems to be getting under way here will grow and change into something else that I can’t anticipate at this early stage.

- Ian

The search is on

: Monday, May 16, 2011

He slipped the potato off.

Strangely shaped potato
Reference number: 114/266/04-G

Thank you everyone who made a submission. Nominations for 2011-2013 are now closed.

Who should join the ranks of Cilla, Michele, and the other amazing New Zealand Poets Laureate? The National Library is inviting nominations as we start the appointment process. The next Laurate will hold the position from July 2011 to June 2013, as a representative of and advocate for poetry. Nominees will have made an outstanding contribution to New Zealand poetry and be an accomplished and highly regarded poet. They must also live in New Zealand.

Lovely Gloves

: Monday, March 21, 2011

This, my last post, responds to a two-part visual essay by Peter Ireland, comprising images from the National Library's collection.

I am grateful to the National Library for their kind support and advice during my enjoyable and productive time as New Zealand Poet Laureate 2009-2011.

Cilla McQueen

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Lovely Gloves

Reverse glove ripple over reflection geometries stretch turn signs,
heart image histories this day's wattle and daub, schist, seaward heading hero dazzle in shelter handmade translucent shadow long-leaved cygnet pendant,

Chrysalis carefully unmove woman brush-tip in winter mist and shady earth floor
roof door the walker boots. Be in house and a rushing dog eye soldier bush illegible ladder to and fro, rare grace parts quiet child knee rock in language time.

Rest easy silence - all silent foot of sea-creature spring shy, clean tree, whale, blue illuminated vellum. Rearranging space fluent or beginning inside noble tussock listening to larks, this calm.

Calm cannon's here war distance singular between a coast a journey a quiet tarn touch, untouch a hoof to water as window lilts a lady and her dog
Slide asterisk wind dunes sign hat
And return celestial glow warps love in it once more white taffeta wings.

Sea-creature foot water, cairn and hillside turning bent thin trunk to
prayer language dawn a graceful woman. Mountain crumble coal-fired
steam-powered rock crusher noise rhythmic slow exposures, flash flood -

So in paint language book on knee speak akin to balancing dancer speed
a picnic in spacetime - shifting travel above ice obelisk say and meaning all together struggles wind-blasted,

Views with reserve stained glass flowering light through.

Touch, untouch, a hoof to water tranquil tarn in caterpillar ripples leaving all brave lilts a lady in space between reflection store under listen talk arrows this way and that fleet tracking dog,

Thinks poised one bud opening precious qualities mirror wind gesture, peer down mantis pictogram at happy hour to view the ice dancer one open

Starry mist message slice on a gauze rubble-wreaker iron business -
might instead strange poetry -
caught in a word game, skin to hand signature.

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Envoi

Day's narratives strung
on thought-lines

Supermarket to happy hour,
chrysalis to vista,

Each a step on a way
and a world of its own

Before and after
time stilled at shutter-fall.

References

1 Photographer: William Price
Premises of Green and Colebrook, Huntly, circa 1910
Ref: 1/2-001760-G

2 Photographer: Tesla Studios
Unidentified employee of (Wanganui Sign Company?) creating advertisement for ‘Wear Right’ gloves
Ref: 1/1-022322-F

3 Photographer; Samuel Heath Head
The French Mission visiting the Sign of the Kiwi, Christchurch, January 1919
Ref: 1/1-007521-G

4 Photographer unknown
Chinese miners with the Rev. Alexander Don, Tuapeka, circa 1900
McNeur Collection, Ref: 1/2-019148-F

5 Photographer: Gordon Burt
Bond Street, Wellington, 1956-1961
Ref: 1/2-037223-F

6 Photographer unknown
Interior of ‘The Talkeries’, business of Thomas Dwyer, Masterton, circa 1909
Ref: 1/2-043062-F

7 Photographer unknown
Display window of DIC, Wellington, 1944
Ref: 1/4-015034-F

8 Photographer unknown
Premises of J. Goodwin, Plumber (Upper Hutt?) circa 1912
Ref: 1/2-107542-F

9 Photographer unknown
Maori Battalion’s mobile canteen, WWII
Ref: 1/4-028490-F

10 Photographer unknown
Man painting a sign at entrance to Kilbirnie Stadium, Wellington, 1929
Ref: 1/4-032457

11 Photographer: Albert Percy Godber
Opening of the new Silverstream Fire Station, 1938
Ref: 1/4-038919-G

12 Photographer: Evening Post
Sign asking for ‘Silence’, Brass Band competition, Wellington Town Hall, 23 April 1951
Ref: 114/283/04-G

13 Photographer: George Kaye
Street sign in Taranto,Italy, November 1943
Ref: DA-04493-F

14 Photographer: George Kaye
Signs, including the diamond sign of the New Zealand Division, near Rimini, Italy, 16 September 1944
Ref: DA-06654

15 David at Prayer
Leaf from 15th century Book of Hours, Eastern France, circa 1460
Ref: MSR-02-F108R

16 Photographer: Max Oettli
From series of photographs of Dunedin, Wellington, and Auckland, 1967-1971
Ref: PADL-000145

17 Photographer unknown
View of Pahiatua, showing the ‘Club hotel’, circa 1910
Ref: PAColl-5671-24

18 Photographer unknown
Premises of RH Wyche, Shoemaker, Wellington, Date unknown
Ref: PAColl-6001-51

19 Photographer: Steffano Webb
Public telephone box, Christchurch, with Cathedral in background, August 1912
Ref: 1/1-004088

20 Photographer: Steffano Webb
Mansfield’s monumental mason’s yard, Christchurch, circa 1910
Ref: 1/1-004356-G

21 Photographer: William Archer Price
A stall at trade fair (Auckland?) with promotional stand for ‘Neopost’, 1930
Ref: 1/2-000266-G

22 Photographer: Evening Post
Two butchers outside Roseveare & Son, Wellington, 8 March 1951
Ref: 114/266/09-G

23 Photographer: Free Lance (magazine)
Manawatu Automobile Association road sign, 1955
Ref: PAColl-7171-35

24 Photographer unknown
Levin Rally Hall, date unknown
Ref: PAColl-6388-02

25 Photographer: Thelma Kent
Monarch butterfly chrysalis on a swan plant, circa 1930
Ref: 1/4-003592-G

26 Photographer: Thelma Kent
Flowering cactus, circa 1920
Ref: 1/4-003659-G

27 Photographer: Thelma Kent
Ice skater, Lake Tekapo, 1938
Ref: 1/2-009527-F

28 Photographer: Thelma Kent
Rees Valley, Otago, circa 1939
Ref: 1/2-009689-F

29 Photographer: Thelma Kent
Steam shovel excavating a cliff face, location unknown, circa 1939
Ref: 1/2-010277-F

30 Photographer: William Williams
Lydia Williams in doorway of house, Carlyle Street, Napier, circa 1880
Ref: 1/1-025645-G

31 Photographer: William Williams
Figurehead of the ship ‘Northumberland’, location unknown, circa 1880
Ref: 1/1-025693-G

32 Photographer: William Williams
Dunedin Telegraph Office, 1893
Ref: 1/1-025835-G

33 Photographer: William Williams
Taieri River, Otago, circa 1890
Ref: 1/1-025866-G

34 Photographer: William Williams
Man making walking sticks, Leith Valley, Dunedin, circa 1899
Ref: 1/2-140223-G

35 Photographer: William Williams
Gun emplacement, Fort Balance, Wellington, circa 1884
Ref: 1/2-140344-G

36 Photographer: William Williams
Shotover River, Otago, 1890
Ref: 1/2-140459

37 Photographer: William Williams
Obelisk and group at Green’s Point, Akaroa, circa 1910
Ref: 1/2-140545-G

38 Photographer: William Williams
Near Highcliff, Otago Peninsula, Dunedin, 23 September, 1894
Ref: 1/2-140629-G

39 Photographer: William Williams
Lydia Williams with stereoscope and cards
Ref: 1/2-141215-G

40 Photographer: William Williams
Cabbage tree in fog, Port Hills, Canterbury, 1938
Ref: PA11-147-003

41 Photographer: William Williams
Picnic, Leith stream, Dunedin, circa 1893
Ref: PA11-160-01

42 Photographer: Thelma Kent
Photomicrograph of a section through a Virginia creeper, circa 1930
Ref: PAColl-3052-21-01

43 Photographer: Thelma Kent
Dead tree, circa 1930
Ref: PAColl-3052-02-04

44 Photographer: Thelma Kent
Log attached to cable, Aorere River, circa 1930
Ref: PAColl-3052-01-07

45 Photographer: William Williams
Couple looking down on Lake Wakatipu from summit of Mount Alfred, December 1893
Ref: PA11-159-02

Words at the edge of the mirror

: Monday, March 14, 2011