A bumper sixth issue of the newsletter from Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa is available now for download as a pdf. Inside Winter 2011, volume 2, issue 2: Niel Wright on two classic NZ poets: Kate Gerard and Ernest L Eyre; Obituary: David Mitchell; tributes to David Mitchell by Michael O’Leary and Ron Riddell; classic New Zealand Poetry by Reginald (Rex) Hunter; American-born NZ busker and poet ‘Kenny’ dies (includes 3 of his poems transcribed); comment on the Alistair Te Ariki Campbell Exhibition – Cook Islands by L E Scott; Dunedin poet Larry Matthews dies; NZ poetry donations made to the Poetry Library, London; recently received donations; about the Poetry Archive.
David Mitchell, poet, writer, performer, teacher and cricketer, died in June this year. He was arguably one of New Zealand’s finest poets, and certainly one of the more innovative.
David was born in Wellington in 1940. He was a keen sportsman in his younger years. His biographers Martin Edmond and Nigel Roberts note: ‘He enjoyed cricket, rugby, fives, swimming, diving and water-polo.’ At Wellington College in the 1950s, New Zealand captain John Reid named Mitchell as one of Wellington’s five outstanding schoolboy cricketers. At rugby, he was a second five-eighth and coached by Sam Meads, cousin of Colin and Stan.
His first poem publication was in the Wellington College annual The Wellingtonian. After school he attended Victoria University (1958-59), then graduated from Wellington Teacher’s College in 1960 and taught his probationary year at Upper Hutt Primary School, before leaving New Zealand for London in1962 (doing casual and relief teaching) and travelling to Europe. Overseas his experiences drastically altered his poetry and he returned to Wellington in 1964 somewhat ahead of his time.
Throughout the ’60s and ’70s Mitchell quickly established himself as a leading poet on the New Zealand poetry scene (especially with the publication by Stephen Chan and later Trevor Reeves of his collection Pipe Dreams in Ponsonby (1972, 1975). In 1975, he received the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship to Menton in France. Mitchell was often the iconic poet of the period, as Peter Olds wrote: ‘David was good with the girls, he looked good, he dressed well, he spoke well…while people admired him I think they secretly envied him.’
Throughout this time, he lived variously across the Tasman (Sydney, Wellington and Auckland) and worked briefly in the Education Department in Wellington in the mid 1970s.
Perhaps health issues and concerns or retreat from literary fame dogged much of his life after the 1970s. His poetry output was seldom in print. However, he worked as a teacher for 30 years and in the 1980s co-founded the successful poetry readings at the Globe in Auckland (now continuing at various venues as Poetry Live), completed a BA at Victoria University, and he kept up his cricket interest playing club cricket mostly for the Grafton Club until 2002. His biographers note: ‘Cricket was poetry, David said.’
Despite publishing little, his poems made their way into major Oxford and Penguin anthologies of New Zealand poetry as well as specialist anthologies like James Bertram’s New Zealand Love Poems, Alistair Paterson’s ‘open form’ 15 Contemporary New Zealand Poets or Alan Brunton, Michele Leggott and Murray Edmond’s Big Smoke: New Zealand Poems 1960-75 as well as journals like Printout and Poetry NZ in the 1990s.
Yet it wasn’t until 2010 when his friends Martin Edmond and Nigel Roberts put together his selected poems, Steal Away Boy: The Selected Poems of David Mitchell (Auckland University Press) that he again appeared in book form. That same year, in declining health, he was also very happy to be included in the anthology ‘A Tingling Catch’: A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009. More of his recent poems appeared on his blog: http://davemitchellpoetry.blogspot.com
Mitchell is survived by his two daughters: Sara and Genevieve.
David’s presence will be missed. Like Syd Barrett, the Pink Floyd founder, who in some ways mirrored aspects of David’s life towards the end: ‘his crazy diamond will shine on.’ Wish you were here.
(Obituary written by Mark Pirie for The Lampstand 2011 (Wellington College Old Boys’ Magazine))
Other links on David Mitchell:
Michael O’Leary’s tribute on Beattie’s Book Blog
David Mitchell: RIP on Beattie’s Book Blog
http://davemitchellpoetry.blogspot.com
Today is National Poetry Day. PANZA would like to celebrate by posting a classic New Zealand poem by Reginald (Rex) Hunter (1889-1960).
Hunter left New Zealand as a young man in 1914. He travelled to Australia and through the Pacific and then worked as a journalist in America, where he met famous American writers like Ben Hecht and Carl Sandburg in Chicago and briefly married the South Carolina poet Gamel Woolsey. They separated, but never divorced. He also lived in Kansas City, San Francisco and New York and was a successful dramatist.
A biographical novel, Henry Whitaker, detailing his experiences with Carl Sandburg remains unpublished along with a prose work The Gull.
Hunter published his poetry in periodicals and several books of poetry appeared in his lifetime and posthumously: And Tomorrow Comes (1924, new edition, 1982), the autobiographical narrative The Saga of Sinclair (1927, new edition 1981) and Call Out of Darkness (1946). A well-received novel Porlock (1940) about a Greenwich Village character and a book of four one-act plays Stuff O’ Dreams (1919, new editions 2010 and 2011) were also published.
In 1949, Hunter returned to New Zealand to settle in Dunedin until his death. An obituary appeared in Arena 53 (1960), and a further biographical piece, Passages in the Life of Reginald Hunter by Kenneth Hopkins (the editor of the new editions of his poetry) was published in the UK in 1985. Harvey McQueen and Roger Robinson also co-wrote an entry on him for the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature (1998).
PANZA recognises Hunter as a significant and still largely unrecognised New Zealand poet. More of his poems will be in the next PANZA newsletter, Poetry Notes.
Reginald Hunter
THE TWO ROSES
And as the poet walked the wintry streets
In broken shoes, and lacking coins for bread,
A red rose flew its flame within his heart,
A white rose raised its petals in his head.
White rose of the unworldly held star-lifted
The vision of him whose outward steps trod mire.
Though thin his coat he did not feel the cold:
The undying rose of poesy was his fire.
Poem © Reginald Hunter, 1946
(From Call Out of Darkness, The Auburncrest Library, USA, 1946)
PANZA is pleased to announce that they have donated the following titles to the Poetry Library in London during July 2011.
A majority of the books donated were from the late Harvey McQueen’s collection given to PANZA, and others are from PANZA’s own collection where there were duplicate copies of some titles available. It’s great to be sending them to the prestige Poetry Library where they will be well looked after in the future.
PANZA hopes this donation will lead to further interest in New Zealand poetry.
In total 177 books were donated. The oldest donated title was Alexander and Currie’s selection of 19th century poetry, New Zealand Verse, 1906, published in London. Most of the books were recent volumes and published by leading NZ poetry publishers Steele Roberts, HeadworX, VUP, Sudden Valley Press, Hazard Press, Seraph Press and Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop.
Books by well-known New Zealand poets like Denis Glover, Kevin Ireland, Glenn Colquhoun, Gregory O’Brien, Jenny Bornholdt, Alistair Paterson, Vincent O’Sullivan, Louis Johnson, David Eggleton, Meg Campbell and Alistair Te Ariki Campbell were among the donations.
Here is a full list of the titles donated:
HARVEY MCQUEEN COLLECTION and POETRY ARCHIVE OF NZ AOTEAROA COLLECTION of NZ POETRY donations made to the POETRY LIBRARY July 2011
BOX 1
Harvey McQueen, The New Place anthology
- Oasis Motel
- Stoat Spring
- Pingandy: New and Selected Poems
- Against the Maelstrom
- Recessional (2 copies)
Tony Beyer, The Century
Basim Furat, No Boat May Allow Drowning to Vanish
Moshe Liba, The estuary of Komo
- Over the Waters
Harry Ricketts, Nothing to Declare: Selected Writings 1977-1997
- Coming Here
Michael O’Leary, Livin ina Aucklan
- Make Love and War – lending copy
Richard von Sturmer, Suchness
Paul Hardacre, The year nothing
Scott Kendrick, Rhyme before reason
Yilma Tafere Tasew, Thank you, thank you! Vol 1.
Iain Sharp, The Singing Harp
Stephen Oliver, Earthbound Mirrors
- Election year blues
- Harmonic
- Ballads, Satire and Salt
- Unmanned
Tim Jones, Boat People
Helen Rickerby, abstract internal furniture
Robin Fry, daymoon
Niel Wright, Only a bullet will stop me now (2 copies)
- Wellington Panorama (in 4 volumes set)
Andrew Fagan, Take the chocolates and run
- Overnight downpour
Leonard Lambert, Natural Anthem
- Skywire
Mark Pirie, London Notebook – lending copy
- Wellington Fool
- Slips: cricket poems
- Poems for Poets
- No Joke – lending copy
- Dumber – lending copy
- Bookmarks: anthology
- Poetrywall: anthology
- Poetrymath: anthology
- Voyagers: SF poetry anthology (with Tim Jones) – lending copy
- The NeXt Wave: anthology – lending copy
- TOM – lending copy
Alistair Campbell, The Dark Lord of Savaiki: sequence
BOX 2
Vivienne Plumb, Nefarious
- Scarab
Meg Campbell, Resistance – 2 copies
- Orpheus
Various, First Wgtn Intl Poetry Festival anthology
L E Scott, A day in history anthology
- Earth Colours: Selected Poems
- Speaking in Tongues
Bernard Gadd, Our bay of ensigns
- End of the snapshots: selected poems
- Oracle Bones
Terry Locke, Maketu
Alistair Paterson, Africa//Kabbo Mantis and the Porcupine’s daughter
- Summer on the Côte d’Azur
Alistair Campbell, Kapiti: selected poems
Jenny Powell, Hats
- Four French Horns
Tony Chad, Self-titled
Laura Solomon, in vitro
Gregory O’Brien, afternoon of an evening train
- Winter I Was
- Location of the least person
Riemke Ensing, Talking Pictures: selected poems – lending copy
David Patterson, Up over Alpha
Jonathan Fisher, The sun is darker
Jenny Bornholdt, Summer
- These days
Alison Wong, Cup
Anna Smaill, The Violinist in Spring
Vincent O’Sullivan, Seeing you asked
David Mitchell, Pipe dreams in Ponsonby
Glenn Colquhoun, How we fell
Tim Upperton, A house on fire
Janet Charman, 2 deaths in 1 night
David Eggleton, Rhyming Planet
David Howard, Shebang: Collected Poems 1980-2000
Jack Ross, Chantal’s Book
Roma Potiki, Shaking the tree
Noel Ginn, Dweller on the threshold
Jan FitzGerald, Flying against the arrow
Julie Liebrich, Land below the waves
Kate Camp, Beauty Sleep
Kevin Ireland, Walking the land
James McNaughton, I want more sugar
Kerry Popplewell, Leaving the Tableland
Douglas Wright, Laughing Mirror
BOX 3
Mark Pirie, Shoot – lending copy
Louis Johnson, Fires and Patterns
- broadsheet No. 2 Louis Johnson issue
Barbara Strang, The Corrosion Zone – 2 copies
Alistair Paterson, Qu’appelle
- Caves in the Hills
- Summer on the Côte d’Azur – lending copy
Niel Wright, The Pop Artist’s Garland: Selected Poems 1952-2009 – lending copy
Tim Jones, All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens
Michael O’Leary, Toku Tinihanga: Selected Poems 1982-2002 – lending copy
L E Scott, Earth Colours: Selected Poems – lending copy
Tony Beyer, Dream Boat: Selected Poems – lending copy
Stu Bagby, as it was in the beginning
Various, Big Sky: A Collection of Canterbury Poems
Pat White, Drought and other intimacies
- Cut across the grain
Laura Solomon, in vitro – lending copy
Charles Doyle, Messages for Herod
Alan Loney, Missing Parts
Bub Bridger, Up here on the hill
- Wild Daisies: Best of Bub Bridger
Elizabeth Smither, You’re very seductive William Carlos Williams
Tony Beyer, The Singing Ground
Martha Morseth, staying inside the lines
Hugh Lauder, Over the white wall
Simon Williamson, 25 cars
Gordon Challis, Building
Harvey McQueen, Goya Rules
Vivienne Plumb, Salamanca
Peter Olds, Music Therapy
Graham Billing, Changing Countries
Rosalie Carey, Winterless North
Laura Ranger, Laura’s Poems
Hubert Witheford, A Native, Perhaps Beautiful
- The Falcon Mask
Gary McCormick, Zephyr
Helen Jacobs, This cording, this artery
Charles Doyle, Recent Poetry in NZ anthology
Vincent O’Sullivan, Revenants
Denis Glover, Wellington Harbour
- Sharp edge up: verses and satires
James Bertram, New Zealand Love Poems anthology
Various, New Zealand Verse 1906 anthology
Gloria Rawlinson, The Perfume Vendor
Michael N. Rhodes, Lines written in a mental hospital
Amelia Herrero-Kidman, Pages for the stage
Various, Tiger Words: Paekakariki Poets at Pukapuka
John Ellis, Loud Quiet Song
BOX 4
John O’Connor, Cornelius & Co.: Collected Working Class Verse (2 copies)
- Parts of the moon: selected haiku and senryu 1988-2007
- Working Voices (with Eric Mould)
Simon Williamson, 25 cars – lending copy
Helen Rickerby, My Iron Spine (2 copies)
Jenny Powell,Viet Nam
- Four French Horns – lending copy
- Locating the Madonna (with Anna Jackson) (2 copies)
Bernard Gadd, Pokeno Opposes the Kaiser
- Debating Stones
Vivienne Plumb, Crumple (2 copies)
- Scarab – lending copy
- Nefarious – lending copy
Tim Jones, All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens – lending copy
- Boat People – lending copy
Basim Furat, No Boat May Allow Drowning to Vanish – lending copy
- Here and There – lending copy
Tony Beyer, The Singing Ground – lending copy
Jill Chan, These Hands are Not Ours
Vana Manasiadis, Ithaca Island Bay Leaves (2 copies)
Scott Kendrick, Cold Comfort Cold Concrete (2 copies)
- Rhyme before reason – lending copy
Harry Ricketts, Your Secret Life – lending copy
Mark Pirie, Reading the Will – lending copy
- Bottle of Armour: Early Poems 1992-1993
- Mahones anthology (with Bill Dacker, Michael O’Leary and Iain Sharp)
- JAAM 21: Greatest Hits: An anthology of writing 1984-2004 (with Michael O’Leary) – lending copy
The Poetry Archive of NZ Aotearoa (PANZA) recently reached 5,000 titles.
Thanks to all those who have donated to the Archive over the past year. The Poetry Archive of New Zealand catalogue has now been significantly updated to reflect many new acquisitions in June and July.
The Archive began in February 2010 with around 3,000 titles and has grown substantially in the past year. PANZA would particularly like to thank Auckland poet, editor and novelist Alistair Paterson, Wellington poet/publisher Mark Pirie, Wellington publisher Roger Steele and the late New Zealand anthologist, poet and memoirist Harvey McQueen for their sizeable contributions to the fast-growing collection.
The Dominion Post recently reported the death (from a brain tumour on June 6) of well-known Wellington street entertainer and poet, John d’Estaing Adams, aged 64, also known as ‘Kenny’.
Adams (1946-2011) was born in the United States. He grew up in Southeast Texas on his family ranch in Beaumont. He had a brother and two sisters. His sister, Elizabeth, was a singer with the Melody Maids. After school, Adams completed an MA at the University of Southern California in 1969 and wrote songs in Nashville, Los Angeles and Houston, before arriving in New Zealand in the early 1990s. Adams performed in Wellington, Christchurch and other parts of New Zealand but lived mainly in Wellington.
He was nicknamed ‘Kenny’ for his resemblance to country singer Kenny Rogers and was a favourite and well-liked performer to regular night-goers around Courtenay Place, Wellington.
Adams was a Christian and recorded a poetry CD at Bus Tunnel Studios, produced by Mark G. Hayes, called Kenny (2001). He sold the CD on the street.
Adams’s poems had integrity and a concern for personal fulfilment, God, freedom and social justice. Some of his titles were ‘Persistence’, ‘There’s Power in Setting a Goal’ and ‘Take Courage – Don’t Fear’. A copy of his CD is in the Poetry Archive.
As a performer, Adams had a repertoire that included his own poetry like ‘Don’t Quit’, classic poetry, and well-known country songs like ‘The Gambler’ and ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’. His roots were firmly in Texas, USA.
His knowledge of classic English and American poetry was vast. He recited poems from memory in return for coinage. As such, his ability to remember poems is reminiscent of iconic New Zealand performer, Sam Hunt. Among his favourite poems were Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 116’, Lord Byron’s ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’, Kipling’s ‘If’, Wordsworth’s ‘Daffodils’ and poems by American poets like Whittier and Longfellow.
Adams kept a list of poems next to his guitar case that people could choose. It was an aspect of his performance that became increasingly important to him when the city council eventually confiscated his amplifier in the late ’90s after complaints from inner-city apartment dwellers about noise.
Adams also made his way into local literature. A poem about Adams, ‘Kenny’, is in PANZA member Mark Pirie’s collection The Search (ESAW, 2007) and the character, The Busker (based on Adams), is in Pirie’s 2009 verse novel TOM.
PANZA extends their condolences and sympathy to John’s family in the States and friends in New Zealand. All who knew John will continue to remember his spirited performances. A memorial service was held at Wilson Funeral Home in Adelaide Road, Newtown, Wellington, on July 6, 2011. A possible plaque of John may be displayed in the Courtenay Quarter sometime in the future.
Here’s a transcription of one of Adams’s poems from his CD Kenny:
JOHN ADAMS
There’s a bullet that goes with the credit
Don’t be too eager
to hold all the credit
for others to acknowledge
that you said or did it.
Give the glory to someone
who can truly profit from it,
who needs encouragement
to climb their hill
or to reach their summit.
If no one else give it to God.
He really deserves it
and he doesn’t get much credit nowadays…
But taking the credit’s like deadly poison.
My advice is don’t drink it.
You see Mankind’s so jealous
and full of the devil
that he’ll target anyone
who rises above level.
So don’t be too eager,
don’t be too eager to hold all the credit.
Judgement Day will remember it,
they will, they’ll remember it.
So now you can forget it.
No – you don’t want the bullet
that goes with the credit.
And there’s a bullet
that goes with the credit.
Author’s note: This poem came to me very quickly as I was sitting on a hill in the suburb of Newtown, Wellington, about an eight-storey hill, seven or eight-storey… I could see the harbour, and I could see over to the Cook Strait and see the ferry. Quite a lovely sight on a beautiful day.
I reckon the credit is sort of like, well … if you take the credit, you get a bullet in the back. If you keep on taking the credit, you get the bullets coming from all sides. So the best way to handle it is to take a sip of the credit, it’s wonderful, refreshing, but then hand it over to someone else before it turns to poison, because there’s a bullet that goes with the credit.
Other links on John Adams:
Simon Sweetman’s tribute on Blog on the Tracks
Tim Donaghue: Ex-mayor to honour his rival
Tom Hunt: Final farewell for Kenny the Busker
The American-born Dunedin artist/designer/writer/educator/magician Larry Matthews (1961-2011) has died aged 50. Matthews was known for his ability to relate to people across generations and was a valued member of the Dunedin arts and writing community.
He owned and ran {lanyop} lagniappe small art gallery and espresso cafe in George Street, Dunedin. The gallery opened at night by candlelight and he played piano as background music to the exhibits. As Matthews himself stated in a 2010 Critic interview on his art gallery: “The notion of the Inner Light (that I believe everyone carries within them) is expressed outwardly by the candle and the artwork itself becomes a tangible representation of the Inner Light of the artist. This ‘mystical experience’ is then a direct communication of the viewer and the art through that Light.”
Matthews exhibited artwork in America and New Zealand and his writing appeared in various New Zealand poetry journals and newspapers, including JAAM, Glottis, Takahe, Black Mail Press, Landfall and the Otago Daily Times.
In 2008, Matthews published his sole collection of poetry, Once Happy as Larry, through his Lagniappe Book Arts imprint. He also collaborated with Jenny Powell on her collection Double-Jointed with nine others in 2003. He has more unpublished work written in collaboration with Dunedin poet Cy Mathews.
Matthews was born in Virginia and educated at Kings Park/Kings Glen Elementary School and Lake Braddock Secondary School in the States. He completed his tertiary studies at George Washington University, Virginia Commonwealth University (BFA 1983) and the University of Otago (MCApSc 2003). He was also a Quaker.
Matthews worked first at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoological Park as an exhibit designer, before moving to New Zealand in 1993 where, as an educator, he taught at the Wanganui School of Design and later in the University of Otago’s Design Studies department as a Senior Teaching Fellow.
Matthews will be missed by all those who knew him. PANZA would like to offer their condolences to Larry’s friends and family.
The Octagon Poetry Collective held a memorial poetry reading for Larry on July 13 at Circadian Rhythm in Dunedin to celebrate and remember Larry’s contribution to Dunedin poets and poetry.
Poem tribute by Peter Olds:
LARRY ON GEORGE STREET
There are 3 upsidedown egg cups on a magic cloth on a magic table.
Three children and a man are invited to guess under which cup lies
the small white ball.
A hand moves left, then right,
then buzzes in mid-air like a bumblebee.
Another hand shuffles the cups mysteriously.
“Which one,” he smiles. . . They giggle, shake their heads,
and, WALLA! — the hiding place is revealed. . .
How did he do that in his lovely magic hat?
Fingers like strings, arms like wands.
A ukulele smile.
A glowing face in full living colour.
They drop gold coins into the magic box.
“Thank you,” he lisps politely.
“Have a nice day.”
© Peter Olds
Comment by Peter Olds: ”Will certainly miss Larry on George Street, outside his favourite caf, with his ukulele.”
Beattie’s Book Blog recently posted the following information about the celebrations for Allen Curnow’s 100th anniversary. It is 100 years since Allen was born.
Documentary film screening:
http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/to-celebrate-allen-curnows-anniversary.html
Tributes and features in Sport and Landfall:
http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-on-allen-curnow.html
Going West Festival reading:
http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/and-more-still-on-allen-curnow.html
Elizabeth Caffin speaking at the anniversary film screening:
http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/…/elizabeth-caffin-talking-at-anniversary.html
CK Stead poem tribute:
http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/…/ck-stead-commemorates-centenary-of.html
The Poetry Archive of New Zealand catalogue has been significantly updated to reflect many new acquisitions in April and May. Thanks to everyone who has donated books and periodicals.
