Find out about the benefits of joining the New Zealand Poetry Society here
Deadline for submissions to the NZPS magazine, a fine line: 7 October. Submission guidelines are at: http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/aboutsubmissionguidelines
No Easy Options? Being a Writer in New Zealand, Imprints Conference 2010
To be held on Saturday 16 October, 9.30 am - 4.30 pm, at Baycourt, Durham Street, Tauranga. Booking is essential
Keynote Speakers: Emily Perkins, Steve Braunias & Christine Cole Catley. Chaired by Dr. Mark Houlahan, University of Waikato
What are the pros & cons of being a writer in New Zealand? Is success possible in our small country or do we have to compromise what it means to be a New Zealand writer by publishing abroad? Are the dice loaded unfairly by publishers and booksellers against the writer who wants to write within a New Zealand culture for New Zealand writers? And is the market big enough and sufficiently proactive to sustain writers and pay them fairly for the work they do? A participative conference for writers, publishers, distributors, editors, creative writing tutors, and anyone else interested in the contemporary New Zealand publishing scene.
Please enquire further and book through Nyree Sherlock, Community Education Adviser, University of Waikato in Tauranga. Email: nyree@waikato.ac.nz or phone 07 577 5376 for details. For information about our speakers, please contact Jenny Argante, Tauranga Writers. Email: twinfo@clear.net.nz, tel 07 576 3040 or txt 027 316 31 93.
Award
Mirabile Dictu, a collection of poems by inaugural New Zealand Poet Laureate Michele Leggott, published by Auckland University Press, was announced as the Best Non-illustrated Book at the 2010 PANZ Book Design Awards. You can read Liz Breslin's review of Mirabile Dictu at: http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/files/Mirabile dictu review.pdf
A Call to Small Press Publishers of Poetry in New Zealand
David Howard (Black Doris Press) and Roger Hickin (Cold Hub Press) are partnering with the American publisher Zephyr Press to present a table of New Zealand poetry at the 2011 Annual Conference and Bookfair of the US Association of Writers and Writing Programs. British poet and publisher Peter Riley once observed:
"When it comes to poetry the [small press] category becomes illusory. The so-called big publishers produce poetry books in very small editions, sometimes below 1,000. The notion that some achievement in terms of public recognition is made when a poet is taken on by one of these bigger presses is sadly mistaken: they are run on personal taste and zone-preference like the rest. For the most part the only really commercial poetry publishing concerns poets laureate, Nobel prize winners, and some popular entertainers." [Small Press Poetry Catalogue 1, 1996]
What Riley said of Britain applies, minus the Nobel prize winners, to New Zealand. Still the university presses who creditably publish poetry here do have more marketing resources than their independent counterparts. So, with all due respect, this call is not for university presses; rather it is for publishers in the margins whose commitment to poetry deserves wider exposure. David and Roger invite approaches from small press publishers of poetry who would like their titles to be represented at the AWP Conference in Washington DC, February 2-5 2011.
This is an attractive way to display your broadsheets, chapbooks, and full-length collections prominently alongside offerings from the likes of Copper Canyon Press and W.W. Norton & Company. Representatives from The New York Times and Granta will be at AWP 2011. So will agents, editors, and distributors. Small New Zealand publishers such as Gumtree Press and Seraph Press are already involved.
If you would like your publications to be showcased then email David Howard: davidhoward@xtra.co.nz. (New Zealand book Council Newsletter #17)
Tuesday Poems
Novelist Mary McCallum has been doing her bit for poetry in the blogosphere. The Tuesday Poem is an initiative that creates a kind of open-mike session in cyberspace each Tuesday morning. Poets post poems first thing in the morning (or last thing Monday night) then link to each other and ‘pop in and out of each other's poems all day', as Mary describes it, as well as being visited by other readers. Mary's inviting other poets to join in: visit the blog at www.tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com to find out how.
Poetry Posters
"The only thing that can save the world is reclaiming the awareness of the world. That's what poetry does." Allen Ginsberg.
Giving poetry the street visibility of punk and rock and roll, Phantom Billstickers launched a new series of poem posters in late April 2010. Placing poems on the walls of cities across New Zealand, the United States and towns and cities everywhere, the intent is to bring poetry to the attention of the world. This is Phantom Billstickers' fourth run of Poem Posters
An interesting mix of Kiwi and American poets is featured. From Aotearoa (New Zealand): Chris Knox, well known Kiwi musician, song writer and Beat Mystic; Bill Manhire, New Zealand's Man of Letters and five-times winner of the New Zealand Book Awards Poetry Prize; Tusiata Avia, Pacifika performance poet and current Ursula Bethel Writer in Residence at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch; Stephen Oliver, poet and voice artist, author of fifteen volumes of poetry; Cilla McQueen, poet and artist, three-time winner of the New Zealand Book Award for poetry and current New Zealand Poet Laureate; Mariana Isara, winner of the Heritage Christchurch summer poets competition.
From the USA: Robert Creeley, Black Mountain poet of the Charles Olson school and guardian of innovative poets and poetics everywhere; Gerald Stern, Poet Laureate of New Jersey, recipient of the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, US National Book Award winner for poetry and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets; Michael Palma, poet and translator of Dante's 'Inferno'; Roy Smith, vital unpublished poet from New Hope, Pennsylvania.
Jim Wilson, the founder of Phantom Billstickers, New Zealand's poster company, is a keen advocate and committed supporter of poetry and the arts. Jim's aim is to take Kiwi arts to the world. He has worked to post streets and cafe walls with poem posters in places like Baltimore, Knoxville and Nashville, through to Seattle and Portland. At least a dozen other American cities are also involved, from Mississippi State to New York City. Recently volunteers have been enlisted to place poem posters in Boulder and Iowa City (close to the Iowa Writers' Workshop which is arguably the top writers' workshop in the States). The city of Berlin, Germany, is also to be added to the list of destinations to feel the heat, passion and beauty of poem posters on its walls.
New Zealand, one of the poetry and music hearts of the world, first saw Phantom Billstickers' poem posters in June 2009. Cities and towns throughout the country enjoy a damn good pasting of poem posters and as Kiwi poet Stephen Oliver puts it: "Poem posters are part of the dress code of any city that recommends itself to its citizens."
In the previous three rounds of Poetry Posters the poets featured have included Janet Frame, Geoff Cochrane, Campbell McKay, Brian Turner, Jackie Steincamp, Bill Direen, Michele Leggott, Sam Hunt, Gary McCormick, Hilaire Campbell, Jeffery McCaleb, Ben Brown, Michael White, Nicholas Thomas, Tusiata Avia, Pablo Nova, Robert Pinsky, Marcie Sims, Joe Treceno, Lawrence Arabia, Josie McQuail, Jay Clarkson and Sandra Bell.
At the April 28th Launch some of the Phantom Billstickers poets will read and the event will be hosted by celebrated poet and New Zealand's inaugural Poet Laureate Michele Leggott. The evening will also feature LOUNGE#13 which is an exciting project run by the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre & the English Department at the University of Auckland. Local poets reading include: Ben Daniels, Martin Edmond, Paula Green, Greg Zan, Zarah Butcher McGunnigle, Sacha Norrie, Jack Ross and Sonja Yelich.
Printing poems on posters is largely about hope. In a world of splitting opinions, extreme violence and never-ending political and commercial intrigue, the aim is to bring Truth and Beauty back into the streets. These posters and in fact all posters are 'Flora for the Concrete Jungle'. The wish is that people participate in and celebrate the creativity of language. The aim is to be inspirational and uplifting; the presence of poems in our cities is about reclaiming the world through art. You can read about the poetry project at: www.0800phantom.co.nz
A Scottish View of New Zealand Poetry
The latest edition of Best New Zealand Poems (www.victoria.ac.nz/bestnzpoems), published by the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML), comes with a skirl of pipes and a Scottish perspective. Each year a new editor selects the best 25 poems published by New Zealand writers during the previous 12 months. This year's editor, Robyn Marsack, is the director of the Scottish Poetry Library. Marsack says she selected the 25 top poems thinking about an international audience.
"I was conscious that this site is for an audience outside New Zealand, a window on to its poetry."
While the 2009 selection features many of the established names of New Zealand poetry - ex-poet laureate Michele Leggott, Ian Wedde, C.K. Stead, Bernadette Hall, Chris Price and Brian Turner for example - it also includes emerging writers such as Louise Wallace, Ashleigh Young, Tokyo-domiciled Brent Kininmont, and the acclaimed dancer Douglas Wright. Marsack says while many of the poems are distinctly New Zealand in subject and style, others are less obviously from the Southern Hemisphere.
"Many of these poems are not anchored in New Zealand society or its landscapes; why should they be? The furthest extreme is John Gallas's marvellous 'The Mongolian women's orchestra', and Lynn Jenner's mysterious 'A Hassidic tale might start . . .'."
Professor Bill Manhire, Director of the IIML which publishes Best New Zealand Poems, says that he is delighted to have Robyn Marsack's "outsider" perspective on New Zealand poetry.
"New Zealand and Scotland have deep and continuing connections, and the writers of both countries are genuinely international in their outlooks. This fits well with the chief aim of Best New Zealand Poems, which is to export our poetry to a global audience."
A high proportion of visitors to Best New Zealand Poems comes from overseas. To help them read further, individual poems include notes about the poet, as well as links to related publishing and literary websites. Robyn Marsack is a New Zealander, a graduate of Victoria and Oxford Universities, and was co-editor of the 2009 anthology Twenty Contemporary New Zealand Poets. The Scottish Poetry Library recently added a special feature on New Zealand poets to its website: http://www.spl.org.uk/new_zealand/index.htm
Best New Zealand Poems 2009 is published with the support of Creative New Zealand, and hosted by the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre at Victoria University. (VUW Press release)
New Zealand poem nominated for international award
Meliors Simms' poem 'Two Kinds of Time', first published in the acclaimed anthology Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand (Interactive Press, 2009), has been nominated for a Rhysling Award for the best science fiction, fantasy or horror poem published in 2009.
The Rhysling Awards, administered by the Science Fiction Poetry Association, were inaugurated in 1978. Among previous winners are such well-known writers as Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. Le Guin, Jane Yolen and Joe Haldeman.
"I'm honoured to have my poem nominated for an international poetry award with such an illustrious history," said Meliors Simms from her home in Hamilton. "I had never heard of the genre of science fiction poetry until I was invited to submit to the Voyagers anthology a few years ago. 'Two Kinds of Time' was my first effort and marked a shift in my writing style from introspective to more ideas-based poetry."
Tim Jones, who co-edited Voyagers with Mark Pirie, said "We are delighted for Meliors, and very pleased for this further recognition for New Zealand science fiction poetry and for Voyagers. The anthology has been very well-received in New Zealand, and it has already appeared on the NZ Listener and New Zealand Herald best books lists for 2009. The international interest in the anthology, and in Meliors' poem in particular, is just as exciting."
Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand is available from leading New Zealand independent bookstores. It is also available online from Interactive Press, from Fishpond (NZ) and from Amazon.com
2010 Randell Cottage Residency
Congratulations to Wairarapa writer Patrick White, who is the New Zealand Writer in Residence at Wellington's Randell Cottage for 2010. Pat White is a poet, essayist and artist whose work reflects his passion for the natural environment and an exploration of the way individuals relate to the land. He will use the six months in the cottage to research and write a biography of West Coast writer, teacher and fellow environmentalist Peter Hooper (1919 - 1991). Hooper wrote award-winning fiction, as well as poetry and non-fiction.
Victoria University's 2010 Writer in Residence
Poet Jenny Bornholdt is the 2010 Writer in Residence at Victoria University. Earlier this year Bornholdt won the Montana New Zealand Book Award for Poetry for her latest collection The Rocky Shore. The book is made up of six long poems that together form an autobiographical essay.
Bornholdt plans to work on a new volume of poetry while she is at Victoria, and also aims to compile an anthology of short poems by New Zealand writers. She will be hosted by Victoria's International Institute of Modern Letters.
Professor Bill Manhire says he is delighted about Bornholdt's appointment. "She is one of the most generous poets I know. The students who come to study with us will find it richly rewarding to know that she is working and writing just along the corridor. It is going to be very exciting to see where her poetry goes next."
Wellingtonian of the Year
Congratulations to IIML director Bill Manhire, who was announced as the Education category winner at the Wellingtonian of the Year Awards dinner. The story in the Dominion Post described the Institute of Modern Letters as ‘the Southern Hemisphere centre for new and emerging writers', adding that ‘Wellington has developed a powerful creative writing culture which [Bill] has led, putting us on a map which operates globally.' In his acceptance speech Bill gave all credit to the students who have been the engine of this ‘imaginative vehicle'. He did reserve some credit for the staff, however - and it seems the students agree, as the Post-Graduate Students' Association has voted Damien Wilkins the Best Lecturer of a taught postgraduate course for the Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences this year (an honour that went to Ken Duncum in 2008) (IIML Newsletter)
New feature in Bravado
Bravado is introducing four haikai pages as a regular feature centrefold in each issue - haiku, tanka, haibun, and other Japanese forms. These pages will be guest edited, with Owen Bullock, Bravado's very first poetry editor, starting us off. Owen will invite submissions for this first issue, B18, due out in March 2010.
This new initiative from the Bravado Editorial Collective is intended to reflect New Zealand's passion for the Japanese forms, and to be part of the development of our unique Kiwi-style haiku. Bravado is renewing it's commitment to be wholly New Zealand, a literary journal showcasing work by New Zealanders at home or abroad.
You can submit work, just be sure you put "Haikai Pages" in the subject line, and follow the submission guidelines found at http://www.bravado.co.nz/
All enquiries to bravadoinfo@bravado.co.nz
The Cuba Street Garret, Wellington
The Cuba Street Garret is a combination of solitude and community for the toner-stained wretches we know as writers. We have transformed a flat on Cuba Street, outfitting it with offices so that writers can move in and get to work. Heat, Internet, and cleaning services are provided, of course. This workspace is called The Cuba Street Garret because Cuba Street is where it's located, and 'Garret' since there are few writers who can even afford a garret these days, but this would perhaps make that dream possible for several of them.
Costs are, naturally, a primary concern for everyone, so the rent is currently only $80 per week; it could well be less than that once the fourteen (14) offices are filled. And there are no lengthy leases. Writers will never be asked to commit to more than one month at a time. The success of The Cuba Street Garret will come from the positive atmosphere therein. Members of The Garret meet for lunch once a month.
Further Information: Located in the Watkins Building (corner of Cuba and Vivian Streets), The Cuba Street Garret has a progenitor of a sort back in San Francisco, The Sanchez Grotto Annex http://www.sanchezannex.com if anyone wants to see how a writers' workspace works. Those offices now have a waiting list, and we expect to have the same level of participation in Wellington.
Writers who wish to learn more or visit The Garret should contact Doug Wilkins: dbwilkins@gmail.com and/or 021-138-5050
Dame Fiona honoured by France
Heartiest congratulations to our Patron Dame Fiona Kidman who was recently awarded France's prestigious Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Chevalier rank. She joins an impressive list of those honoured for their having "significantly contributed to the enrichment of the French cultural inheritance." For more about this award, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordre_des_Arts_et_des_Lettres 1000 New Zealand classics released as eBooks
New Zealanders can now freely download - and store in their pockets - hundreds of our most well-known books, courtesy of Victoria University's New Zealand Electronic Text Centre (NZETC). More than 1000 New Zealand electronic books (eBooks) are now available for download on the NZETC website at http://www.nzetc.org, giving people easy access to some of the great works in New Zealand literature including Katherine Mansfield's The Garden Party and Other Stories, Bill Pearson's Coal Flat, and Robin Hyde's The Godwits Fly.
Although New Zealand does not yet share the same choice of eBook device hardware as available overseas, devices sold locally such as Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch make the reading of eBooks a simple and portable experience. The New Zealand eBooks, made available using the major emerging ePub standard, represent many of the texts already accessible for online browsing on the NZETC website, and are suited to viewing on modern eBook devices such as the iPhone, Sony Reader, and IRex ILiad.
The ePub standard is an open standard supported by many major publishers and hardware vendors, with many of the major online bookstores making titles available for purchase in this format. Waterstones bookstore, one of the largest chains in the United Kingdom, offers more than 12,000 titles exclusively in the ePub format, while Sony has stated its intention to sell only books in the ePub format by the end of this year.
Some of the major titles released this week by the NZETC include:
• The Life of Captain James Cook, by J. C. Beaglehole (http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-Bea04Cook.html)
• The Garden Party and Other Stories, by Katherine Mansfield (http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-ManGard.html)
• Coal Flat, by Bill Pearson (http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-PeaCoal.html)
• The Godwits Fly, by Robin Hyde (http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-HydGodw.html)
• We Will Not Cease, by Archibald Baxter (http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-BaxWeWi.html)
• Infantry Brigadier, by Howard Karl Kippenberger (http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-KipInfa.html)
• Tutira, by William Guthrie Smith (http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-GutTuti.html)
• My Life, by Jean Batten (http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-BatMyL.html)
The NZETC is a free online archive of New Zealand and Pacific texts and heritage materials, based at Victoria University. It offers an ever expanding, fully searchable, set of images and full-text books, manuscripts and journals. The NZETC collaborates with organisations interested in digitising their collections and making digital content available online, providing expertise and technical assistance, and is interested in projects aiming to make content more widely available to a New Zealand audience through the use of open standards.
One can only wait with bated breath to see if poetry texts are to be included.
New Poet Laureate for New Zealand
Bluff poet Cilla McQueen is New Zealand's second Poet Laureate, taking over from Michele Leggott. Details at: http://authors.org.nz/afa.asp?idWebPage=40048&idDetails=19673
Poems in the Waiting Room, Dunedin
Ruth Arnison of Otago has successfully established a local Poems in the Waiting Room scheme, under licence and start-up grant from Poems in the Waiting Room UK. The initial summer print run in November/December 2008 was 500 cards; there were 1000 for autumn and she's looking at 2000 cards for the winter edition. The poetry cards combine classic poems, including many from UK PitWR earlier editions, with new work by New Zealand poets. They have been welcomed by Dunedin medical practitioners and rest homes, and supplies have quickly run out in a number of surgeries. Armed with the local licence, Ruth is now looking forward to expanding the project to cover more of NZ. Contact Ruth Arnison arnison@xnet.co.nz You can follow the progress of the project at http://www.pitwrnz.blogspot.com/
Radio Interview - National Coordinator
Laurice Gilbert, NZPS National Coordinator and current President, was interviewed by Eva Radich on Radio New Zealand's 'Upbeat' programme, on Wednesday 23rd April. Go to: http://www.fluctu8.com/media/8392/36590/ and scroll down to the Upbeat box. It's just over 20 minutes long, so allow plenty of listening time.
Humour in poetry
A wee Scottish poetry joke currently doing the rounds on the Internet (with many thanks to the IIML for sharing it):
Tony Blair is visiting an Edinburgh hospital. He enters a ward full of patients with no obvious sign of injury or illness and greets one. The patient replies:
Fair fa your honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin race,
Aboon them a ye take yer place,
Painch, tripe or thairm,
As langs my airm.
Blair is confused, so he just grins and moves on to the next patient. The patient responds:
Some hae meat an canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat an we can eat,
So let the Lord be thankit.
Even more confused, and his grin now rictus-like, the PM moves on to the next
patient, who immediately begins to chant:
Wee sleekit, cowerin, timorous beasty,
O the panic in thy breasty,
Thou needna start awa sae hastie,
Wi bickering brattle
Now seriously troubled, Blair turns to the accompanying doctor and asks, ‘Is this a psychiatric ward?'
‘No,' replies the doctor, ‘this is the serious Burns unit.'
