2011 - Our Year in Review

[Jack & Bronwyn (27 August 2011)
[Photo: Katharine Jaeger]

Last year at about this time I put up a post about various of the projects Bronwyn and I had got involved with in 2010. This year I thought I might do the same -- a little anthology of the year's activities (& blogposts):

1. February 17:
   
   
   [Massey University Vice Chancellor Steve Maharey launches 11 Views of Auckland, an anthology of essays about the city edited by Grant Duncan and myself, with a cover image by Graham Fletcher].
   
   
   


2. May 20:
   
   
   [Scenes from The Puppet Oresteia, a collaboration between me and US-based UK artist Bill Ayton, goes live on online publishing site Lulu.com].
   
   
   


3. June 6:
   
   
   [Bronwyn announces the completion of the Pania Press edition of Jen Crawford's poetry book Pop Riveter on her Mosehouse Studio blog].
   
   
   


4. July 4:
   
   
   [Launch of my online edition of Leicester Kyle's collected poems, a dual index / text website which I fear I'll have to continue to work on for quite some time (though the texts of all the major books are now up in full)].
   
   
   


5. July 8:
   
   
   [I give a paper entitled “A brief Poetics” at the Poetry & the Contemporary Symposium (Melbourne: Deakin University, 7-10 July)].
   
   
   


6. July 12:
   
   
   [I give a paper called “The Twenty-Year Masterclass: Paul Celan’s correspondence with Gisèle Celan-Lestrange” at the Literature and Translation Conference (Melbourne: Monash University, Caulfield Campus, 11-12 July), a summary of my two-year project of translating all the dual-text poems included in Celan's letters to his wife].
   
   
   


7. July 29:
   
   
   [Lopdell House's late Poetry Day reading in Titirangi coincides with the launch of Ila Selwyn & Lesley Smith's beautifully produced poetry anthology The Winding Stair].
   
   
   


8. August 26:
   
   
   [Bronwyn's Lugosi's Children exhibition opens at Objectspace in Ponsonby Road].
   
   
   


9. November 9-13:
   
   
   [Ian St George unveils our joint edition of Leicester Kyle's posthumous epic Koroneho at the William Colenso Bicentenary celebrations in Napier].
   
   
   


10. November 27:
    
    
    [Michele Leggott launches Bronwyn's first book of short stories The Second Location, together with Scott Hamilton's new book of poems Feeding the Gods, at Objectspace].
    
    
    


11. November 29:
    
    
    [Launch of the online Jacket2 NZ Poetry feature, edited by me].
    
    
    


12. December 25:
    
    
    [Bronwyn's wonderful Christmas gift: a limited edition of my Britain's Missing Top Model poem as a Pania Press single].
    

Jackette

[Jacket 2]

Jacket, the Australian online journal edited by John Tranter and (latterly) Pam Brown, is generally regarded as one of the most influential poetry magazines of the past two decades (you can access its entire forty-issue back catalogue, 1997-2010, from either the link above or the one below).

It's now succeeded by Jacket2, a website including Articles, Features, Reviews, Interviews, Commentaries, Reissues & Podcasts, all centred on contemporary poetry and poetics. The site is based in the US, but retains strong links with the Antipodes.

As proof of that, when I was at the Poetry & the Contemporary symposium in Melbourne in July, Pam Brown approached me about editing a New Zealand poetry feature for the site to parallel the one that she was doing on Australian poetry.

Both features are now up online. You can check out Pam's (which is pretty comprehensive: it's planned to include - eventually - 51 contemporary Australian poets) here, and my more modest selection of a dozen Kiwi poets here.

Once before I went through an exercise of this kind -- in 2004, seven years ago, when I co-edited 12 Taonga from the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive with Jan Kemp for the nzepc, at the end of our work on that 40-odd-CD-long, 171-poet-strong compilation of recordings and back-up materials.

Interestingly enough, there are two overlaps with the Jacket2 feature: Apirana Taylor and Richard von Sturmer. Besides that, though, I've tried to keep to the same principle of unearthing overlooked treasures in this new international showcase. Once again, it came down to 12 poets (though a number of those I asked were unable to participate for one reason or another -- I'd originally planned on including 15 or so: still well short of Pam's 50 -- we are only a quarter of the size, though: in population, at any rate ...)

The number rises to a neat Baker's dozen when you add in the strong, strikingly colourful images of local artist Emma Smith, which I attached to each page to give a kind of consistency of tone to these otherwise wildly various materials.

[Emma Smith:
"Even though you have lost your horse, don't pursue it"
[oil on canvas] (2011)]

•

So what's in the feature? It's entitled "Look and look again: 12 New Zealand poets," and the twelve poets in question are (in alphabetical order):

[Bio: John Adams]


1. John Adams:
   
   
   
   • Fishing, off Kawau
   • Did you hear the snicker/ of that piwakawaka?/ In which fold/ is the artist squeezed?
   • Out the window there was a round goldfish pond with netting to keep the birds out and an aviary to keep their birds in



[Bio: Raewyn Alexander]


2. Raewyn Alexander:
   
   
   
   • 'aged famous rockers tour the world'
   • girls soft as new grass
   • India - early 20th Century and other Tales



[Bio: Jen Crawford]


3. Jen Crawford:
   
   
   
   • promontories
   • The Black Valley



[Bio: Scott Hamilton]


4. Scott Hamilton:
   
   
   
   • Elegy for a survivor of the war on Afghanistan
   • Walking to the Dendroglyphs on Christmas Eve (a dream)



[Bio: Leicester Kyle]


5. Leicester Kyle:
   
   
   
   • Happy Valley: A Lament for a landscape about to be mined (3 pp.) [31/10/03]
   • I Like It When The Sun Doesn’t Shine [12/9/03]



[Bio: Aleksandra Lane]


6. Aleksandra Lane:
   
   
   
   • Card games
   • Three cheers for liberation
   • Easter



[Bio: Thérèse Lloyd]


7. Thérèse Lloyd:
   
   
   
   • The Nail I
   • We’re All Here Buried
   • Takaka



[Bio: Richard Reeve]


8. Richard Reeve:
   
   
   
   • Uptake
   • Meeting in a Field
   • Croak



[Bio: Michael Steven]


9. Michael Steven:
   
   
   
   • Dunedin Fives

     o The Octagon
     o Raven Books
     o Spring Broadcast
     o The Excelsior Cafe
     o Meridian
     o Le Punk
     o Dented Moon

   • Elegy



[Bio: Apirana Taylor]


10. Apirana Taylor:
    
    
    
    • fighting with words
    • dame Margot on the line
    • rat a tat tat



[Bio: Richard Taylor]


11. Richard Taylor:
    
    
    
    • In the Silence Museum

      o again)
      o again) (2)
      o again) (3a)
      o again) (4)




[Bio: Richard von Sturmer]


12. Richard Von Sturmer:
    
    
    
    • Book of Equanimity Verses

      o 58.
      o 59.
      o 60.
      o 61,
      o 62.
      o 63.





•
[Bio: Jack Ross]


13. Jack Ross:
    
    
    
    • Look and look again: Twelve New Zealand poets




[Bio: Emma Smith]


14. Emma Smith

•

So obviously I think that each of these poets has something interesting to say to us right now. Check them out and see if you agree. It's an idiosyncratic selection, no doubt, but not one that I've put together without thinking about it quite a lot: a kind of personal anti-canon, perhaps - but one that's intended to intrigue you rather than provoke your wrath.

The "Jackette" pun was Jen Crawford's, in the first place, but it does seem rather appropriate to what I've tried to do here, so I've gratefully adopted it ... Enjoy.

Emma Smith:
"Hecate"
[mixed media on paper]
(2010)]

11 Views of Auckland

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Albany Campus
Massey University

are happy to invite you
to celebrate
the publication of

11 Views of Auckland

An anthology of essays
by members of the College

Volume 10 in our ongoing Monograph Series
Social and Cultural Studies

The book will be launched by
Massey University’s Vice-Chancellor
The Hon Steve Maharey

At a special launch price of $15
[RRP: $20]

In the Study Centre Staff Lounge,
East Precinct, Albany Campus, Auckland
on Thursday 17th February
from 5.00-6.30 p.m.

For directions please visit this page.

For catering purposes please RSVP to
Leanne Menzies
By Friday 11th February, 2011