[Shouldn't that be surge-black fissure?
Never mind. It goes with the blue & black of Michele's outfit, anyway ...]
Never mind. It goes with the blue & black of Michele's outfit, anyway ...]
I've just spent two days at a Poetry Symposium at Auckland University. It'd be hard to do justice here to all the myriad impressions and conversations that make up one's experience of such an event, so instead I've decided to put up a selection of the photos that Bronwyn and I took.
Hopefully they'll give you something of the atmosphere of the proceedings. For more impressions, you can visit my commentary site here:
[1] Approaches:
[Old Government House, in the university grounds, is a fantastic setting for a conference].
[Wellesley St Overpass]
[Old Government House]
[On the terrace]
•
[2] The Booktable:
[Bronwyn looked after the booktable on the first day, Thursday 29th, Brett Cross on the Friday. Looking through all the books, cds, t-shirts and other things people bring is one of my favourite parts of these events - I doubt if I'm alone in that].
[Setting Up]
[Poets' books]
[Pania Press & Titus Books]
•
[3] Participants:
[Some extremely distinguished guests came along. I wish we'd managed to get good photos of more of them, really: Bernadette Hall, Dinah Hawken, John Newton ... so many others.]
[Cilla McQueen]
[Stephanie Christie]
[Robert Sullivan & John Adams
•
[4] The Symposium:
[There were 15 papers on the first day, and 6 on the second (mine among them). Everybody finished within their allotted time and there were no over-runs. That's pretty unprecedented - in my experience, at any rate - for a poetry conference. Thanks to Michele Leggott, Robert Sullivan & Lisa Samuels, the three organisers - and all their fellow-chairs - for this extremely impressive achievement].
[Michele Leggott opens proceedings]
[John Tranter (at right) in conversation]
[Rachel Blau DuPlessis closes proceedings]
•
[5] Lunch:
[The conference organisers prepared us a picnic lunch on the first day, and most of us chose to eat it out on the lawn - the weather was amazing on both days].
[Tim Page, Jack Ross, Michele Leggott & Olive the guide-dog]
[More brown-baggers]
[David Howard, Helen Rickerby & friend]
•
[6] Waiheke:
On Friday, after Rachel Blau DuPlessis's eloquent summing-up (and Robert and John's spookily effective evocation of Governor George Grey, whose house this once was), most of us went off to Waiheke for the conference after-party: an attempt on the record for the world's longest beach poem].
[on the bus to Oneroa]
[Preparing the ground]
[Marshalling the troops]
•
[7] The Beach Poem:
[And this is the beginning & end of what we came up with. You'll have to check on the nzepc if you want to see the rest of the poem, though].
[Begin]
[Anywhere]
[The End]
•
