Famous Seamus: Lament for a Maker

i.m. Seamus Heaney


Bobbie Hanvey: Seamus Heaney

born County Derry, Northern Ireland
13 April 1939
died Dublin, Eire
30 August 2013

I went to a talk by the distinguished Irish writer Dermot Healy recently, while I was at a conference in Singapore. As well as plays, screenplays, and fiction - most famously his haunting and terrifying novel A Goat's Song (1994) - Healy has also published a number of books of poetry. He's a pretty unpretentious sort (in fact, when I last saw him, at the conference dinner, he was trying to imitate Tibetan throat music to an increasingly unenthusiastic throng). One of his quips was that he was getting used to people coming up to him and saying how much his poems meant to them, then producing a copy of Death of a Naturalist for his signature ...

Dermot Healy / Seamus Heaney - the names are not really that similar, but he claimed that he got mistaken for the more famous Seamus on a regular basis, and had in fact taken to signing some of his books simply in order to avoid further explanations.

Famous Seamus - that was his nickname in Ireland, another Irish friend told me. Virtually from the beginning of his career, in the mid-sixties, it was apparent that his was a talent on a different scale from most of his contemporaries. As Gavin Ewart put it, wryly: "I think I'm Auden, he thinks he's Yeats." That was the competition - not the other poets he knew, or (increasingly) that he'd taught at Queen's University in Belfast.

I wrote a fairly long piece about Heaney and his sense of poetic genealogy for a guest lecture I gave to Jo Emeney's somewhat bemused English students at Kristin School in 2010. Not just Yeats, but Homer, Shakespeare - above all, Dante, who inspired his wonderful dream vision Station Island of 1984, and whom he translated piecemeal in various collections throughout his career.

He bore his burden of fame (the Nobel Prize, the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford) with grace, I think. It can't have been easy at times, when each of his pronouncements was taken so seriously, weighed up with such scrupulous attention - particularly as the Troubles dragged on, and he had somehow become the voice of Catholic Northern Ireland itself.

His was a fate rather like Dante's - and Yeats's - then: a partisan political as well as a poetic role to play in the tragi-comedy of late twentieth-century history.

Now all that's over and we can go back to the poetry. A few years ago I bought the recordings he'd made of his entire body of work to date: a 15-CD set which I've listened to a couple of times since then. It's a very different experience from reading the books (I have all of them, as well: the 12 collections, at any rate). His shaping and patterning is so clear on the page. When spoken aloud, the poems become more genial and anecdotal, more like the fragments of a complex life story they were always, I imagine, meant to be.

It seems rather fitting that it was Jo Emeney who sent me a link to an obituary by Colm Tóibín, and thus informed me indirectly of his death yesterday. I don't know quite what to think, actually. He was one of the major shapers of poetry in our time. It seems rather unfair that we should have to part with him so soon. I suppose the true breadth of his work will come into focus now, though - that journey he started on almost fifty years ago.

I'll quote a part of his translation of Canto 1 of Dante's Inferno. It seems to say so much more than I can find to say at this moment:

How I got into it I cannot clearly say
for I was moving like a sleepwalker
the moment I stepped out of the right way,

But when I came to the bottom of a hill
standing off at the far end of that valley
where a great terror had disheartened me

I looked up, and saw how its shoulders glowed
already in the rays of the planet
which leads and keeps men straight on every road.

Then I sensed a quiet influence settling
into those depths in me that had been rocked
and pitifully troubled all night long

And as a survivor gasping on the sand
turns his head back to study in a daze
the dangerous combers, so my mind

Turned back, although it was reeling forward,
back to inspect a pass that had proved fatal
heretofore to everyone who entered.

- from Dante's Inferno: Translations by 20 Contemporary Poets, edited by Daniel Halpern (New York: Ecco Press, 1993)

What more can one say? It comes to us all in the end, that "pass that had proved fatal/ heretofore to everyone who entered" - in Seamus Heaney it took away one of the best and the brightest ... Perhaps one might conclude, instead, with some lines from Dunbar's "Lament for the Makaris":

I se that makaris amang the laif
Playis heir ther pageant, syne gois to graif;
Sparit is nocht ther faculte;
Timor mortis conturbat me.

[I see that makers among the rest
play here their pageant, then go to grief;
their faculty is not exempt;
The fear of death obsesses me].

Seamus Heaney: Collected Poems (2009)

Seamus Justin Heaney
(1939-2013)

Poetry collections:


1. Death of a Naturalist (1966)
   • Death of a Naturalist. 1966. London: Faber, 1969.
2. Door into the Dark (1969)
   • Door into the Dark. 1969. London: Faber, 1985.
3. Wintering Out (1972)
   • Wintering Out. 1972. London: Faber, 1993.
4. North (1975)
   • North. 1975. London: Faber, 1992.
5. Field Work (1979)
   • Field Work. London: Faber, 1979.
6. Station Island (1984)
   • Station Island. 1984. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986.
7. The Haw Lantern (1987)
   • The Haw Lantern. London: Faber, 1987.
8. Seeing Things (1991)
   • Seeing Things. London: Faber, 1991.
9. The Spirit Level (1996)
   • The Spirit Level. London: Faber, 1998.
10. Electric Light (2001)
    • Electric Light. London: Faber, 2001.
11. District and Circle (2006)
    • District and Circle. London: Faber, 2006.
12. Human Chain (2010)
    • Human Chain. London: Faber, 2010.

Selected editions:


13. Selected Poems 1965–1975 (1980)
    • Selected Poems 1965-1975. London: Faber, 1980.
14. New Selected Poems 1966–1987 (1990)
    • New Selected Poems 1966-1987. London: Faber, 1990.
15. Opened Ground: Poems 1966–1996 (1998)
    • Opened Ground: Poems 1966-1996. London: Faber, 1998.
16. New Selected Poems 1988–2013 (2014)
    • New Selected Poems 1988-2013. London: Faber, 2014.
17. 100 Poems (2018)

Prose collections:


18. Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968–1978 (1980)
19. The Government of the Tongue (1988)
20. The Redress of Poetry: Oxford Lectures (1995)
    • The Redress of Poetry: Oxford Lectures. 1995. London: Faber, 1996.
21. Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971–2001 (2002)
    • Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-2001. 2002. London: Faber, 2003.

Plays:


22. The Cure at Troy: A version of Sophocles' Philoctetes (1990)
    • The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes. London: Faber, in association with Field Day Theatre Company, Derry, 1990.
23. The Burial at Thebes: A version of Sophocles' Antigone (2004)
    • The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone. 2004. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

Translations:


24. Sweeney Astray: A version from the Irish (1983)
    • Sweeney Astray. 1983. London: Faber, 1984.
25. Sweeney's Flight. Photographs by Rachel Giese (1992)
26. The Midnight Verdict: Translations from the Irish of Brian Merriman and from the Metamorphoses of Ovid (1993)
27. [with Stanisław Barańczak] Laments, a cycle of Polish Renaissance elegies by Jan Kochanowski (1995)
28. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (1999)
    • Beowulf: A Verse Translation. 2000. Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Daniel Donghue. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002.
29. Diary of One Who Vanished, a song cycle by Leoš Janáček of poems by Ozef Kalda (1999)
    • Diary of One Who Vanished: A Song cycle by Leos Janacek / Poems by Ozef Kalda. London: Faber, 1999.
30. The Testament of Cresseid & Seven Fables (2009)
31. Aeneid: Book VI (2016)
32. The Translations of Seamus Heaney (2022)
    • The Translations of Seamus Heaney. Ed. Marco Sonzogni. 2022. London: Faber, 2023.

Chapbooks & Limited editions:


33. Eleven Poems (1965)
34. The Island People (1968)
35. Room to Rhyme (1968)
36. A Lough Neagh Sequence (1969)
37. Night Drive (1970)
38. A Boy Driving His Father to Confession (1970)
39. Explorations (1973)
40. Stations (1975)
41. Bog Poems (1975)
42. The Fire i' the Flint (1975)
43. Four Poems (1976)
44. Glanmore Sonnets (1977)
45. In Their Element (1977)
46. Robert Lowell: A Memorial Address and an Elegy (1978)
47. The Makings of a Music (1978)
48. After Summer (1978)
49. Hedge School (1979)
50. Ugolino (1979)
51. Gravities (1979)
52. A Family Album (1979)
53. Toome (1980)
54. Sweeney Praises the Trees (1981)
55. A Personal Selection (1982)
56. Poems and a Memoir (1982)
57. An Open Letter (1983)
58. Among Schoolchildren (1983)
59. Verses for a Fordham Commencement (1984)
60. Hailstones (1984)
61. From the Republic of Conscience (1985)
62. Place and Displacement (1985)
63. Towards a Collaboration (1985)
64. Clearances (1986)
65. Readings in Contemporary Poetry (1988)
66. The Sounds of Rain (1988)
67. The Dark Wood (1988)
68. An Upstairs Outlook (1989)
69. The Place of Writing (1989)
70. The Tree Clock (1990)
71. Squarings (1991)
72. Dylan the Durable (1992)
73. The Gravel Walks (1992)
74. The Golden Bough (1992)
75. Keeping Going (1993)
76. Joy or Night (1993)
77. Extending the Alphabet (1994)
78. Speranza in Reading (1994)
79. Oscar Wilde Dedication (1995)
80. Charles Montgomery Monteith (1995)
81. Crediting Poetry: The Nobel Lecture (1995)
82. Commencement Address (1996)
83. Poet to Blacksmith (1997)
84. An After Dinner Speech (1997)
85. Audenesque (1998)
86. The Light of the Leaves (1999)
87. Ballynahinch Lake (1999)
88. Something to Write Home About (2001)
89. Towers, Trees, Terrors (2001)
90. The Whole Thing: on the Good of Poetry (2002)
91. Hope and History (2002)
92. A Keen for the Coins (2002)
93. Hallaig (2002)
94. Arion, a poem by Alexander Pushkin, translated from the Russian, with a note by Olga Carlisle (2002)
95. Eclogues in Extremis (2003)
96. Squarings (2003)
97. Anything can Happen (2004)
98. Room to Rhyme (2004)
99. The Testament of Cresseid (2004)
100. Columcille The Scribe (2004)
101. A Tribute to Michael McLaverty (2005)
102. The Door Stands Open (2005)
103. A Shiver (2005)
104. The Riverbank Field (2007)
105. Articulations (2008)
106. One on a Side (2008)
107. Spelling It Out (2009)
108. Writer & Righter (2010)
109. Stone From Delphi (2012)
110. The Last Walk (2013)
111. My Yeats (2019)

Edited:


112. [with Ted Hughes] The Rattle Bag (1982)
     • [with Ted Hughes] The Rattle Bag: An Anthology of Poetry. 1982. London: Faber, 1985.
113. [with Ted Hughes] The School Bag (1997)
     • [with Ted Hughes] The School Bag. London: Faber, 1997.

Recordings:


114. Collected Poems (2009)
     • Collected Poems: Death of a Naturalist (1966); Door into the Dark (1969); Wintering Out (1972); North (1975); Field Work (1979); Station Island (1984); The Haw Lantern (1987); Seeing Things (1991); The Spirit Level (1998); Electric Light (2001); District and Circle (2006). Read by the Author. Set of 15 CDs. Dublin: RTE / Lannan, 2009.

Letters:


115. The Letters of Seamus Heaney (2023)
     • The Letters of Seamus Heaney. Ed. Christopher Reid. 2023. London: Faber, 2024.

Secondary:


116. O'Driscoll, Dennis. Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney. London: Faber, 2008.

Seamus Heaney (2010)

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Car Epics (2)

I've been reminded by some of you that I missed The Epic of Gilgamesh out of my list of epic poems to listen to in the car. Quite right - to be honest, I didn't realise that it was even available as a talking book. But it is. Luckily. I'll add more details about the actual recordings later, when my Amazon.com package arrives.

0 - Sîn-leqi-unninnī: The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 1350 BC)

a) translated by N. K. Sandars (1960)
read by Richard Pasco
Penguin Audiobooks, 1996
2 cassettes (abridged)

The first translation of Gilgamesh I ever encountered - it's still one of the most readable. It's a real shame that these Penguin Audiobooks haven't been re-released on CDs. there's some excellent recordings among them. This is one of the best.

b) translated by Stephen Mitchell (2004)
read by George Guidall
Recorded Books, 2004
4 CDs (unabridged)

A vivid new translation, and a fine reading. What they don't tell you, though, is that the last two CDs are Mitchell's critical discussion of the poem, rather than extra bits of the story. A nice complement to the Sandars translation, then, but I don't think it entirely supersedes it.

Car Epics

I guess it's been quite a while since I put up a post about the joys of listening to poetry on the car stereo while stuck in Auckland traffic. Since then I've been branching out a bit and checking out the recordings I like the most.

All of which is a preliminary to sharing my own - very subjective - list of best recordings of epics for such purposes (see also the supplementary list above):

1 - Homer: The Iliad (c. 850 BC)

a) translated by William Cowper (1791)
read by Anton Lesser
Naxos AudioBooks, 1995
3 CDs (abridged)

A bit too stilted and mannered for me - traditional verse translations don't work as well as prose when it comes to audiobooks, I think.

b) translated by Robert Fagles (1990)
read by Derek Jacobi
Penguin Audiobooks, 1993
6 cassettes (abridged)

A brilliantly vivid version in modern verse, read in a rather mannered way by (I, Claudius) Jacobi in every voice he can muster.

c) translated by Ian Johnston (2002)
read by Anton Lesser
Naxos AudioBooks, 2006
13 CDs (complete)

Pretty definitive, I should imagine.

2 - Homer: The Odyssey (c. 850 BC)

a) translated by William Cowper (1791)
read by Anton Lesser
Naxos AudioBooks, 1995
3 CDs (abridged)

As above about his Iliad. Cowper's Miltonic blank verse works fine on the page but not so well on the radio - Anton Lesser gives it a good go, though.

b) translated by E. V. Rieu (1945)
read by Alex Jennings
Penguin Audiobooks, 1995
6 cassettes (abridged)

Alex Jennings may be less adept as a reader than Derek Jacobi, but this is nevertheless an amazingly effective version. It quite transformed my last roadtrip around the South Island.

c) translated by Robert Fagles (1996)
read. by Ian McKellen
Penguin Audiobooks, 1996
12 cassettes (complete)

Translation great, Ian McKellen excellent, but it's surprising just how much of the poem concerns Odysseus wandering around Ithaca. Abridged versions tend to shorten all that return-of-the-native stuff considerably.

d) translated by Ian Johnston (2002)
read by Anton Lesser
Naxos AudioBooks, 2007
10 CDs (complete)

Again, pretty definitive.

3 - Virgil: The Aeneid (c. 30-19 BC)

a) translated by Robert Fitzgerald (1983)
read by Christopher Ravenscroft
Highbridge Company, 1995
8 CDs (abridged)

Ravenscroft, who used to be on Ruth Rendell's Wexford series, has a rather nasal voice, but it's fascinating to hear so much of Aeneas's adventures in Italy, normally glossed over in the selected versions. Fitzgerald's translation is fantastic - the only drawback about this version is that it is slightly abridged, otherwise I'd be to look no further.

b) translated by C. Day Lewis (1952)
read by Paul Scofield et al.
Naxos AudioBooks, 2002
4 CDs (abridged)

Partly dramatised and very selective - great for the bits it does do, though. Paul Scofield has the perfect hollow, echoing voice for the narrator of so spooky a poem.

c) translated by Robert Fagles (2006)
read by Simon Callow
Penguin Audiobooks, 2006
10 CDs (complete)

A spirited translation in a rather plummy rendition.

4 - Ovid: Metamorphoses (c. 8 AD)

[a) translated by Charles Boer (1989)
read by Noah Pikes
Spring Publications, 1994
1 cassette (abridged)]

I haven't actually heard this, but it gets a very bad review on the Amazon.com site. Boer's complete translation is great to read in book from, though.

[b)Tales from Ovid
translated & read by Ted Hughes (1995)
Penguin Audiobooks, 2000
1 CD (abridged)]

I haven't heard this, either (out of print), but Ted Hughes is usually a pretty good reader.

c) translated by Frank Justus Miller (1916)
read by Barry Kraft
Blackstone Audiobooks, 2008
12 CDs (complete)

Kraft has the most grating, mid-western voice imaginable, but at least he's audible and pretty consistent in his range of tones. That's a very important consideration when one's trying to listen to something over the roar of traffic. A very bald prose translation (from the Loeb Classics) is actually an excellent choice for reading aloud - and it is complete.

5 - Beowulf (c. 800 AD)

a) translated by Michael Alexander (1972)
read by David Rintoul (2000)
Penguin Audiobooks, 1997
2 cassettes (complete)

Excellent, informative translation in a spirited reading.

b) translated & read by Seamus Heaney (1998)
Penguin Audiobooks, 2000
3 CDs (abridged)

And yet, I have to admit, that - while he doesn't follow the strict rules of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse (unlike Michael Alexander above), there's a real difference between a poet's rendering of a great poem, and an academic's. Heaney makes a riveting story out of the ancient epic - the hype that surrounded his translation when it first came out certainly seems justified by this masterly reading.

[c) translated by Benedict Flynn (2006)
read by Crawford Logan
Naxos Audiobooks, 2006
3 CDs (complete)]

I hadn't realised that the Penguin Audiobook recording of Michael Alexander's translation is actually complete, or I don't know that I would have bothered with this one as well ...

6 - Dante: The Divine Comedy (c. 1300-1321)

a) translated by Benedict Flynn (1998)
read by Heathcote Williams
Naxos AudioBooks:

• Inferno (2004)
  4 CDs (complete)


• Purgatory (1998)
  3 CDs (complete)


• Paradise (2004)
  4 CDs (complete)

I have nothing but praise for this. I don't really like Heathcote Williams as a poet, but as a reader he's amazing. The choice of a literal prose version was also very wise - rather than mucking around with all the - essentially futile - attempts to naturalise terza rima into English. It's hard to imagine this being bettered, except (for Italian speakers) for this complete version read in the original.

7 - The Thousand and One Nights (c. 800-900 AD)

a) translated by Sir Richard F. Burton (1885)
read by Philip Madoc
Naxos AudioBooks, 1995
3 CDs (abridged)

A poor selection from Burton's immense masterwork. The reading is okay but it's hard to see the logic behind the audiobook as a whole.

b) translated by N. J. Dawood (1954-57)
read by Souad Faress & Raad Rawi
Penguin Audiobooks, 1995
4 cassettes (abridged)

A witty and musical reading -- the stories are well chosen and the whole makes good sense. More, please!

8 - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1400)

a) translated by J. R. R. Tolkien (1975)
read by Terry Jones
HarperCollins, 2007
4 CDs (complete)

A sinuous and complex set of poems, in a bluff, hearty reading by Monty Python's Jones. Again, you owe it to yourself to check this out, especially if you're unfamiliar with the originals - one of the great, thorny masterpieces of medieval poetry.

9 - Milton: Paradise Lost (1667)

a) read by Anton Lesser
Naxos AudioBooks, 2005
9 CDs (complete)

Great stuff. Lesser has a slightly whiney voice, which suits the Prince of Darkness very well. What better way to encounter the greatest epic poem in the English language? A complete Faerie Queene would be nice, too - but so far only selections are available.

New NZ Poets by Theme

[Seraphine Pick, "He"]

I like typewriters because they are always turned on.
– Will Christie

Here's a thematic breakdown of the 97 tracks in our New NZ Poets in Performance anthology (Auckland: AUP, 2008). The categories are pretty subjective, and could undoubtedly be improved on. Maybe that’s not such a bad starting point for discussion, though: what's the poem really about?

ANIMALS

Tusiata Avia: My Dog
Anna Jackson: Takahe
Anne Kennedy: Cat Tales
Thérèse Lloyd: Forecast
Chris Price: Keeping Ravens

CHILDHOOD

James Brown: The Crewe Cres Kids
Andrew Johnston: How to Talk
Jenny Powell-Chalmers: Lunchbox
Sonja Yelich: whangaparaoa – on the sundeck

ELEGY

Glenn Colquhoun: On the death of my grandmother
Andrew Johnston: The Present
Jack Ross: Except Once

FAMILY

Anna Jackson: In a Minute
Andrew Johnston: Les Baillessats
Anne Kennedy: Whenua (2)
Emma Neale: You’re Telling Me

FANTASY & IDENTITY

Nick Ascroft: All of the Other Ascrofts are Dead
James Brown: Loneliness
Anna Jackson: The hen of tiredness
Andrew Johnston: How to Walk
Kapka Kassabova: A city of pierced amphorae
Kapka Kassabova: Preparation for the big emptiness
Thérèse Lloyd: Scorpion Daughter
Emma Neale: Confessional Poem
Jenny Powell-Chalmers: Linda
John Pule: Restless People – Ka hola
John Pule: Restless People – He
Sarah Quigley: Restless
Tracey Slaughter: biography day

FRIENDSHIP

Jenny Bornholdt: Rodnie and her Bicycles
Anna Jackson: On the Road with Rose
Robert Sullivan: V Honda Waka

HISTORY & POLITICS

James Brown: Soup from a Stone
Lynda Chanwai-Earle: Gasp
David Howard: Social Studies
Mark Pirie: Making a Point
Mark Pirie: The Third Form
Robert Sullivan: Waka 70 i Matakitaki
Robert Sullivan: Waka 62 A narrator’s note

LANDSCAPE & LOCALITY

Tusiata Avia: My First Time in Samoa
Serie Barford: God is near the equator
Jenny Bornholdt: Weather
Kate Camp: Backroads
Kapka Kassabova: My life in two parts
John Newton: Lunch
John Newton: Ferret Trap
John Newton: Inland
Gregory O’Brien: Epithalamium, Wellington
Jenny Powell-Chalmers: Carnival of Chocolate
Sarah Quigley: New York Four
Richard Reeve: Ranfurly
Sonja Yelich: narrow neck from the boat ramp

LANGUAGE & WRITING

Nick Ascroft: The Badder & the Better
James Brown: The Day I Stopped Writing Poetry
John Newton: Opening the Book
Mark Pirie: Progress
Chris Price: Ghastlily
Robert Sullivan: Waka 46
Sonja Yelich: writing desk

LIFE, THE UNIVERSE & EVERYTHING

Jenny Bornholdt: Please, Pay Attention
Glenn Colquhoun: from Whakapapa
Kapka Kassabova: One morning like a sleeper
Gregory O’Brien: Numbers 1 & 2
John Pule: Restless People – Liogi
Richard Reeve: Victory Beach

LOVE

Gregory O’Brien: It will be better then
Gregory O’Brien: Solomon Singing
Gregory O’Brien: There is only one
Jack Ross: Idyll

PAIN & SUFFERING

Serie Barford: Plea to the Spanish Lady
Lynda Chanwai-Earle: Details from a Personal Journal
Glenn Colquhoun: Lost Property
Thérèse Lloyd: One Hundred Hours
Richard Reeve: Dark Unloading
Jack Ross: Disorder and Early Sorrow

PEOPLE

Nick Ascroft: Cheap Present
Jenny Bornholdt: Then Murray Came
Kate Camp: Guests
Glenn Colquhoun: She asked me if she took one pill for her heart …
Emma Neale: Spoken For
Emma Neale: Jane Coleridge
Emma Neale: Caroline Helstone
Jack Ross: A Woman Named Intrepid

RELATIONSHIPS & SEXUAL POLITICS

Tusiata Avia: Wild Dogs under my Skirt
Kate Camp: Postcard
Kate Camp: Documentaries
Kate Camp: Water of the Sweet Life
David Howard: On the Eighth Day
David Howard: Talking Sideways
Anne Kennedy: I was a feminist in the 80s
Mark Pirie: Good Looks
Chris Price: The Origins of Science
Tracey Slaughter: Anatomy of dancing with your Future Wife

SUBURBIA

Jenny Bornholdt: Bus Stop
Olivia Macassey: Outhwaite Park
Olivia Macassey: Outer Suburb
Sonja Yelich: 1YA

New NZ Poets by Region

[Seraphine Pick, "Girl (with offered eyes)"]

I want New Zealand to secede from Americanized world culture,
in the same way that these islands seceded from the ancient
supercontinent of Gondwanaland.
– Scott Hamilton

Here's my preliminary attempt at a regional breakdown of the 28 poets in the last of our three AUP anthologies: New NZ Poets in Performance (2008):

Place -- Name -- Dates

AUCKLAND

• Serie Barford (b.1960)
German-Samoan by birth; lives in West Auckland
• Anna Jackson (b.1967)
Born in Auckland, she now lives in Wellington.
• Jack Ross (b.1962)
Born and still lives in Auckland's East Coast Bays.
• Robert Sullivan (b.1967)
Nga Puhi. Educated at Auckland University, he now lives in Hawai'i.
• Sonja Yelich (b.1965)
Lives in Bayswater, Auckland.

BULGARIA

• Kapka Kassabova (b.1973)
Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, she emigrated to New Zealand in 1992.

CHRISTCHURCH & CANTERBURY

• Tusiata Avia (b.1966)
A Samoan-New Zealander, born and educated in Christchurch.
• David Howard (b.1959)
Born and brought up in Christchurch, he now lives at Purakanui, near Dunedin.
• John Newton (b.1959)
Lives and teaches in Christchurch.
• Sarah Quigley (b.1967)
Born in Christchurch, she now lives in Berlin.

COROMANDEL

• Olivia Macassey (b.1975)
Born in Coromandel, she now lives in Parnell, Auckland.
• Tracey Slaughter (b.1972)
Lives in Thames, on the west side of the Coromandel Peninsula.

DUNEDIN & CENTRAL OTAGO

• Nick Ascroft (b.1973)
Born in Oamaru, he now lives in the UK.
• Emma Neale (b.1969)
Born in Dunedin, where she lives and works.
• Jenny Powell-Chalmers (b.1960)
Born in Dunedin, where she lives and works (after a brief sojourn in Wellington).
• Richard Reeve (b. 1976)
Born and educated in Dunedin, where he still lives.

NAPIER

• Thérèse Lloyd (b.1974)
Born in Napier, she presently lives in Iowa, where she was Schaeffer fellow for 2007-8.

NORTHLAND

• Glenn Colquhoun (b.1964)
Lives in a small village, Te Tii, just north of Kerikeri.
• Gregory O’Brien (b.1961)
Born in Matamata, he worked as a journalist in Northland before moving to Wellington, where he now lives.

NIUE

• John Pule (b.1962)
Born in Niue, he came to New Zealand in 1964. Presently lives in Auckland.

WELLINGTON

• Jenny Bornholdt (b.1960)
Born and lives in Wellington.
• James Brown (b.1966)
Born in Wellington, he now lives in Island Bay.
• Kate Camp (b.1972)
Born and educated in Wellington.
• Lynda Chanwai-Earle (b.1965)
Born in London, she was brought up in New Guinea and educated in Hawkes Bay before moving to Auckland and, subsequently, Wellington.
• Andrew Johnston (b.1963)
Born in Upper Hutt, he now lives in France.
• Anne Kennedy (b.1959)
born and educated in Wellington, she now lives in Hawai'i.
• Mark Pirie (b.1974)
Born in Wellington, where he still lives.
• Chris Price (b.1962)
Born in Reading, England, she emigrated to Auckland in 1966. She now lives in Wellington.

New NZ Poets Teaching Notes

[cover image: Sara Hughes / cover design: Christine Hansen]

New NZ Poets in Performance
Edited by Jack Ross.
Poems selected by Jack Ross & Jan Kemp
(Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2008)

With the appearance of this third and final volume of our series, it seems appropriate to say a few things about the “NZ Poets in Performance” project as a whole. The trilogy of anthologies Jan Kemp and I have put out through Auckland University Press include (in all) 27 + 27 + 28 = 82 poets and 110 + 87 + 97 = 294 tracks on 6 CDs. The first poet included, A. R. D. Fairburn, was born in 1904; the latest, Richard Reeve, in 1975.

‘If it doesn’t exist on the Internet, it doesn’t exist.’ One of our recent reviewers quoted this provocative apothegm from US poet and conceptual artist Kenneth Goldsmith. I don't know if I entirely agree - books and (more to the point) live performances have a huge importance still - but we've certainly taken the dictum to heart. There's now a complete index site devoted to the Aotearoa NZ Poetry Sound Archive (2002-4) and its predecessor, the Waiata Archive (1974). This includes pages on each of our 200-odd poets, together with full bibliographical details of our three AUP publications and the original 3-LP set NZ Poets Read their Work (1974).

It's to be hoped that at some point in the future we may be able to link to a number of soundfiles from the archive itself, but for the moment (largely for copyright reasons) the only tracks available online are at our NZEPC 12 Taonga feature, and on the NZEPC's own author pages.

We've received some brickbats as well as many bouquets from our numerous reviewers. Some have taken exception to our choice of titles. Certainly, I concur that if we'd chosen to call any one of our volumes The Classic or The Contemporary or The New NZ Poets in Performance, I think it would be perfectly legitimate to interpret this as yet another exercise in building up a definitive canon of Kiwi poets. But then (of course) we didn't.

Classic, Contemporary and New NZ Poets in Performance, our actual titles, clearly imply the existence of many other "classic," "contemporary" and "new" poets whom we haven't been able to include for a variety of reasons (discussed in more detail in the books themselves). I'm not myself very interested in deciding who's in and who's out in a more loaded sense. The more the merrier is my instinct when it comes to our rich and fruitful poetry scene.

There also seems to be some dispute over the term “in performance." Personally I don’t see the presence (or absence) of a live audience as the sole criterion of performance. Do all the members of a movie's eventual audience have to be present when an actor records each take of a scene? And yet we continue to speak of Robert de Niro’s “performance” in Raging Bull or Taxi Driver. Or is it only stage actors who can be said to “perform”?

For the record, then, I'd like to state my opinion that a poet's studio recording of a poem can be every bit as much of a "performance" as the interpretation given at a live poetry reading. Our intention all along has been to include the best versions available to us of New Zealand poets reading their own work. I fail to see any ambiguity in our use of the term, but if anyone has been misled by it, I certainly apologise for the confusion.

I guess our desire all along was that the book could be used to promote awareness of NZ poetry in schools and tertiary institutions (though of course it’s been priced to appeal to individual consumers as well).

With that in mind, I’ve followed my own example with the two previous volumes by compiling a thematic breakdown of all the poems in the anthology (and it took quite a while, too, so don’t wax too sarcastic at my expense. I know that some of the categories are a bit suss):

• ANIMALS
• CHILDHOOD
• ELEGY
• FAMILY
• FANTASY & IDENTITY
• FRIENDSHIP
• HISTORY
• LANDSCAPE & LOCALITY
• LANGUAGE & WRITING
• LIFE, THE UNIVERSE & EVERYTHING
• LOVE
• PAIN & SUFFERING
• PEOPLE
• RELATIONSHIPS & SEXUAL POLITICS
• SUBURBIA

Another way of choosing a poet to talk about in your classroom (or your writing workshop, for that matter) might be through region and locality. Why not try to find a poet who comes from near where you live? Is there anything about their subject-matter, or their approach to writing, which seems to you to intersect fruitfully with the characteristics of your area?

Many of the poets in this book have associations with more than one place, but some (such as Tusiata Avia or Richard Reeve) are very strongly identified with a particular place, and constantly revisit it as subject-matter in their work.

Here are some of the places on offer:

• AUCKLAND
• BULGARIA
• CHRISTCHURCH & CANTERBURY
• COROMANDEL
• DUNEDIN & OTAGO
• NAPIER
• NORTHLAND
• NIUE
• WELLINGTON

Finally, further information may be accessed at the following websites:

• Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive: Bibliographical Aids for the Use of Those Consulting the Waiata Archive (1974) and the AoNZPSA (2002-2004) - Audio Recordings available in Special Collections, University of Auckland Library and in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.
(This is our own dedicated site, with full details of the AoNZPSA project).

• Authors. The New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre.
(A select but valuable list of major NZ poets with pictures, recordings, and critical reactions).

• Homepage. Auckland University Press.
(Details of books and other publications by a number of the authors in the anthology).

• New Zealand Literature File. University of Auckland Library Website.
(This has thorough – though not always entirely reliable – bibliographies for many major New Zealand writers).

• Twelve Taonga. The New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre.
(A brief account of the creation of the 1974 and 2004 recorded poetry archives, which were the principal source for this series of books).

• New Zealand Writers. The New Zealand Book Council Website.
(This has pictures and short biographical and critical summaries adapted from Roger Robinson & Nelson Wattie's Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998), but with updated information and supplementary entries on more recent writers).

Sound-bytes in Cyberspace

[Leonardo da Vinci, Analysis of a bird's wing
- looks a little like a digital soundfile, doesn't it?]

There's a new set of soundfiles up on the Titus Books website.

They include:

• David Lyndon Brown reading from his novel Marked Men (Titus, 2007)
• Bill Direen reading from his poetry collection New Sea Land (Titus, 2005)
• Scott Hamilton reading from his poetry collection To the Moon in Seven Easy Steps (Titus, 2007)
• Mike Johnson reading from The Vertical Harp, poems of Li He (Titus, 2007)
• Alistair Paterson launching Olivia Macassey's Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Titus, 2005)
• Olivia Macassey reading from her book during the Rakino launch (2005)
• Olwyn Stewart reading from her novella Curriculum Vitae (Titus, 2005)
• & me reading from my novel EMO (upcoming: Titus, 2008), with backing music by Padmanabha Fischlinger.

I don't know about you, but I really like the idea of checking out upcoming purchases online through sound as well as text extracts.

It makes me realise, yet again, how desirable it would be to complete my online listing of the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive (2002-4) with just such a set of soundfiles -- at least one extract from every author willing to participate in the project.

Alas, I lack the technical expertise (and, at least at present, the time) to attempt such a task, but how about it? Are there any people or institutions out there anxious to help out? Watch this space for further developments. ...

Contemporary NZ Poets by Theme

Come along with us, they say
There are one or two questions
We should like to ask you
– Bill Manhire, “The Old Man’s Example”

Here's a thematic breakdown of the 87 tracks in our Contemporary NZ Poets in Performance anthology (Auckland: AUP, 2007). The categories are pretty subjective, and could undoubtedly be improved on. Maybe that’s not such a bad starting point for discussion, though: what's the poem really about?

ADOLESCENCE & EDUCATION

Janet Charman: injection
David Eggleton: Teen Angel
Graham Lindsay: Playground

ANIMALS

Anne French: Trout
Sam Hunt: Hey, Minstrel
James Norcliffe: planchette
Peter Olds: Elephant
Bob Orr: Ballad of the Great South Rd

ELEGY

Murray Edmond: Voyager
Anne French: Uncle Ron’s last surprise
Roma Potiki: For Paiki
Ian Wedde: Earthly – Sonnets for Carlos 35

FLATTING

Geoff Cochrane: 1988
Peter Olds: Waking up in Phillip Street
Bob Orr: The X

FOOD

Paula Green: greek salad
Paula Green: oven baked salmon

FRIENDSHIP

Bernadette Hall: Amica
Sam Hunt: Rainbows and a Promise of Snow

HISTORY

Alan Brunton: from Waves
Geoff Cochrane: Atlantis
Bernadette Hall: Famine
Bill Sewell: Breaking the quiet
Bill Sewell: Jahrhundertwende
Apirana Taylor: Parihaka
Apirana Taylor: six million

LANGUAGE & WRITING

Graham Lindsay: Life in the Queen’s English
Bill Manhire: On Originality
Bill Manhire: Valedictory
Iain Sharp: Two Minute Poem
Ian Wedde: Barbary Coast

LANDSCAPE & LOCALITY

David Eggleton: Poem for the Unknown Tourist
Paula Green: Two Minutes Westward
Jan Kemp: Sailing boats
Graham Lindsay: Cloud silence
Bill Manhire: The Old Man’s Example
Bill Manhire: Visiting Mr Shackleton
Cilla McQueen: Living Here
Stephanie de Montalk: Northern Spring
James Norcliffe: at Franz Josef
Peter Olds: Doctors Rock
Bob Orr: A Country Shaped like a Butterfly’s Wing
Vivienne Plumb: The Vegan Bar and Gaming Lounge
Roma Potiki: Exploding Light
Bill Sewell: Riversdale

LIFE, THE UNIVERSE & EVERYTHING

Keri Hulme: from Fisher in an Autumn Tide
Bill Manhire: A Song about the Moon
Vivienne Plumb: The Tank
Ian Wedde: Earthly – Sonnets for Carlos 31

LOVE

Michele Leggott: cairo vessel
Jan Kemp: The sky’s enormous jug
Jan Kemp: ‘Love is a babe . . . ’

PAIN

Geoff Cochrane: Zigzags
Anne French: Acute
Roma Potiki: Riven

PARENTS & CHILDREN

Alan Brunton: The Man on Crazies Hill, 1 & 3
Janet Charman: cuckoo in the nest
Bernadette Hall: Party Tricks
Sam Hunt: My Father Scything
Sam Hunt: Plateau songs
Graham Lindsay: Chink
Bill Manhire: Miscarriage
Bob Orr: Eternity
Vivienne Plumb: A Letter from my Daughter

PEOPLE

Bernadette Hall: The Lay Sister
Stephanie de Montalk: Tree Marriage

POLITICS & POLEMICS

Fiona Farrell: Instructions for the consumption of your Humanitarian Food Package
Anne French: The new museology
Cilla McQueen: Fuse
Bill Sewell: Censorship
Apirana Taylor: Sad Joke on a Marae
Ian Wedde: Earthly – Sonnets for Carlos 32

RELATIONSHIPS & SEXUAL POLITICS

Alan Brunton: The Man on Crazies Hill, 2
Janet Charman: but she wanted one
Janet Charman: ‘they say that in paradise’
Fiona Farrell: Anne Brown’s Song
Sam Hunt: Bottle to Battle to Death
Jan Kemp: Against the softness of woman
Jan Kemp: Jousting
Bill Manhire: Domestic
Apirana Taylor: Hinemoa’s daughter

SPIRITUALITY

Paula Green: afternoon tea with Virginia Woolf
James Norcliffe: the visit of the dalai lama
Richard von Sturmer: Dreams

SUBURBIA

Janet Charman: ready steady
Geoff Cochrane: Spindrift Sunday

WORK

Janet Charman: from wake up to yourself
Iain Sharp: Amnesty Day

Contemporary NZ Poets by Region

Parts of the island are disappearing.
– Geoff Cochrane, “Atlantis”

Is it where you were born, where you were brought up, or where you live that defines you best as a person (or as a writer)? Bill Manhire was born in Invercargill, but is generally thought of as a Wellington poet; Janet Charman was born in Wellington but now lives and works in Auckland … I’ve been influenced more by where people were born than where they live now in compiling this list, but I have made some exceptions where the results seemed just too paradoxical.

So, anyway, here's my preliminary attempt at a regional breakdown of the 27 poets in our anthology, Contemporary NZ Poets in Performance (AUP, 2007):

Place -- Name -- Dates -- Pages in Contemporary NZ Poets

AUCKLAND & NORTHLAND

• Paula Green (b.1955) 115-18
educated at Auckland University, now lives on the West Coast.
• Sam Hunt (b.1946) 26-33
born in Castor Bay, but now lives north of Auckland.
• Richard von Sturmer (b.1957) 141-45
born in Devonport, lived abroad for more than a decade in the USA, and now lives in Remuera.

BLEINHELM & MARLBOROUGH

• Ian Wedde (b.1946) 46-52
born in Bleinhelm, travelled extensively as a child, but is now based in Wellington.

CHRISTCHURCH & CANTERBURY

• Alan Brunton (1946-2002) 17-25
born in Christchurch, educated in Auckland, but is most strongly associated with Island Bay in Wellington.
• Peter Olds (b.1944) 1-6
born in Christchurch, but is generally thought of as a Dunedin poet.

DUNEDIN & OTAGO

• David Eggleton (b.1952) 94-97
educated in Auckland, he is now based in Dunedin.
• Fiona Farrell (b.1947) 53-57
born in Oamaru, she is now based on Banks Peninsula.
• Bernadette Hall (b.1945) 7-11
born in Alexandra, Central Otago, she now lives in Christchurch.

GREECE

• Bill Sewell (1951-2003) 88-93
born in Athens, and brought up in parts of Southern Europe, he studied at Auckland, taught German in Dunedin, but then moved to Wellington.

GREYMOUTH & THE WEST COAST

• Keri Hulme (b.1947) 58-62
born in Christchurch, but is now based on the West Coast, at Okarito.
• James Norcliffe (b.1946) 42-45
born in Greymouth, but lives in Christchurch.

HAMILTON & WAIKATO

• Murray Edmond (b.1949) 63-68
born in Hamilton, now lives and works in Auckland.
• Jan Kemp (b.1949) 69-73
born in Hamilton, now lives between Torbay, on Auckland’s North Shore, and Frankfurt, Germany.
• Bob Orr (b.1949) 79-83
born on a farm in the Waikato, lives now in Auckland’s Point Chevalier.

INVERCARGILL & SOUTHLAND

• Bill Manhire (b.1946) 34-41
born in Invercargill, now lives and works in Wellington.

TARANAKI

• Michele Leggott (b.1956) 134-40
born in Stratford, she now lives in Devonport on Auckland’s North Shore.

UK

• Cilla McQueen (b.1949) 74-78
born in Birmingham, she now lives in Bluff, after many years living and working in Dunedin.
• Iain Sharp (b.1953) 104-07
born in Scotland, he now lives and works in Auckland.

WELLINGTON & THE HUTT VALLEY

• Janet Charman (b.1954) 108-14
born in the Hutt Valley, she now lives in Avondale, West Auckland.
• Geoff Cochrane (b.1951) 84-87
lives in Wellington’s Island Bay.
• Anne French (b.1956) 128-33
worked for many years in Auckland, but is now based in Wellington, where she grew up.
• Graham Lindsay (b.1952) 98-103
born in Wellington, he lived for many years in Dunedin, then Christchurch, and is now living in the UK.
• Stephanie de Montalk (b.1945) 12-16
based in Wellington.
• Vivienne Plumb (b.1955) 119-22
based in Wellington.
• Roma Potiki (b.1958)146-50
lives on the Kapiti Coast, outside Wellington.
• Apirana Taylor (b.1955) 123-27
lives on the Kapiti Coast outside Wellington.

Contemporary NZ Poets Teaching Notes

[cover image: Richard Killeen / Cover design: Christine Hansen]

Contemporary NZ Poets in Performance
Edited by Jack Ross & Jan Kemp
(Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2007)

So it appears that I'm down to give a public lecture (in the "Chancellor's Series," no less, alongside the likes of Nicky Hager and Cindy Kiro), on the subject of this series of anthologies: NZ Poets in Performance.

It's at 12 noon on Wednesday, August 1st, in the Study Centre Staff Lounge of Massey University, Albany. If you happen to be passing. Free entry -- free tea and coffee, too ...

That got me to thinking about the bunch of teaching notes I put up on this blog when AUP published Classic NZ Poets in Performance last year. I hope they’ve been handy to someone, at least. I haven't heard much about them either way. In any case, I thought I might continue the tradition and do the same thing for this sequel, Contemporary NZ Poets in Performance.

I guess the philosophy behind our selection of poems all along was to choose those which didn't require a great deal of background knowledge to like. We’ve tried to choose poems about very concrete, accessible topics, by poets who are used to reaching out to a general audience. That’s not to say that there aren’t subtleties and complexities in all three books (these two and the projected New NZ Poets, scheduled for publication next year), but the idea was never to compile an anthology purely for poetry-lovers -- though of course we hope they’re being catered for as well.

The plan, at least, was to try to put in something for everyone in the books, as I’ve attempted to demonstrate in the breakdown of poems by theme which follows this entry.

Once again, I know that some of the poems could be listed under more than one heading, but all I’m doing here is indicating what I think is the predominant subject-matter or thematic direction in each. If you don’t agree, that might be a good starting-point for discussion:

• ADOLESCENCE & EDUCATION
• ANIMALS
• ELEGY
• FLATTING
• FOOD
• FRIENDSHIP
• HISTORY
• LANDSCAPE & LOCALITY
• LANGUAGE & WRITING
• LIFE, THE UNIVERSE & EVERYTHING
• LOVE
• PAIN
• PARENTS & CHILDREN
• PEOPLE
• POLITICS & POLEMICS
• RELATIONSHIPS & SEXUAL POLITICS
• SPIRITUALITY
• SUBURBIA
• WORK

As with the Classic NZ Poets, our new book is arranged in chronological order of birthdates, beginning with Peter Olds in 1944 and ending with Roma Potiki in 1958. The preface to the book explains that:

This second volume, Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance, is our overview of the poetic generation which came to maturity in the 1960s and 1970s, that turbulent era of social, sexual, musical and artistic experimentation.

(Some might call them the baby-boomers, though I doubt it’s a term which appeals much to the people in question. )

Many of the poets in the book have associations with many different parts of New Zealand; others (such as Bob Orr or Keri Hulme) are very strongly identified with a particular region, and constantly revisit it as subject-matter in their work.

Here are some of the places on offer:

• AUCKLAND & NORTHLAND
• BLEINHELM & MARLBOROUGH
• CHRISTCHURCH & CANTERBURY
• DUNEDIN & OTAGO
• GREECE
• GREYMOUTH & THE WEST COAST
• HAMILTON & WAIKATO
• INVERCARGILL & SOUTHLAND
• TARANAKI
• UK
• WELLINGTON & THE HUTT VALLEY

Further information may be accessed at the following websites:

• Authors. The New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre.
(A select but valuable list of major NZ poets with pictures, recordings, and critical reactions).

• Homepage. Auckland University Press.
(Details of books and other publications by a number of the authors in the anthology).

• New Zealand Literature File. University of Auckland Library Website.
(This has thorough – though not always entirely reliable – bibliographies for many major New Zealand writers).

• Twelve Taonga. The New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre.
(A brief account of the creation of the 1974 and 2004 recorded poetry archives, which were the main source for this sereis of books).

• New Zealand Writers. The New Zealand Book Council Website.
(This has pictures and short biographical and critical summaries adapted from Roger Robinson & Nelson Wattie's Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998), but with updated information and supplementary entries on more recent writers).

Montana Poetry Day (July 27)

Poetry Central
Montana Poetry Day

Friday 27 July, 6 pm

Auckland City Libraries
nzepc
& Auckland University Press

Present

The dual-launch of
Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance
edited by Jack Ross & Jan Kemp

The Pop-up Book of Invasions
by Fiona Farrell

& the nzepc 6th birthday celebrations

MC: Iain Sharp

Readings by Fiona Farrell, Jan Kemp, Michele Leggott, Jack Ross, Bob Orr, Janet Charman, Martin Edmond and others

+ the announcement of the winner of the

Great New Zealand Digipoem competition !

Be there for a good time ... Drinks and snacks will also be served.

Traffic

We all know Auckland traffic is appalling -- and it's getting worse. One of the main reasons for living and working on the Shore (at Massey Albany), in fact, is avoiding this sort of thing: the grind across the bridge. Or at any rate having the opportunity to choose one's moment to take the plunge.

So what do you when you do get stuck in traffic, creeping along behind some bozo whose idea of fun is stopping twenty or so yards behind the car in front and then gradually drifting up on them, leaving you unable even to stop and cogitate in peace?

I guess I tend to wish I was somewhere else -- either snouting around some musty time-soaked secondhand bookshop, or lying supine on a sun-baked beach (Mairangi Bay, for instance ...)



So the question is, how do you get from one to the other: traffic-jam to state of inner peace? Well, the obvious solution is to listen to the radio, but there's only a limited number of times you can hear John Tesh dispensing "wisdom for your life" without wanting to strangle the smug bastard, or to those announcers on the Concert Programme who go on and on about every detail of the composer's life before they actually allow you to listen to any music.

Bringing along your own tapes or CDs, and listening to those, is probably the best idea -- if you're organised to remember to keep the supplies stocked up. But here's my own original extra suggestion for mellow, tension-free motoring ...

[I should probably add at this point that everyone to whom I've so far mentioned this solution has reacted to it a bit like Jim Jones's congregation when they got their first big satisfying slug of Kool-aid ... but you never know, you guys might be an exception. It works okay for me, at any rate ...]

What I do is listen to poetry in the car.

"Gaaah!" I hear you cry. "No, no, have mercy -- anything but that."

But wait a second. Jan Kemp and I have spent an awful amount of time over the past few years collecting soundfiles of NZ poets reading their own work (most of which now reside in the vaults of Auckland University Library and the Turnbull in Wellington). We even put out a text/ sound anthology of Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance through Auckland University Press last year (and very successful it's been, thank you very much).



But when can you actually find time to put a bunch of poets on the CD-player during an average day? I mean really, not just that one dutiful listen you give it before packing it away on a shelf forever .... In my case the answer is: in the car.

Not just our anthology, of course (though I've listened to that an immense number of times -- not to mention its sequel, Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance, covering the baby-boomer poets, roughly from Sam Hunt to Michele Leggott, and due out later this year).



I guess my particular favourites for traffic jams or long drives in the country are very long epic poems: The Odyssey, The Iliad, The Aeneid. I have a number of versions of each, and it's agreat way of comparing the different translations.

Too intellectual? Too pretentious. Well, as the immortal Blackadder once put it, there's nothing intellectual about wandering around Italy in a nightshirt trying to get laid. That's pretty much the essence of most of these epics -- sex, sadism, family feuds, and lots of drinking. Life, as Homer sees it, is a grim struggle punctuated with moments of brightness, and it doesn't seem to make much difference whether you're a mortal or a god.

I like listening to other poets too, the Moderns: Ginsberg is great to crank up loud when you're cruising round campus trying to disillusion people with the life of the mind: "Moloch! Moloch!" Auden has a kind of dry charm. I like the mellifluous blarney of Irishmen such as Paul Muldoon or Seamus Heaney. And it's not long before you find yourself getting to know their poems far better than you ever did when they just sat in front of you on a page.

It's depressing to think that I can still sing the jingles of most of the TV ads which were on when I was a kid ("We are the boys from down on the farm / We really know our cheese ..." "They're going to think you're fine / 'Coz you got Lifebuoy ..." "Kiss me Cutex / Kiss me quick ..."). Wouldn't you rather din into your head the immortal cadences of Homer or Beowulf, or find yourself intoning "April is the cruellest month / Mixing memory with desire ..." instead? Okay, maybe not -- but it's got to be better than bitching about the traffic or (worse) listening to talkback.

[Editor's note (May, 2008): And here's the cover of the latest in our series, New New Zealand Poets in Performance, due out from AUP on Poetry Day (July 18) this year]: