Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Roundup of Recent Events


[Gabriel White: The World Blank]

I'm afraid this post is a bit of a grab-bag of unrelated matters. Still, no harm in that, I suppose.

First of all, I want to urge all of you who are loose in Central Auckland any time in the next couple of weeks to check out Gabriel White's retrospective show "The World Blank" at The Film Archive Level 1 / 300 Karangahape Rd (Just above Artspace on the right side of the road heading towards Queen Street). It runs till the 28th of April, so you should have plenty of time.

I was at the opening on Tuesday last week, and heard Gabriel read out the commentary track to his early piece Airpoints, filmed in Melbourne in (I think) 2001. The text is available for free, and is well worth having.

The other works, all in the video-diary form which Gabriel's been experimenting with for the past seven or eight years, include Journey to the West, El Arbol del Tule, Tongdo Fantasia and Aucklantis. All of these are on sale for very reasonable prices (ranging from $15 to $35). I took the opportunity to complete my collection of Gabrieliana to date.

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Secondly, here are some upcoming readings I'm booked in for in case anyone's curious to check them out:


Guest Reader (with Richard Wasley) at
St. Leonard's Church
Matakana Valley Rd

Friday, 1st May
Start 7.30


One of 10 Readers at the launch of
Our Own Kind: 100 New Zealand Poems about Animals
ed. Siobhan Harvey (Random House)
Artis Gallery
Parnell

Thursday, 7th May
5.30 - 7.30 pm


One of 8 readers at
LOUNGE #8
Old Government House
Auckland University

Wednesday, 27th May
5.30-7.00 pm



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Finally, kudos to Scott Hamilton for knowing a rockstar when he sees one. In one of his most recent posts on Reading the Maps, he listed The Imaginary Museum as #5 in his top ten indie blogs:

... when the poets, short story writers, novelists, and essayists of twenty-first century New Zealand sit down at their desks and put pen to paper or finger to keyboard, who are they writing to? Who, I mean, is their ideal reader - the person who knows what they're getting at, wants them to get there, but won't tolerate any easy shortcuts or self-indulgent detours? I suspect I'm not the only Kiwi scribbler who would name Jack Ross as my ideal reader, and the assured, intelligent exercises in literary criticism on this blog will show you why.

Pretty good, eh? If you go to the comments after the post, you'll find me writing something almost equally fulsome about Scott's blog. There's a man with a lot of time on his hands who actually manages to spend it usefully by combing the net for bloody interesting stuff which I for one would never find out about otherwise ...

Of course, nobody's infallible.

Not that Jack's perfect - in his latest post he neglects to mention that he acquired his cat 'Zero' from me, and that shortly after doing so disposed of the perfectly good name I had given the creature.

"The creature," indeed! I ask you, does that cat look discontented to you? She loves her name, takes a fierce pride in it, actually. Trying calling her "Nui" and you'll find a set of razor-sharp claws flying in your direction ...

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Summer Poetry in Grey Lynn




If you're not doing anything else on Thursday 19th February, you might consider coming along to a poetry reading at the Grey Lynn library. Here's what's up about it on the Auckland Library Website:

Join us for a summer evening of poetry readings.

Thursday 19 February 2009
7.00pm - 8.30pm
Grey Lynn Library

Free event.
Light refreshments will be available after the readings.
For more information, phone (09) 374 1314.

Revive your personal relationship with poetry by coming along to hear four established, local poets at the forefront of what is happening in New Zealand poetry, reading their own original works as well as their favourite works ...

Short biographies of the featured poets (in alphabetical order):

Thérèse Lloyd

Thérèse completed her MA in Creative Writing at Victoria University in 2006. She was awarded the Schaeffer Fellowship to attend the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2007-2008. Her work has appeared in Sport, Landfall and in the anthology New NZ Poets in Performance.

Lee Posna
Lee grew up in New Jersey. He completed an MFA in Creative Writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2008. He has since immigrated to New Zealand to be with his partner Therese and is now working at Grey Lynn Library. His favourite poets include Wallace Stevens, John Ashbery, and Robert Duncan.

Jack Ross
Jack’s latest novel EMO (Titus Books, 2008) completes the trilogy started in 2000 with Nights with Giordano Bruno. Together with Jan Kemp he edited the series Classic, Contemporary and New NZ Poets in Performance (AUP, 2006-8). He teaches English and Creative Writing at Massey University’s Albany campus.

Michael Steven
Michael runs Soapbox Press and has published chapbooks by Martin Edmond, Jack Ross, and Mark Young. He is poet first, publisher second. His favourite poets include George Oppen and Robert Creeley.

[Grey Lynn Library]

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And while we're on the subject of poetry & poetry-related activity, you might also be interested to see the new travelling exhibition of Len Castle ceramics: Mountain to the Sea, curated by Tanya Wilkinson, which has just reached Lopdell House in Titirangi.

The catalogue contains a number of specially commissioned poems inspired by particular Len Castle works. The poets in question are:

Riemke Ensing
Paula Green
Michael Harlow
David Howard
Jan Kemp
Thérèse Lloyd
Olivia Macassey
Cilla McQueen
Richard Reeve
Jack Ross


Yes, yours truly again!

There'll be an opening on Thursday 12th February. Riemke and I have been asked to read some poems at the supper afterwards. You can find more details on the Lopdell House Website.

Curious to see my poem? All I can say is that it was inspired by the piece in the picture above and is entitled (somewhat predictably?) "Volcanic Glass":


That line on your thumb
white/ red
exuding blood

like David Hawkes’
obsidian
at school

clean lines of break
the signs of
manufacture

evident
immaculate
anti-

evolutionary
artefact
ruling out

an intervention
cutting
the subject

short


[Len Castle. Mountain to the Sea: Ceramics / Poetry / Photographs.
Ed. Tanya Wilkinson. Introduction by Peter Simpson.
ISBN 978-0-473-13835-6.
Napier: Hawke’s Bay Museum and Art Gallery, 2008. 33.]