The Kindness of Reviewers

The latest brief (#36 - The NZ Music Issue (2008): 111-13) includes what seems to me a fantastically generous review of my poetry chapbook Papyri from renowned poet, classical scholar and verse translator Ted Jenner. I guess I was a little afraid what he might say, since he knows Greek and I don't. Also because John Denny's Puriri Press published some of Ted's own Sappho versions in a beautiful little book called Sappho Triptych late last year.

Certainly he finds some things to criticise. Who wouldn't? But the overwhelming impression is of someone who's really taken the trouble to think through the various choices and decisions that go into making a book of poems, however slight the end result may seem. It's clearly a process Ted's familiar with, and he's interested in debating the pros and cons for interested readers.

You can check out some of the main points of his review here. It got me to thinking, though, about my various experiences with reviews and reviewers in the past.

Basically, while I've had a few stinging notices in my time, the really important point is that virtually every time I've put out a book, I've received at least one fascinating, complex, and thorough review from someone who's really devoted a good deal of time and energy to trying to understand what I'm up to.

And I really appreciate it. It's far more than one dares to expect - even once - and to have been so lucky repeatedly argues for a lot more generosity and selflessness out there in the literary world than we're accustomed to expect. Once before on this blog I had occasion to remonstrate with a reviewer (of an anthology which I'd appeared in, not edited), and that gave rise to quite an interesting conversation between the two of us. Generally speaking, though, I tend to think that it's a mistake to react too publicly to notices: good, bad or indifferent. It tends to amuse onlookers far more than it benefits oneself.

I feel I should make an exception for those thorough, generous and scholarly reviewers I've mentioned above, though - so here's (unfortunately very truncated) honour roll of particularly shining examples:

• City of Strange Brunettes (Auckland: Pohutukawa Press, 1998):

John O’Connor, “Pound’s Fascist Cantos, by Jack Ross, Perdrix Press & City of Strange Brunettes, by Jack Ross, Pohutukawa Press.” JAAM 12 (1999): 126-28:

… Ross’s versions are alive with Pound’s energy and convictions; they spark and jar ...

• Nights with Giordano Bruno (Wellington: Bumper Books, 2000):

Richard Taylor, “Review of Nights with Giordano Bruno.” brief 19 (2001): 14-17:

… transpierced throughout with sex, suffering, and a burning joy and queerness.

• Chantal’s Book (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002):

Olivia Macassey, “Jack’s Book.” brief 27 (2003): 101-2:

He skilfully – and with almost an appearance of accident – lays bare the twitching nerves of the genre.

Tracey Slaughter, “Points on a graph of Chantal.” Poetry NZ 26 (2003): 100-07:

… diagrams of dead sciences encrust the page with the algebraic mystery of cells …

• Monkey Miss Her Now (Auckland: Danger Publishing, 2004):

Scott Hamilton, “After the Golden Weather: Jack Ross and the New New Zealand.” brief 32 (2005) 115-19:

As postmodern as it is parochial, Monkey Miss Her Now drags a venerable tradition into the strange new worlds of twenty-first century New Zealand.

• [editor] Kendrick Smithyman. Campana to Montale: Versions from Italian (Auckland: The Writers Group, 2004):

Paula Green, “Review of Kendrick Smithyman, Campana to Montale: Versions from Italian.” brief 32 (2005) 108-12:

Smithyman’s versions represent a tender conversation with the Italian poems …

• Trouble in Mind (Auckland: Titus Books, 2005):

Katherine Liddy, “Something Strange: Reviews of Coma by William Direen, Trouble in Mind by Jack Ross & Curriculum Vitae by Olwyn Stewart.” Landfall 212 (November 2006):

Underneath the eye of the sun, in the murky territory between Life and Death, the story unfolds like a papyrus emitting the spores of an ancient curse.

• The Imaginary Museum of Atlantis (Auckland: Titus Books, 2006):

Gabriel White, “Planet Atlantis – The Imaginary Museum of Atlantis: A Novel by Jack Ross.” [24/11/06]:

The Da Vinci Code gets geometric cum stain on it.

• [editor, with Jan Kemp] Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance (Auckland: AUP, 2006):

Peter Wells, “In Praise of the Poetic Voice.” Weekend Herald: Canvas (July 15, 2006) 31:

The book, and the CDs, are taonga. The result of a mission by poets Jan Kemp and Jack Ross, they reproduce the poetic voices of our past. …
But what is the bigger story of this collection? It is a treasure of voice and poem. I am hoping it is the beginning of a longer series. Every school should have one. There is much to ponder on, to celebrate here. And people searching for poems for significant occasions could do well to buy this book. It is of our people.

• [co-editor, with Jan Kemp] Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance (Auckland: AUP, 2007):

Graham Brazier, “Ferries at the bottom of my garden.” Weekend Herald: Canvas (11 August 2007) 29:

I will, in my twilight years, press the leaves of the puka puka tree (book) until dried to a parchment and write what I hope may be a slight but heartfelt tribute to what appears in this collection.

• [editor, with Jan Kemp] New New Zealand Poets in Performance (Auckland: AUP, 2008):

Pat White, “A Delight for Poetry Lovers: Review of New New Zealand Poets in Performance.” Wairarapa Times (20/8/08): 15:

Without a doubt the monumental task Kemp and Ross set themselves must have grown to something more than they imagined possible. Now however, the results speak for themselves ... As editors Kemp and Ross deserve the nation's thanks for a task completed well.

• To Terezín (Auckland: Massey, 2007):

Scott Hamilton. “To Terezin and Back.” Reading the Maps (June 14, 2007):

"I think you may look back on it in twenty years and not feel dissatisfied with it."

Jennifer Little, “Visit to Czech Nazi Camp inspires Massey Author.” Massey News 9 (16 Hongongoi, July 2007) 9:

To Terezín is an entrancing model of how travel writing can encompass a range of genres – essay, verse, images – as well as wider themes of ethics, philosophy, literature, art and history ...

• E M O (Auckland: Titus, 2008):

Jen Crawford, “Launch Speech: E M O, by Jack Ross.” Titus Books launch, Alleluya Café, St. Kevin’s Arcade, K Rd, Auckland (19/6/08):

EMO reminds us – shocks us – into a new consciousness that we are not without means, not without tools, not without a language for understanding and engaging with the full substance of our world, if we choose to acknowledge it. Because we have our stories, and our stories are talking to us.

So is this long list designed purely as a device for skiting about how many good reviews I've got from my friends? Partly, I suppose. I mean, wouldn't you feel a bit proud - both of the reviews and the friends?

But that's not entirely it. Some of these writers I've never even met. Mainly it's meant as a heartfelt thank-you to a group of people who took the - not inconsiderable at times - trouble to try and work out what an almost wilfully obscure-looking text was trying to tell them. Above all, to encourage them to keep up the good work.

They certainly serve as an inspiration to me to go the extra mile when I'm given someone's work to review. I only hope that I sometimes live up to their example.

Hooning around Hawke's Bay

[I do have a bunch of photos I took of our little jaunt, but I must be one of the very few people still using an old-fashioned film camera, so you'll have to wait till I get the roll developed -- in the meantime, these black and white programme notes for the reading on Saturday night will have to do.]

The real unsung heroes of the whole affair, I reckon, were Tim Page and Mark Fryer, who did all the actual driving. Most of us travelled down in an (alleged) eleven-seater minibus, which actually had a bit of trouble accommodating nine + assorted baggage (including tripods, cameras, sound equipment etc.)

Then on the way back up to Auckland there was Michele's new staff to fit in behind the two front seats. It looks exactly like a pool cue. In fact it is (originally, at any rate) a pool cue. It's a lovely sky-blue, with some paua and silver at the top, and lots of white tracery of Michele-oriented imagery around the shaft.

Jacob Scott is a very contemporary artist, despite operating in such a traditional context. His murals in the marae wharekai were breathtaking visions of life in the Hawke's Bay over the past century or so. His previous laureate staffs have included (we were told) a hockey stick for Brian Turner, and a dipstick for measuring the level of winecasks for Hone. The pool cue fitted like a glove, in other words.

The Matua staff, which will now be housed in the National Library, has a firestick motif. In fact it is a firestick, though I'd hate to have to use it to produce a spark. It does, nevertheless, screw apart and could be used to provide friction if necessary. It'll be doing a bit of snuggling up to each new laureate staff in turn, apparently.

There were many highlights. Michele's moving speech after the long powhiri of welcome, where she told the assembled company how obnoxious we'd been on the drive down, and how she was going to be keeping us in line with her new stick on the way back. Not me, mind you. I was very good. I can't say the same for any of the others.

Then there was the evening reading in the massive Hawke's Bay Opera House. When I heard we were going to be in a side-room rather than the main auditorium, I had in mind something like a dusty old office in the Memorial Settlers' Hall. It was a massive ballroom! Full of tables! When we first saw it at the rehearsal on Friday night, we thought it must still be set up for a mega-wedding reception. Not so. It was set up for us. 180 people seated around huge banqueting tables.

What an audience! They laughed, they cried -- they came up and asked for autographs ... One of the real masterstrokes was the idea of asking some local secondary school students, winners of a poetry competition to read with us. I have to say that there are going to be some broken hearts when that quartet move away to the big city. And their poetry was pretty good, too.

Sorry, that sounds sarky. But the thing is, you don't really expect that much on these occasions. Just a polite clap for some piece of doggerel. But these were real poems -- by accomplished young writers. More amazingly still, they all stood up, read two poems, and sat down. That's the only reason the evening finished more or less on time. The rest of us were far less disciplined. No, they really blew me away. Come up and study writing at Massey Albany, guys -- don't let those people at Vic lure you away.



The discussion of Michele's winged words got so extravagant (and non-specific) at times, that I suspect she wondered if anyone present had ever actually read any of her books. We were able to reassure her that everybody on Matahiwi marae -- where we stayed for two nights -- was speaking from knowledge.

On the night we arrived Murray Edmond spoke for us, and his speech included a reading of a recent poem of Michele's. I guess I'm giving the game away a bit, but he prefaced it by saying that not only was it a wonderful poem (it was), but that Michele was pretty wonderful too ("though I'd never admit it to her face"). Sorry, Murray, I've blown your cover. And, yes, you're right -- Michele is pretty wonderful.

When we left we presented our hosts - now friends - at the marae with a kete of books, our books, to stay behind and be used there. I don't think any of us had anticipated that parting would be so emotional. They really took us to their hearts, and I thank them again from the bottom of mine.

Oh, and last but not least, Pipi Cafe, Havelock North, deserves all the puffs it can get for feeding a bunch of hungry poets for free, on the most sumptuous pizzas I've tasted for many a long day. Their "poesy" bread, with a little poetry postcard tucked into each packet, is well worth checking out. We were late, too, and had to take off in a hurry, so I think it's a tribute to their efficiency as well as their kindness that everyone was fed in time ...

I could go on -- the visit to Jacob's house, the swim in the lagoon, the photo-stop by Pania of the Reed, filming Rowley Habib -- but maybe that's enough for now. The people of the Hawke's Bay certainly made a bunch of Aucklanders feel more than welcome last weekend.

When's the next roadtrip?

I say Te Mata

Yes, it's that time again! Poetry junkets are in the air. Here's the nzepc crew setting off for Stewart Island in Easter 2006. This year Michele Leggott, our new Poet Laureate, is taking a busload of poets down to Hawke's Bay for a powhiri and presentation of her Tokotoko carved poet's staff at Matawihi marae. This will be followed by a reading at the Hawke's Bay Opera House on Saturday night (23rd February: 8 pm. If that information makes you feel curious, then you should definitely come along).

I must confess that it's the roadtrip aspect that appeals to me most. After all, term starts on Monday, and there won't be any more fun after that till Easter at the earliest. The readings should be good, though (even if that Stewart Island crowd pictured below looks a little restive -- they don't know that they're about to experience the epic intensities of my "Zen and the Art of America's Next Top Model" poem).



So here's the (planned) list of readers on Saturday night (everyone's promised to keep to five minutes each, so it'll be short, sharp and very disciplined):

MCs: John Buck & Penny Carnaby

1. Elizabeth Smither
2. Rowley Habib
3. Nic Harry
4. Jessie Macnell
5. Paula Green
6. Jack Ross
7. Keith Thorsen

- break-

8. Selina Tusitala Marsh
9. Brian Flaherty
10. Sue Mun Huang
11. Sonya Clark
12. Helen Sword
13. Murray Edmond
14. Michele Leggott

And as for that "Te Mata" pun ... I guess the idea is that this is a kind of changing of the guard between the five Te Mata Vineyard Poet Laureates and the new National Library-funded Laureates. The same kind of thing happened in America, as I understand it, when the rather unglamorously-labelled "Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress" became the "Poet Laureate of the United States." I think we can all drink to that -- in Te Mata sauvignon blanc, preferably.

To Terezin

Well, thanks again to everyone who managed to come along to the booklaunch on Wednesday - to Scott Hamilton for launching the book with such panache and style (check out his launch speech here); to Peter Lineham for MC'ing, to Leanne Menzies for the superb catering, to Leonie at Bennetts Books for agreeing to host the event in the first place, to Julee Browning for being such a good sport when the printers didn't get her book there in time (so we were confined to taking orders on slips of paper ...), to my parents for coming along and buying a copy, to the brief crew for same, and - above all - to the lovely Bronwyn for being so supportive throughout.

If you'd really like to do me a favour (for whatever reason), it would be absolutely super if we could get a few more orders for the book. It'll cost around $20 in the shops, but you can still obtain it for the bargain price of $15 (+ $2 postage and packing) from Leanne Menzies at the School of Social & Cultural Studies. not a bad price for a slim (90-page) volume of verse with colour pictures and an afterword by Martin Edmond, I reckon ...

Launch Invitation!

You are all most cordially invited to a booklaunch, on

WEDNESDAY 13TH JUNE
4.15 pm
Bennetts Book Shop
Massey Albany

(Come off the northern motorway at the Albany turnoff, heading straight up the hill towards the main Massey campus, then drive in through Entrance One. Extensive parking is available. Bennetts bookshop is at the front of the large building to the left of this one, up a sweeping set of stone stairs.)

The two books being launched are new titles in the Massey Social and Cultural Studies monograph series:

#7 - Blood Ties with Strangers: Navigating the Course of Adoption Reunion over the Long Term
by Julee Browning

Drawing on in-depth interviews, this study expands on previous research to suggest that, both emotionally and practically, reunited relationships have no predictable pathways.

&

#8 - To Terezín
by Jack Ross

An account, in poetry and prose, of a visit to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in the Czech Republic, with an afterword by Montana-award-winning author Martin Edmond.

The books can either be bought either at the launch, or else ordered from the School of Social and Cultural Studies. Copies of Julee's book are $12 each; copies of mine are $15 each (+ $2 postage and packing).

Order enquiries to Leanne Menzies
L.Menzies@massey.ac.nz
Ph: (09) 441-8163
Fax: (09) 441-8162

Dr Graeme Macrae will launch Julee's book, and maverick poet and unrepentant Leftie Scott Hamilton has agreed to launch mine. Thanks again, guys!

You really owe it to yourself to check out this fascinating event. (Drinks and nibbles will be provided courtesy of the School of Social and Cultural Studies.)

Here are two sample poems from my book:

The Resistance


The trouble started
early in my stay
What would you like to see

in Prague?
The castle
The Charles bridge

the Jewish quarter
Theresienstadt
(Terezín

in Czech)
Why would you want
to go there?

I tried some explanations
heard so much about it
seen the films

read books
some friends had
mentioned it

before I left


*


Voyeur


Why would you want
to go there?
I think

sometimes
you’ve got to see
the nightmare

for yourself


If the survivors
told me
not to go

I’d stay away

Messenger from Depth

While I was travelling around Asia in 2001-2002, I wrote some poems in Hong Kong, some more in Thailand, and finally a whole bunch in India.

When I got back I vacillated for a long time over what to do with them. I kept a travel diary as well (of course), and I had a sort of idea that an edited selection from that might make quite an interesting travel narrative. I guess the idea was that I'd committed every conceivable error a naive Western tourist could compass, which might be amusing for readers to contemplate.

The travel book didn't really work, though I did produce a lengthy typescript version of it: "Too many signs," said one disinterested critic.

What did seem to work was a collection of the various sets of poems, faced with severely edited versions of certain of my diary entries. This became a book which I called Messenger from Depth (after one of the exhibits -- I think an underwater listening device -- in the Technology Museum in Bangalore). I was the messenger, back from these deep and ancient cultures ...

The book went so far as to be scheduled for publication, but then I got cold feet. I still liked the individual sets of poems, but they didn't really seem to add up to more than the sum of their parts (my own running definition of a book of poems).

As a result, I put out the Indian poems in a little chapbook entitled A Bus Called Mr Nice Guy (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2005). The Thai poems were published in Summer Book from Eye Street, an anthology edited by my friend Raewyn Alexander (Auckland: Bright Communications, 2005). There wasn't enough space to put in the diary entries there, though, and the pictures had to be in black and white. I've therefore decided to post the whole set of Thai poems here on my blog, colour pictures, embarrassing confessions and all.

See what you think. When I read them out at the farewell dinner for our little group of Intrepid Tours travellers, they certainly provoked a certain amount of response (and even a few corrections on matters of detail). Maybe they were just too drunk to be embarrassed.

Seven Levels of the Waterfall

Trekking


1. Hill Country

In the Opium Museum


2. Golden Triangle

On the Frontier


3. Air-con Bus

The Débâcle


4. Ayutthaya

To the River Kwai


5. Rafthouse

Erawan


6. Erewhon

The Massage Parlour


7. Bangkok

7 - Bangkok

Two things are degrading to a man:
Learning that is superficial,
Sexual enjoyment that is paid for
And dependence on another for food.

– The Hitopadesha

The Golden Mountain


How many kids
on that bike? Four kids
The temple stuff’s
not all that nicemillions of stairs
and bells to ring



Eurotrash

It’s really popular
Put your hand
on itswear-
words in Thaithe Nation's
stand on child sexUncool

[Summer Book from Eye Street, ed. Raewyn Alexander
(Auckland: Bright Communications, 2005) 8].

The Massage Parlour

Possibly these are rather uncharitable reflections, but the way to operate here seems to be to ask yourself, “What’s the scam?” whenever a local speaks to you, rather than “Is there a scam?” The sole exception so far is the nice lady from Phuket in the temple. She said she was on holiday.
I met what seemed to be a nice guy; he told me he wanted to practise his English, and invited me to go for a drink in the old part of town. We did. At his insistence, we had some food to go with it.
The whole thing ended up costing 470 baht – a trifle steep for two beers and some bar snacks, I thought. I had to pay, of course, as his “bankcard wouldn’t work there.”
He then persuaded me to go with him to get a massage – traditional Thai style, very good, only 500 baht. It seemed a bit much, but he was very eloquent, and so we went.
Man, it was painful! She kept poking and prodding and twisting me for what seemed like hours. What seemed like and what indeed was hours. An officious bastard came in after a while to demand 1120 baht – 500 per hour (I’d gone in at 5 p.m. and it was now 6.30) + 120 for “entertainment” (i.e. one cup of tea). I paid, with an ill grace, but it kind of negated the interest of the whole experience for me.
Sure enough, when I went out, the first guy was gone, though he’d promised to wait in order to pay me back. He seemed so nice, too. Why did he do that? Mislead me so deliberately? Now I’m left with roughly 300 baht per day for the rest of the trip ($NZ18) which will not be enough. I could strangle the little prick, with his NY Yankees cap, and his sad tales of his dead brother (killed in a motor bike accident – he was driving. That should have warned me).
I feel properly pissed off, for the first time in ages. Scamming seemed amusing at first, but it’s now become more serious. I must become far more bloody-minded if I’m to survive over here.
Time for a good old sulk/soak and a read. Relaxed? I feel about as relaxed as a tiger about to spring. I feel not in the least guilty for not having tipped the masseuse.

6 - Erewhon

At the royal gate and in a crematorium,
One who stands by others is indeed a true friend.

– The Hitopadesha

No Fear


Umbrella on a
motorbikeBuddha
above the wheel
Conveyor-belt
for flowers and offerings



‘Show a little compassion, guys …’


Blood nose mosquito
bites hip bruises
sandal sores
cyber-egg or Samurai pork
burgerFeed your head

[Summer Book from Eye Street, ed. Raewyn Alexander
(Auckland: Bright Communications, 2005) 7].

Erawan

END OF TRAIL

Seventh level of the waterfall …

The best pool was definitely number three, with a little cave behind the waterfall where one could climb in and sit, safe from the white squall outside.

•

“Thailand slut” uniform – this consists of as few clothes as possible, as tight as possible, with as much cleavage and arse showing as possible. The male equivalent is even more disturbing. It’s called showing respect for local customs.

•

Sidewalk Restaurant Menu

Steak Muu/ Steak Kai
Brawnie (served with ice-cream)

Easy.com
let’s click

Beside a teddy bear and boy on a moonbeam:

HAPPINESS IS A DREAM

FOR GET ME NOT [on the side of a blue van]

5 - Rafthouse

A king, a family woman, a Brahmin,
A minister and breasts;
When displaced from their proper positions,
Do not appear attractive.

– The Hitopadesha

Wat Tam Sua


A B DAnother Bloody
Dogthe more you wait
the worse it getsScreaming
gibbons captured
when they come to drink



Khun Phen


It’s gonna be hard
we could’ve eaten them
a horse a sword the soul
of an unborn childbats
roost inside the cave

[Summer Book from Eye Street, ed. Raewyn Alexander
(Auckland: Bright Communications, 2005) 6].

To the River Kwai

At the train station. Romance of the departing express. “The onlookers go rigid as the train goes by …” (Kafka). Copying down the sights – hawkers, stalls, our luxurious sleepers.
“Got some beers,” says Jeff as he passes on the platform, gnawing a chocolate bar.

The teletext spells out a perpetual stream of complex instructions:

20 baht charge for ordinary fan seat 50 baht for Air-Con seat or berth (seeper) tictek Allowed twice only Refund of fare Have to apply for the refund more than 3 days from the date of travel deduct 20% and not more than 1 hour from the train departure time deduct 50% …

Drunken orgy in the train. On my second Singha beer now (donated by Jeff).
Amazing misty Northern Thailand landscape streaming past.

•

At the War Grave cemetery in Kanchanaburi. Almost unbearable to read the inscriptions. So much emotion there. One in Gaelic. Some from the Bible – others little verses. Immaculately maintained.
The most interesting thing was the display of pictures of old POWs revisiting the camp. The colour prints have sun-faded to virtual invisibility, like ghost photographs. Only the oil paintings survive.

•

Our luggage was taken to the hotel by some very spirited Samlar [=rickshaw] drivers, who then bicycled us around town in a little tour.
“Otherwise the ancient art may die,” says Lien.

4 - Ayutthaya

The following should not be trusted:
Rivers, persons holding weapons,
Those with claws and horns,
Women and royal families.

– The Hitopadesha

Victory Chedi of Naresuan the Great


That fish they caught
the Mekong catfish
was half the height
of this thing …
A cat inclines one ear



The Squirrel


Put flowers in your hair
the spirit-house
has Pikachou in plastic
wrappersyellow billows
round Buddha’s behind

[Summer Book from Eye Street, ed. Raewyn Alexander
(Auckland: Bright Communications, 2005) 5].

The Débâcle

I would rather have stayed in the temple. That’s the point I need to stress. There was a moment when the chanting began, and the curtains were pulled, and the monks were sitting inside shielded against the chill of the mountain air, when I wanted to join them, put on an orange robe, give myself permission to be an ascetic, instead of this fatal inversion: mixture of boredom and concupiscence.
The guy videotaping the monk’s blessing was a good example. Whatever you think of the merits of such gestures, filming it makes it experience kept at a perpetual second-hand. The only thing the girls took seriously, I noticed, was the fortune-telling with yarrow stalks. Frighteningly so.
All of which leads me to last night. I knew the others were intending to find another bar, but I needed to collect my jacket and go to the men’s. There was a queue in there, and when I got out I stood for quite some time at the front waiting before I realised that they weren’t coming.
Going back in, I found Chris, who informed me that they’d gone “next door.” But the main bar, the riverside one which they’d been talking about, took a lot of hunting through. I should know. I ransacked the whole place twice.
After the first futile effort to find them, I set off to walk home, only to realise I wasn’t even sure which side of the river our Guesthouse was on. Or any other details about it. Like its name.
After that I went back and searched again, more desperately and assiduously. No-one. I finally remembered that it was near a McDonald’s and a Starbucks, as Jeff had been using them as landmarks.
Luckily the tuk-tuk driver knew McDonald’s, and still more luckily it was the only one around, so I did find my way back.
I felt a bit peeved with them for ditching me, but it now seems to me part and parcel of the attitude – the arm’s length approach to experience. Empathy is impossible for the voyeur, as it wipes out the element of desire. It’s therefore unnecessary to worry at all about other people’s feelings or convenience.
I guess I’d like to contrast it with the temple. The almost – just possibly – successful eclecticism of all that garish gold, and decoration, and absurdity, and silliness, and dignity. Just a pipe-dream? Who can say?
Those frescoes were the best thing of all. Damaged, but still beautiful genre scenes, life under the beneficial influence of the Buddha, in all its variety and outpouring. One must have something to rely on, after all. Scam vs. transcendent domesticity.

3 - Air-Con Bus

A woman is like a jar of ghee,
A man is like a hot charcoal.
So a wise man should not keep the two together.

– The Hitopadesha

Chris


I’ve been to America
not South America
I’ve not been to South Africa
or Africa …
Red beaded braided hair



Daniella


Show us your ring
You mean like this?
bend over
Throwing the yarrow stalks
before Guanjin

[Summer Book from Eye Street, ed. Raewyn Alexander
(Auckland: Bright Communications, 2005) 4].

On the Frontier

At the Burmese border. Half of us are paying 250 baht for the privilege of crossing. I can’t see the point myself.
For virtually the first time this trip, I feel a little hungry. I was going to have an ice-cream, but Lien persuaded me it’d be bad for my sore throat. Dunno, though.
Bugger it. Bought a chocky ice-cream.
That triggered an old lady beggar to come up and start hassling me. I didn’t give her anything, though. I don’t like being poked and prodded.
“People are extraordinarily rude today,” said Caroline earlier, after our run-in with the leathery Englishwoman + statuesque daughter who accosted us, begging for a lift to the frontier. “‘Is that a public bus? Can we go with you?’ rather than, ‘Would it possibly be conceivable for you to dream of allowing us to …?’”

Agreed to take a picture of a guy with his trophy girlfriend: young, svelte Asian girl in tight red top and black trousers; older Anglophone greyhead (50’s?) in black jeans and blue shirt. She looks peevish; he happy. One invents little scenarios in one’s head.

The monks here almost never look cheerful. They scowl or look sullen or blank – especially the ones in the slightly muddier orange robes coming over from Burma (Myanmar). A frontier is a strange place. The Zone. Like the apotheosis of tourist transience, only on a permanent basis. The DMZ.

Time for more wandering. I’m getting sunburnt, I fear. They’re playing the theme from Indiana Jones in the tuk-tuk [= cheap-cheap] taxi-rank. Some tourist behind me is recording his own quacking voice on a camcorder.

Watched a little fender-bender in the car-park. Desultory movements of the mind.

A woman comes out of a shop with a plastic chair for me to sit on. Good business, no doubt, but nevertheless exceptionally considerate of her, I thought.

Darren bargaining for a jacket.
Vendor: “300”
Darren: “100”
V: “[snort] – 280”
D [to Tracy]: “She’s not serious if she won’t come down by 50”

2 - Golden Triangle

If free scope is granted to her,
Slavery sits on the head

– The Hitopadesha

Mekong Sunset


Lines of inundation
sap the fields
dream landscape
water-towers
like Martian war-machines



Lao-Burmese Border


I was in Saigon
waiting for a mission
last seen at a toilet-stop
in Northern Thailand
bound for Vientiane

[Summer Book from Eye Street, ed. Raewyn Alexander
(Auckland: Bright Communications, 2005) 3].

In the Opium Museum

Sign in the foyer:

Drug addicts are mentally sick people. Drug addiction, then, indicates mental sickness. Curing mental sickness is the only way to help drug addicts.

The smell of opium is the least stupid smell in the world.
– Picasso to Cocteau

•

The questionnaire:

In your opinion, opium smells like:
a/ the smell of gunpowder
b/ the smell of sex[lots went for this.]
c/ factory smoke

Selected replies:

Johny Bravo:No opion [sic] sample today!
Karen, England:how can it smell of
anything that its not?

1 - Hill Country

To one whose feet are covered by shoes,
Is it not indeed
As if the entire earth were covered by leather?

– The Hitopadesha

Ban Rim Lai


Elephant-head
she must be friendly with
Meet me in Chiang Rai
tomatoespaddiesopium
marching up the sky



Chiang Rai


Dusty northern
towncrank up
the volumeDarren
If you look for long enough
the letters come in focus

[Summer Book from Eye Street, ed. Raewyn Alexander
(Auckland: Bright Communications, 2005) 2].

Trekking

There are four different species of opium poppy – white, purple, pink and red. We’re standing beside a field of them now.
“Quite beautiful,” says Caroline.
It’s so nice when you stop.
“24 hours to go,” says Jan.
“I wish I’d never come,” says Chris.

Little farming shed
ploughed fieldsgrazing horse
packs and a jacket

•

Lunchtime. My pen’s gone. Luckily I have another.
Four dogs are having it off up the hill. “Better get your little book out,” says Chris.
[5 mins later] “Jesus, those dogs are still going for it.” (Jan)
“We’re lying in the gutter, and some of us are looking at the stars – but all of us are looking at the dogs rooting.” (Caroline)

Chris and Daniella have been teaching me Australianisms:
“I’m jack of this” = sick of it.
“crack a shit” = have a tantrum.
“wallaby-tedded” = roo-ted.

•

Dinner over. Mist creeping in. Three of the cutest little black puppies imaginable are frolicking around (Rose is cuddling one of them). I’m trying Fabienne’s tried-and-true taught-to-her-by-a-Brazilian remedy for hiccups. Surprisingly, it works. For a brief time, at least. I have the devil of a headache, but the cold bath may account for that.