broadsheet new new zealand poetry

Issue No. 11, May 2013

Editor: Mark Pirie

THE NIGHT PRESS WELLINGTON

/ 1 Contents copyright 2013, in the names of the individual contributors

Published by The Night Press

Cover photo of Cameron La Follette by source unknown, reproduced with permission of Cameron

broadsheet is published twice a year in May and November

Subscriptions to:

The Editor Flat 4C/19 Cottleville Terrace Thorndon Wellington 6011 Aotearoa / New Zealand http://broadsheetnz.wordpress.com

Cost per year $12.00 for 2 issues. Cheques payable to: HeadworX

ISSN 1178-7805 (Print) ISSN 1178-7813 (Online)

Please Note: At this stage no submissions will be read. The poems included are solicited by the editor. All submissions will be returned. Thank you.

2 / Contents

PREFACE / 5

RICHARD BERENGARTEN / 6

TONY BEYER / 9

ZARAH BUTCHER-MCGUNNIGLE / 10

JOHN DENNISON / 12

MICHAEL DUFFETT / 14

O E HUGO / 16

CAMERON LA FOLLETTE / 18

LAURA MORRIS / 27

ERIHAPETI MURCHIE / 30

JOHN O’CONNOR / 32

MARK PIRIE / 34

P V REEVES / 37

ESSAY FEATURE / 39

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS / 40

/ 3 Acknowledgements

Erihapeti Murchie’s poems first appeared (from unpublished papers) in Dr Michael O’Leary’s bookWednesday’s Women (Silver Owl Press, Paekakariki, 2012). O’Leary’s book is based on his Victoria University of Wellington, N.Z., Women’s Studies Department, PhD thesis, ‘Social and Literary Constraints on Women Writers in New Zealand: 1945-1970’.

Richard Berengarten’s sonnets are from a work in progress titled Notness. This title is an anagram of the word ‘sonnets’.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the editors and publishers of the following collection and newspapers where the poems in this issue first appeared:

O E Hugo: ‘Trees’ appeared in the Otago Witness, 10 October 1889, and ‘Home of the Para Fern’ was in the Otago Witness, 24 March 1898.

Cameron La Follette: All poems are taken from Cameron’s collection Salmon Guardian (Original Books: Wellington, 2012).

4 / Preface

This issue features the poetry of the North American poet Cameron La Follette. It’s an honour to include her work in broadsheet. I first published Cameron’s poetry in an issue of Poetry Notes, the first Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa newsletter in Autumn 2010. Cameron co-founded the Classic Poetry Group in her hometown of Salem, Oregon. She had an interest in English-language classic poetry, and through her own researches discovered Australian and New Zealand poetry. She became the Australia and New Zealand editor for RPO (Representative Poetry Online), which is a project of the University of Toronto, in hopes of making the classic poetry of those two countries more available to North Americans. Both Niel Wright and I continue to help Cameron with her research in this area. Niel then started archiving Cameron’s own poetry in New Zealand in A4 hand-made books, which he deposited into the Alexander Turnbull Library at the National Library of New Zealand. The project when complete will run to 1,300 of Cameron’s poems, a unique archive for the Turnbull Library to have in Wellington. Cameron has been writing poetry since childhood, but dedicated herself to it upon returning to Oregon from New York in 2001, after sixteen years there. In New York she worked as a writer and legal researcher while studying first for her Law degree, and then for a Master’s degree in Psychology. Back in Oregon, she now works for a nonprofit organization as an environmental advocate protecting Oregon’s coast. In 2006 one book of her poetry was published by a small press in Oregon. La Follette’s poetry is lyrical, passionate, classical and traditional in approach centred around nature and wildlife themes and with classical mythology and spirituality at her core. In this mode, Cameron’s work is impressive and her overall oeuvre is building up to being quite significant. Elsewhere in this issue is new work by Richard Berengarten, the renowned UK poet, along with work by Michael Duffett, of California. It’s great to feature poets who haven’t appeared previously in broadsheet. The work of talented writers like Pearlie Reeves, the late Erihapeti Murchie, John Dennison, Laura Morris and Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle appears for the first time. As well, O E Hugo, a poet I came across quite recently in the Otago Witness newspaper from the 19th century also appears. Hugo is another of New Zealand’s long forgotten poets who rewards rediscovery.

Mark Pirie Wellington, May 2013 / 5 Richard Berengarten

S I E S T A

Where does your skin, or mine, begin or end? Stilled in the wake of storms we woke and spurred, my borders, lying next to yours, float blurred among these waves we failed to tire or spend. Through hand-clasp, elbow-crook, hip-fold, knee-bend, you wrapped me ín you as our passions stirred (and through each other’s passions, more incurred). And still our bodies merge. Our beings blend. What shall be said then (rich loss? faint tristesse?) when what we know is this calm tenderness? Now, as we sleep-wake, cool net curtains let kind breeze in from this sunny afternoon. Relishing this, we’ll shower, go out soon.

A P P R O A C H M E N O T

The cavern where the dreamer sleeps enclosed by panes of consciousness is made of stuff permeable to eternities. Enough of limitations grammars have imposed on waves of seeing, traced on haze and seeming. Approach me not. An elseness in me wakes out of this body, outside all the walls where distance and horizons shed their skin and everything and nothing tumble in, past ordering, past patterning, past scheming. The bond, appearance, stretches taut and breaks all contraries that differentiate, and I, whatever I was, cannot wait. A burned moon rises, and a black sun falls.

6 / A N O M A L O U S P H E N O M E N A

‘Anomalous phenomena’, though strained through test and rétest, aren’t attuned to give hoped-for results. Rather, being engrained fast in resistance, their prerogative appears to be to baffle, block, occlude, refuse to open intervening valves and, as it were, deliberately, exclude the curious watcher from the things themselves. But should the watcher once stop watching – and let focal points lie fallow till they blur, then things, without support, or helping hand, may of their own accord begin to stir. So could it be that things themselves have eyes enabling them to take us by surprise?

H E N C E I N T O S U C H N E S S

Adieu donc, chants de cuivre – Baudelaire

Hence into suchness – if such suchness be available for purchase, hire, rent, theft. Thrift calls, suspecting magnanimity of pouring, overbrimming, through the cleft that gives on such horizons, such broad vistas, self-loss (and even loss of self’s desire) record as flak through terminal transistors. Blue dream? White noise? Mere background hum? Pale fire? Not to be bought? Not known? Is there no rent quite high enough to pay the asking price suchness demands be dissipated – spent – on entering where this now’s non-paradise (accreting notness as our instants live), gets made, unmade, recursive, iterative?

/ 7 I N S O M N I A C P R E S E N C E

To wake up, and to be – being wide awake – are different. The first calls dawn, arising, a first sun pouring light across the lake, a light for seeing through, not analysing. Night, past and gone, a drowned wreck fast capsizing under the ghosthood of its foamless wake, gives way, itself away, all compromising, and brittle vials of dark expand and break. But I dream of a being that can’t sleep whose constant state is steadily aware of all that is and can be, anywhere. Insomniac presence, missing you, I weep, denied in thought-knots as I watch and keep calling for you, on you, who are not there.

M O O N O V E R S E A

Times when joy’s so full I feel I could burst – when in fact ‘I’ does burst: explodes in thous- ands of connecting splinters, the way those moonflecks there spill, ripple tide-wide waves. Best then never swell to encompass this beast (many-faced) identity. Rather with these phantasms, let all fail, flake, fly. Since all withers eventually, why flinch, fluster, flail, wail, boast? Catch joys rather in their moments of disappearing into únthinking, únthought, thought’s entire notness – past fellow feeling, past fearing, of falling apart, past loss, past past desire, and never mind that melting or those searing blue and yellow flames melting in black fire.

8 / Tony Beyer

D E A T H S C E N E S I N N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U R Y N O V E L S with age I’ve come to prefer them even to floggings duels and burials at sea first the long sweaty torpor the shudders and chills the family waits clutching damp handkerchiefs or gritting teeth against the bulbous handle of a cane some may weep some may turn to face the drawn curtains convinced the light will never come again a sudden irruption of vitality frequently accompanied by insight into life’s undeserved reputation for generosity or the black vacuum of despair then the seizure dark blood from the corner of the mouth eyes staring up at the ceiling as if they can just make out God

/ 9 Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle

From A U T O B I O G R A P H Y O F A M A R G U E R I T E

It is not even a story. Every day I have to cross a bridge. The patient back and forth motion. The patient back and forth. The patient’s back. The patience. Everything you’ve done so far you’ve done to care for yourself. Is this what you want to convey. “Pain is not interesting”, but it is. I could get money for this but I don’t. The disadvantages must be set against the advantages. Do you want me to be practical or honest.

......

I ask the inside and no other side. What passes me by. I can’t walk today. I make a telephone from this information and call you up. “My mother or father needed me to be happy”. No answer. For children who have difficulty bending, a long- handled reacher and sock-aid is recommended. It is like this, or it is like that. Who am I comparing for. The doll doesn’t have any hair. Sometimes it is better to have no expectations. In most the disease is progressive for life. For the time being I let the things in my hand fall to the ground.

......

10 / She is fourteen years old, still young. The first task of the immune system is distinguishing self from non-self. Why do you think your suffering is important. She is twenty-one years old, still old. What do you think of me. I am here again. I am back here and further from it. What argument can be used now. Inside my pulse I am making lanterns.

......

Does one write “Illness is a state of mind”, or “I believe illness is a state of mind”. A wheel, together with an axle, overcomes fiction. Responsibility is not the same as blame. I don’t think I make a good first impression. Show me how to look forward to things.

/ 11 John Dennison

A B R I E F H I S T O R Y O F T H E S I G N Christ Jesus is ane A per C, And peirlesse Prince of all mercy. Gude and godlie ballatis

O we amplify, admire you, most elaborate abbreviation,

here & here we dither in your twisting compact,

roundabout shortcut, my bicycle of punctuation, we trace

your winding path over & over, hands bent & doubling

to receive or pass you by, a labyrinthine prayer,

a club-footed coupling. Wee quirk of a curled mark!

Mute word holding such things together—

things visible & invisible, to love & to hold,

on heaven & on earth— O magnify:

&

Madonna and child!

12 / E R R A T A after Eileen Duggan, New Zealand Poems, 1st edn., 1940

For their death read your death; for I had always read I always; for nothing that read nothing can; for moon read mourn; for limb read lamb; for cuckoo read cockerel; for thundered read thundering; for quiet read quake; for the hills’ river read the hill’s riven; for Oh read Or; for and if atonement read and is atonement; for there read here; for as read so; for no read yes.

These, and other errors, are due to war conditions.

/ 13 Michael Duffett

A day of finding is always better than a day of losing and they occur as frequently as each other. Lost things don’t always turn up if you are constantly on the move but when you sit at home as I do now that my moving contribution has mostly been made, things always turn up so that losing is almost a pleasure, as a prelude to the inevitable finding, equal if not less pleasurable.

14 / A man without a magnifying glass Can certainly bear no blame For not concentrating the rays of the sun Nor missing in small print his name.

A man unequipped with a telescope Can see no distant star; His vision’s restricted to what is at hand And not in infinity far.

A man with no eye on a microscope Can never enter a world Where infinitesimal organisms Against each other are hurled.

So men without the corrective lens Of intellect sharp as a knife Must earn our compassion and not our ire As we cut the bread of life.

/ 15 O E Hugo

T H E H O M E O F T H E P A R A F E R N

In some lone gully, deep and dark, it grows, The treasured secret of the forest’s heart. The creek which through the mystic twilight flows Slackens its pace, unwilling to depart And high above, upon the dripping ledge, Like eyes that flash with curiosity The flaming rata flowers creep o’er the edge, Seeking to penetrate the mystery. In such a spot as this life seems a torch Swung by a madman – to perplex, distress, And not to guide the spirit near the porch Of the Nirvana, perfect selflessness. For mortals met the great Pan face to face In lonely places – through the forest’s maze.

Auckland, March 1893

16 / T R E E S

I love all trees – both those which on the plain Appear oasis-like in deserts drear, And those that seem on mountains to sustain The sinking clouds and those which by the mere Look king-like among reeds. I love the trees In summer when within their shade I rest Embowered in leafiness, through which the breeze Sounds like a voice from islands of the blest. I love the trees in winter when through sere, Late-lingering leaves, the wind sighs pensively For glories longed for eagerly as were It Orpheus, and spring Eurydice. Trees were my early friends, and may they wave Their songster-shelt’ring branches o’er my grave.

/ 17 Cameron La Follette

F O R E S T O A T H

I take the cedar oath and fir oath, I walk in the forest, I whisper them both; I take the bright-spreading oak vow, The golden oak leaves are lying on my brow.

Wide is the forest, I walk in the wind there, I learn things. Soon snow will fly on the air, I take the berry oath, it is crimson red; I take the spirit oath, white-shining round my head.

I’ve taken the river oath where waters gleam, Also the vow for walking in dream; I went to the sky but I’m not sure about birds, They have heaven oath, they don’t need my words.

Oath-heavy I am walking around, Clan oath with everyone, that’s how I’m bound; If I want to know something I cannot see, I ask the forest, I’ve taken that oath in me.

18 / N I G H T - F L O W E R W O M A N

A moon of power is glittering silver and white Night-Flower Woman raises her blossoming head, She steps down the arroyo in a ghostly shining light, She is tall and white-limbed. It is the sacred hour of the dead.

Night-Flower Woman listens to the singing of the stars, And she walks beautifully among the glistening stones; Her white flower is shining on the hidden death-scar, Strength is flowing into the animals’ bones.

Night-Flower Woman is singing a song of power, It is a beautiful song, it is a beautiful love song; Animals run across the white desert in this sacred hour, They are coming here, the power is very strong.

The moon is gleaming white and silent and bold; Everyone is blossoming sacredly in this coyote-land, Even people who are dead, and stones gray and cold. Night-Flower Woman raises her pale hand.

The song is ended. She folds her night thin-wings, She shakes the petals from her blossoming hair; Down in the arroyo the last watching coyote sings, A sacred moon-white power is always crouching there.

/ 19 A N I M A L S ’ D E S C E N T

Before men, before the moon, a long time ago There were animals living in the purple sky, They lived there, stars falling on them like snow; Their breath was moonlight, they did not die. Hunting and feasting they lived there, In painted houses where the young winds played; Winds laughed with them, and white frosty air, They swallowed sunlight and were not afraid. Hunting they came down to this dark land, It was lonely, nobody was speaking here Only the white sea, foaming on the sand. The animals drank water sweet and clear, And water sang in their throat, their mouth; They ate red berries and berries sang in their heart, From north of the stars they travelled south, Where green trees and fire songs grow apart. The animals built homes, they began to speak, Stars covered the sky and shone on their feet.

Animals live here now, around the mountain peak, Distant gold sun rises, and him the animals greet; They run in the forest, they drink the ice-blue stream, In wind and darkness they hunt and travel and call, They roam far, trees show them the way in dream; Animals come home again, and the frosted leaves fall.

20 / R I V E R O T T E R

River otter is sleeking down an icy winter stream, Silk water laughs round stones and the silver snow-dream; River god raises foam-cold hands white and gray, His brawls and caresses, he beckons otter to play.

Otter circles and dives, he sleds round the boulder stones, Glistening in snowy embrace he swims the river’s bones; Otter spirit rolls nearby, like shadow half-sunlight he shines, He somersaults in the frosted winter wines.

Otter lifts a curious and shy water-whiskered face, Otter spirit delights in him, fish leap over the silver-race; Otter spirit touches him splashing in quiet icy pools, Otter’s blood dances in the shock of river jewels.

Otter slips over brown boulders and the dark smooth rill, Sliding and ice-playing in bright flash of river will; River sweeps tumbling song gray silk bright, River god brushes frosted sky with smooth silver light.

/ 21 S A L M O N G I V E S B I R T H

Watch the waters, men, for the salmon speckled bright; She is silver and crimson, she sings of the purple sea, She is swimming strongly under the foam riffed in light. Mountain water smells of white snow, she comes swiftly, The waters tumble and pound on her thin breath, Seek the shallows for her, men; she will leap and fight, She cries out, and sings a beautiful song of death – She leaps and there is no sound but leaping, She falls and there is no sound but falling; Salmon has not slept, she never will be sleeping, A pool clear and quilled with sun is calling. Stones roar, they heave themselves from a rushing tide, And they that never spoke before now speak; Circle arms round the pool, men, where it opens wide, Salmon knows green sweet water from under the peak, She gives birth to tiny salmon, gold-washed and clear And the river smells of white fire at last; she has died. Eagle and bear eat her bone, salmon sings very near Sunlight catches the watching stone, salmon curls round, The waters are hungry, they swirl and bubble in this place, Salmon glints, she quivers, she rises without a sound; Watch the dark waters, men, you will see her silver face.

22 / D E S E R T L I V E S

I prayed to become a slender palo verde, I am young, I am growing slowly; By the hidden spring I am waiting here, I am waiting without fear.

There is a lightning storm, I hear the white song, Let me now be woman-strong; Lightning, pierce my heart Lightning, split the green branch-body apart.

Lift up my smoking soul, Crackling in the lightning flame like coal, And carry me into a thundercloud-sky; Wind, sing the fire-ash song as I die.

Lightning, on hard earth stamp your feet, Throw a powerful bolt of sparkling heat; Cast me down upon saguaro thorn, There birdlike I will be born.

Lightning, do not stay I hear the thunder-song moving away; A woman-rain touches the ground, I can be born all around.

/ 23 D U C K W I N G S

Out in the desert far away there’s a shining lake, Sometimes it’s blue, and when there’s clouds it’s gray; There’s big empty mountains, but no fence and no windbreak, And that’s where I’m goin’ at the end of my day.

That lake is home to big flocks of wild birds, especially duck And I walk out there with my ole buddy the desert wind, I’m just going’ down at sunset to try my luck; It’s a mysterious thing, see, whether a man should try again.

Yesterday everything was just exactly right, Coyote leading me sly and rainbow laughin’ over my head, And a duck gave himself to me kindly without a fight; But you’ve got to be respectful of the dead.

That duck, he talks to his spirit-brothers in the sky, They decide if to be generous again or leave me standing alone; Spirit-animals come with their brother if he is going to die, You got to listen carefully, cuz luck is quiet in a man’s bone.

No spirit-brothers and no ducks are flyin’ now in the twilight, So I’m looking around. There’s antelope drifting over the hill, And a little bird singing round the sunset and then the night; I wonder what the mountains is thinkin’, crouching so still.

I hear the wind of course, like me he’s a travelin’ man; And I’m listening to the voices all over this place, Clouds readying for rain, coyotes laughin’ over the land, And just as I’m headed for sleep, the duck wings over my face.

24 / A W A Y I N T H E M U S I C

The gentry are walking into my very home, Through my windows and under the eves they roam, It’s music they want, the music of mortal men; Some gentry are stately as the high kings come again, Some are bent and swarthy, cunning and swift, Some have wings stretching where the shadows drift.

All in silvery voice are crying the hornpipe, the reel Music to awaken the enchanted, sloe-eyed seal, And the name for every wave of a foam-tipped sea; The gentry grow bright where mortals were lordly.

Well, I cross the threshold with my pipe and drum, A walk in the mist down where the sea waves come, That’s playing for them; and someone always hears – Might be a shadow sweeping in bright-eyed and near Or thundery clouds glowing strange as a star, Silver seabirds crying in skies otherworldly and far Soft green hills rippling like an animal’s hide, Or seals walking as men by a foam-gray tide.

It’s every night I stand, drum in hand, at my door, I see them plainly; they cast shadow, but didn’t before; I’m playing in the gentry’s fair silver and gold, I’m bringing them home, and rain drums down cold.

/ 25 I N T H E F O R E S T

1.

Faerie-woman of the purple forest flower Tosses back her streaming amethyst hair, Dances the green-leaf bower Clad in a windy silver air; Sweeping round the blue-blossoming hem, She crackles down the surge-green stem.

2.

Faerie-man squatting gold-eyed in the stream Watches from a water-washed stone; Swift and crooked limbs – the gold eyes gleam, He wishes to be alone – Swinging as faerie do his long swart arm, He leaps the water away from harm.

3.

Silver-limbed fay skim the foaming stream, Watching with keen and crystal eyes; Over shadowy water they dart and gleam, Trilling and mocking with sharp and thin cries Down the rippling stone and rill, Cold-singing, silver-cold, never still.

26 / Laura Morris

T H E T A M I N G O F T H E S H R E W

you narrow your eyes when others glance elsewhere.

matte pastel lips

aiming, precisely firing, spending a tale on those less discerning.

astutely placed candles butter up your smile

the open zip of your eyebrows the twist in a story you’ve been aching to reach

they sit

enchanted, in love

you, your mouth, its words.

your pistol leather creaks under the weight of theatre.

/ 27 A T W A I M A R A M A

I wait in red lipstick for your return

(you are stripped bare out there)

I wait. I kneel.

At Waimarama

I should have worn more layers –

but you are better than you thought and we reunite

unlike ships lamenting elsewhere.

28 / B O U N D

There is a place in the crook that must tire of taste and weight but it forgets.

Indelible, delectable, I remain clasped at the wrist.

You tire, I fly.

My halcyon days.

/ 29 Erihapeti Murchie

W A V E S C R A S H I N G *

Waves crashing against the cliff The waka is broken below,

The iwi sit in sadness under The cloak of aitua, and tears

We’ve wept, mihied, The spirit has returned to the tipuna

And we will remain to seek The right path of the mokopuna Within the changing and turning world

*Waiata (song) translated from Maori by the author. Dr Michael O’Leary notes that this song was originally composed by Murchie at the tangi (funeral) of Kai Tahu leader Tipene O’Regan’s father. There was no song for his poroporoaki so she was able to sing this waiata atahua, ‘Papaki te Tai’, which she composed spontaneously.

30 / A W A R U A ( T E H U R A K O H A T U )

I have a passion here For quiet waters brooding deep In the curve and sweep of a narrow trough meandering Through willowed banks

And languid in its flow The white dressed cress is haunt To the waters crabs and speckled trout That taunt the dragon flies Skimming the stream And slim black eels within,

Aloft in trembling flight The flick flack tiwaiwaka Pirouetting its delicate haka And the Little White Bridge Triumphant stands still To spring floods,

But life is ever changing With voices stilled and the richness That the tidal flow is witness to Has ebbed – and Awarua No more chatters Free from the bridge below.

/ 31 John O’Connor

H O M E L E S S

somewhere someone is ploughing a dry field

dust streams from its furrows like gold / it

stretches to a yellow horizon it edges the creases

of the face. next season there will be grain

as high as a man’s head or higher as deep as a peasant’s

fireside talk. a delivery van stops for a time leaving

a few empty sacks & a pink trombone

*

at this moment the rounded vowels of a circus cartwheeling up the street / wary of adverbs & adjectives

32 / he tells her of his “frightful” childhood how he was killed so many times he lost count – as he says “no joke”

* cloud covers the western horizon elsewhere the brilliance of posters in streetlight / on a corrugated fence / the homeless sit before it – legs crossed

chins up

/ 33 Mark Pirie

T W O F I L M S

Films used to be ‘RP13’. I went to two films when I was underage 12 with my ‘parent or guardian’. One was

to see Sigourney Weaver battle the slime and fangs in Aliens. With my Mum next to me, we left

at halftime after one of them hatched from inside a woman’s stomach. I had nightmares after.

The more enjoyable film was Beverly Hills Cop with my Dad. Eddie Murphy was brilliant as Axel Foley,

the Detroit cop on the trail of crime in rich Beverly Hills. He had a score to settle for a dead friend.

34 / Rich in humour, Murphy was the man as Axel. I’m not really sure now why it was classified

“RP13”. Seemed harmless to me. But it made me feel like a bigger kid than I was, sitting in the film with older teenagers across from me. Later I ventured the courage to sit through Aliens on DVD.

/ 35 M Y G R E A T U N C L E

I never met him but recently I found an old photo and he was in it.

My Great Uncle by marriage was Tim Harris, dairy farmer and rugby player of Okaiawa.

Strong and fast he was, effective in forward rushes. He played with All Blacks

like Harold Masters and Dick Fogarty. Once, his Okaiawa team defeated

Dick’s Hawera team; their first defeat at home in years. He married my Aunt Lucy.

Catholic, he was; Methodist, she was, and the two eloped causing family unrest.

All was to be forgiven, but locals knew him best for his feats on the rugby field.

He was a fine player for Taranaki from 1922-23, strong, active and fast.

36 / P V Reeves

A G R E Y D A Y

I quite like a grey day No glare on the eyes No beads of perspiration on the brow Soft humphy textures of the sky – a quilt of shades of grey – tinging silver to peeps of baby blue No flight of bird or sound of song Traffic noise or motorway noise mutes to whispers of lazy sea-side lift and roll of wave action Not a rustle of restless leaves disturbs the feeling of peace in the stillness Yes, I like a grey day

/ 37 L I F E W I T H I T S T E A C H E R S

Those who know me tolerate my union with everything that grows.

Trees are my Bible.

Things growing excite challenge protect, nourish – all offered free.

Trees know growing pains.

Friends are like trees protecting mind, soul and body standing tall in love and life

till day is done.

38 / Essay Feature

F U R T H E R C O M M E N T O N C A M E R O N L A F O L L E T T E

Cameron La Follette, environmentalist and poet, in her mid 50s, is a distant relative of the American political dynasty of La Follettes, in her own words ‘Senator Robert Marion La Follette Sr is in my “first cousin” line. His father and my great-great grandfather were brothers.’ Put more simply, before 1850 there were two brothers. From one descends Cameron La Follette poet. From the other descends the USA political dynasty of La Follettes. Currently she is Australasian editor for RPO (Representative Poetry Online), a University of Toronto library website. Her interest in New Zealand goes back to her childhood in Arizona. She is currently associated with the New Zealand poets Ruth Gilbert, Niel Wright, Mark Pirie, and Michael O’Leary. She came under the influence of the Australian author, mythologist and poet P L Travers (of Mary Poppins fame) 30 years ago through the Parabola magazine to which P L Travers was a frequent contributor from its founding in 1976. As such she is part of a wide ranging Pan Pacific English speaking culture, inaugurated by Captain James Cook (deceased in Hawaii in 1779), which also takes in writers Rex Hunter, Mary Barnard, Charles/Mike Doyle and Michele Leggott among many others including Peter Jackson the Tolkien film interpreter. Her environmental papers and 1000 poems in 2013 were archived in the University of Oregon (an open collection), as also in the past were the papers of Ursula Le Guin. Archival editions of 1,300 poems of hers are currently being published in New Zealand by myself where they are available for purchase from me at PO Box 6637, Te Aro, Wellington 6141, New Zealand. Email: [email protected]

Niel Wright

/ 39 Notes on Contributors

RICHARD BERENGARTEN is a distinguished UK poet. His many volumes of poetry include The Blue Butterfly (Salt). In 2011, a critical book about his work, The Salt Companion to Richard Berengarten, appeared. TONY BEYER currently lives in Auckland. His selected poems, Dream Boat, appeared from HeadworX in 2007. ZARAH BUTCHER-MCGUNNIGLE has a BA in English and an MA in Creative Writing. Her work has appeared in journals such as Landfall, Hue & Cry, and Colorado Review. JOHN DENNISON was born in Sydney in 1978, and grew up in Tawa. His poems have appeared in various periodicals in the UK and New Zealand and, most recently, in Carcanet’s New Poetries V. He lives with his wife and three sons in Wellington. MICHAEL DUFFETT was born in wartime London, educated at Cambridge and has been a professor and poet all over the world. He is currently Associate Professor of English at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, California. O E HUGO was a 19th century New Zealand poet originally born in Denmark. Hugo was a Professor well known for his colourful lectures on phrenology. His poems appeared mainly in the Auckland Star and the Otago Witness newspapers. CAMERON LA FOLLETTE is a North American poet based in Salem, Oregon. See more detailed note about her on p. 5. LAURA MORRIS lives in the Tuki Tuki Valley in Hawke’s Bay. Her focus in poetry tends to be on the intimacies of the human condition and romance of geography. ERIHAPETI MURCHIE (1923-1997) was born at Arowhenua Pa, Temuka, of Kai Tahu, Kati Mamoe, and Ngati Raukawa descent. She trained as a teacher and was active in many areas of the arts, with a particular flair for drama. From 1950, when she played the role of the matriarch, Aroha Mataira, in Bruce Mason’s ground-breaking play, The Pohutukawa Tree, she had an active stage and radio career until her involvement with the Maori Women’s Welfare League limited her time. Erihapeti Murchie later became a Human Rights Commissioner. JOHN O’CONNOR is a Christchurch poet and editor (Sudden Valley Press). His 10th poetry book is forthcoming. MARK PIRIE is a Wellington poet, critic, publisher and archivist. P V REEVES lives in Wellington and writes both poetry and fiction. NIEL WRIGHT is a Wellington writer, poet, publisher and archivist.

40 /