broadsheet new new zealand poetry Issue No. 6, November 2010 Editor: Mark Pirie THE NIGHT PRESS WELLINGTON / 1 Poems copyright 2010, in the names of the individual contributors Published by The Night Press Cover drawing of Alistair Paterson by Una Platts, c1980s broadsheet is published twice a year in May and November Subscriptions to: The Editor 97/43 Mulgrave Street Thorndon Wellington 6011 Aotearoa / New Zealand http://headworx.eyesis.co.nz Cost per year $12.00 for 2 issues. Cheques payable to: HeadworX ISSN 1178-7805 (Print) ISSN 1178-7813 (Online) Essay on Alistair Paterson copyright Siobhan Harvey 2010 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 RAEWYN ALEXANDER / 6 OWEN BULLOCK / 7 JENNIFER COMPTON / 8 RIEMKE ENSING / 10 ANNE FRENCH / 11 WILL LEADBEATER / 12 MICHAEL MORRISSEY / 13 ALISTAIR PATERSON / 15 MARK PIRIE / 21 VIVIENNE PLUMB / 22 RON RIDDELL / 23 JACK ROSS / 24 IAIN SHARP / 27 ELIZABETH SMITHER / 31 BARRY SOUTHAM / 32 ESSAY FEATURE / 34 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS / 40 / 3 Acknowledgements Grateful acknowledgement is made to the editors and publishers of the following collections and magazines where the following poems in this issue first appeared: Jennifer Compton: Im putting together a programme of your poetry for the ABC from Aroha (Flarestack Publishing, UK, 1998). Alistair Paterson: Song for Celia from Arena, No. 79, July 1973 (Handcraft Press: Pukerua Bay); and Safely perhaps, the Alamo from Evergreen Review online, No. 124, September 2010. 4 / Preface Except for a brief period in the late fifties and early sixties Alistair Paterson has been writing poetry for 60 years in this country and for close on 30 years has been editing literary journals, encouraging and nurturing numerous literary talents. He is one of our most distinguished poets and editors, known internationally and respected by literary scenes in America, Australia, Europe and the UK. His open form anthology 15 Contemporary New Zealand Poets published by Grove Press, USA/Pilgrims South Press, Dunedin is in around 200 libraries worldwide according to WorldCat, the online library catalogue. Its one of the very few New Zealand anthologies to have succeeded overseas. In 1976, he organised American poet Robert Creeleys influential visit to New Zealand. In 2006, in recognition of his achievements, he received the ONZM for services to literature. Its both a privilege and a pleasure to be able to feature Alistairs work in broadsheet. I have included mostly new work by Paterson, along with one rare and uncollected poem, Song for Celia, which I came across recently in an old issue of Noel Hoggards Arena magazine, 1973. The Arena poem gives a sense of his earlier lyrical impulse, while Patersons new poems continue his contemporary concerns, philosophical, witty and highly intelligent. One poem has already appeared in the highly regarded Evergeen Review in America edited by former Grove Press publisher Barney Rosset. As well I commissioned an essay by Siobhan Harvey, one of our most thoughtful and observant critics. Her essay focuses on Patersons 1973 collection Birds Flying. Many of the books individual poems as Harvey points out continue to be well anthologised and have retained their power over nearly 40 years. As Harvey suggests: further overviews of the book and Patersons work are long overdue. Alongside Patersons poetry, Ive invited some of his friends to be in the issue with him. This is something unique to broadsheet. In the past Ive featured Louis Johnson, Ruth Gilbert and Harvey McQueen. Its nice to accord this sense of recognition to writers who have truly given their lifetime to literature. Johnson, Gilbert, McQueen and Paterson all fall into this category. Thanks to those who sent positive thoughts while I was putting together this issue of broadsheet. I appreciate your contribution to making this a special issue for Alistair and myself. Enjoy. Mark Pirie Wellington, November 2010 / 5 Raewyn Alexander W H A T I S A S T A R ? Oh now, a star like Madonna has glittery toothpaste of course and they sleep on a cloud not on a bed, while people follow them about and sell images for swimming pools and fast cars. Then if one sadly dies like Michael Jackson, well, complete strangers throw themselves at hairdressers and weep real gold, or silver, depending how much of a star the star was, naturally. Some stars forget what a drug really is, how it alters consciousness so much. Judy Garland was given pills as a child; then some forget taking too much can kill. Even if they know the dangers sober, drifted into a netherworld where facts are tricks instead. Karen Carpenter was anorexic and that killed her, well, her bro said she wouldve probably been that way with or without the fame. I think River Phoenix wouldve probably taken too many drugs with or without the fame, too. Not that we may ever know this, except I do have a phone line to heaven, but the line is down right now, and their call centre help-line is hell. 6 / Owen Bullock R U E S T D E N I S drinks his vin rouge speaking loudly to himself moves on, gesticulating to the next cafe bums a cigarette, tears off the filter, demands a lighter begins smoking, offers the lighter back on open palm, starts talking with the young couple at the table is still there... L A M B E T H an old woman at the cocktail bar wearing a Police Department T-shirt machine guns on the wall revolutionary posters in Spanish chillie-shaped light bulbs and much slicing of lemons fresh flowers on the tables white and yellow chrysanthemums / 7 Jennifer Compton I M P U T T I N G A P R O G R A M M E O F Y O U R P O E T R Y T O G E T H E R F O R T H E A B C (for Alistair Paterson) Im writing about you as if you were a poet. Someone who is born and will die. (But not yet.) Im writing the narrative to go between your poems. And choosing them, which of them Australia will hear. One Sunday afternoon. Next year. Im writing down the events in your life. In order. To place you for the people who may (or may not) be listening to you. (I wont be mentioning your raw silk jacket, you standing in the rain, walking slowly together up Plimmer Steps, the way your eyes furrow, your shining pain.) Im writing down the events that may (or may not) have caused the poetry in your life. Or has the poetry caused the events? 8 / Im making it all neat like a poets life. It wont hurt. Its only a mauvais quart dheure. I need the money to build a fence for my two ponies, Gaylight and Tuppence. I did Dylan Thomas last year. And Sylvia Plath. I cant remember where the money went. Nobody ever listens to the programme anyway. Ive never met anyone who actually listens to the thing. Perhaps by mistake in a shearing shed out the back of Bourke or in the empty kitchen of a Paddington terrace, half heard. But Im writing about you as if you were a poet. Someone who has been done and can never be done again. Like James K. But repeated. For half the original fee. God bless you and keep you. I love you. I know you love me. / 9 Riemke Ensing F A N C I F U L , A P O C R Y P H A L , D E L E T E 1 (for Janet Wilson) In this biographical story2 , the date is set at 69, a Sunday in August and a late night hoolie at Tuwhares place. Plenty of kai and even the pungent mutton-birds, but the booze fast running out. While Davin is leaving, Brasch is coming up the stairs, carrying a keg of beer. Nothing here about greetings, passing the time of Landfall, a catching of old friends, just this incongruous image our gaunt, emaciated Hercules, worn thin to the point of pain, already labouringly under the weight of art, carrying a keg of beer? Yeah, right! Tui. 1 DMD: colleague and friend, David Mitchell, in Intimate Stranger Reminiscences of Dan Davin, edited by Janet Wilson, Steele Roberts, 2000, p.138. A marking Dan Davin is said to have used as editor of OUP. 2 A Fighting Withdrawal The Life of Dan Davin, Keith Ovenden, OUP, 1996, p. 344. 10 / Anne French A P P R O A C H E S T O A U C K L A N D Coming on watch somewhere south of the Knights, the world is black on black, a scatter of small lights showing our habitations. The moon slides down in the west, reddens, and disappears into a raft of cloud. We move steadily south in a warm breeze off the land. Taranga slips away behind; Sail Rock is a black fist picked out in starlight. Steering on the steady flash from Cape Rodney as the Gulf opens up: Little Barrier, black on black, distant Moehau the edge of the known world. Stealing up on Auckland by night is a matter of lights. By day, its making the boat go faster. The breeze fills in, the boat heels, the tell-tales stream, and were checking the speed. Seven knots, seven-five; trimming and tuning; Tiri Passage draws us in, and weve a bone in our teeth.