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Poetry Notes Summer 2014 Volume 4, Issue 4 ISSN 1179-7681 Quarterly Newsletter of PANZA arising out of a “lack of any vital Inside this Issue Welcome relation to experience” (for references see the index to his Look Back Harder, Hello and welcome to issue 16 of 1987), still spring most readily to mind Welcome Poetry Notes, the newsletter of PANZA, – despite the partial rehabilitation in 1 the newly formed Poetry Archive of Trixie Te Arama Menzies’s article Comment on Kowhai Gold New Zealand Aotearoa. ‘Kowhai Gold – Skeleton or Scapegoat’, Poetry Notes will be published quarterly Landfall 165 (March 1988) pp.19-26, Obituary: Trevor Reeves and will include information about which demonstrated that the “poetic goings on at the Archive, articles on tradition” it embodies is not as isolated 3 historical New Zealand poets of interest, (a “continuum”: p.20) as has been Classic New Zealand occasional poems by invited poets and a poetry by Alice Mackenzie claimed, both from what preceded it 9 record of recently received donations to (Alexander and Currie) and what Comment on Yilma Tasew the Archive. followed (Curnow). 11 by Teresia Teaiwa Articles and poems are copyright in the This literary critical analysis of the book names of the individual authors. has overlooked and obscured its Comment on Lawrence The newsletter will be available for free bibliographical interest, which proves to 12 Inch download from the Poetry Archive’s be more than mere curiosity. website: Comparison of a number of copies Comment on Martin Wilson reveals that the anthology as planned 13 http://poetryarchivenz.wordpress.com included the work not of fifty-six poets but of fifty-seven: lurking in the index Comment on John and bibliography of a few of the earliest O’London Literary Club 14 Rowan Gibbs on copies off the press (and even in the text National Poetry Day poem of a single rogue specimen found) is Kowhai Gold “Geoffrey de Montalk”. A poem of his, 2013: The Wreck of the 15 ‘The Song of a Dead Rat’, was Wairarapa originally on p.154, and its removal has Donate to PANZA through Wellington writer and bibliographer involved not only the replacement of Rowan Gibbs discusses the important PayPal that leaf, but alteration of the Contents, 17 and much maligned 1930 Kowhai Gold the Bibliography, and the Index, Recently received anthology, edited by Quentin Pope, in together with the last two leaves of the donations particular the problems relating to a text, from where the original poem, P W contributor withdrawing material from Robertson’s ‘Invocation’, was About the Poetry Archive it, which resulted in differing bound transferred to fill in the lacuna left by copies found to be still available in de Montalk’s departure. collector’s and library’s hands. One might have hoped for a great story behind all this – Potocki’s poem or PANZA Much has been written about this character unmasked as offensive at the PO Box 6637 anthology, little of it polite. Curnow’s eleventh hour, perhaps, but it seems the Marion Square label “lamentable… insipidities mixed reason was much more prosaic. The Wellington 6141 with puerilities”, and the charge of “a poem itself, despite its alarming title, fanciful aimlessness” about its contents, was not to blame – it had been printed . Summer 2014 previously in Potocki’s (admittedly self- booksellers to place orders from, lists it (b) The first corrected copies: published, but with the blessing of J H E as having 173 pages; it gives the month These have the above seven leaves Schroder) Wild Oats (Sumner, 1927). In of publication as October. Further, ([A8], [L5], [M4-M5], [M6-M7], [M8]) the introduction to his While Howls and D’Arcy Cresswell’s critique of “this excised and reprinted replacement Grunts (Palmerston North, 1997) amusing, remarkable book” in New leaves pasted in: Potocki gives the explanation: “…There Zealand News (London), no.91, 18 (i) Page xv replaces the listing for de was the affair of Kowhai Gold… in November 1930 p.11, gives the number Montalk at p.154 with P W Robertson, which a poem of Ours, which had been of contributors as fifty-six, indicating and page xvi deletes Robertson at the praised long ago by the late Ian that his review copy was a corrected end, leaving Adams’s ‘Sydney’ the final Donnelly, was included without so copy. (Fairburn called Cresswell’s “a poem in the book; much as a By-Your-Leave, and without vile sniggering review”, and wrote a (ii) Page 153 is as before but p.154 the family patronymic Potocki, while “dignified reply” in the next issue of deletes the de Montalk poem and prints infamous poetasters had pages & pages. New Zealand News, 2 December, p.6, Robertson’s in its place; We insisted on their taking this poem pointing out that “Cresswell withdrew (iii) Page 167 is as before but p.168 out…”. several of his poems from the book deletes Robertson’s poem, leaving the Potocki seems here to be alleging as before publication”.) lower half of the page blank; pages 169- many as four reasons for the excision of I was able to inspect fourteen copies of 170 now contain the “Bibliography” the poem: they didn’t ask; they got his the book, in libraries and in private (with de Montalk deleted); name “wrong”; he didn’t like the hands; one library copy (a corrected (iv) The Bibliography continues on company of his fellow poets; and copy) is not recorded as it had been p.171; p.[172] is blank; p.[173] is the (worst) Pope chose only one poem by rebound and resewn, obscuring its “Index” (deleting de Montalk); p.[174] him. (All rather sad, as the only other status. blank; New Zealand verse anthology, Niel (a) Original printing (assumed – no (v) Page [175] is the colophon; Wright assures me, that has ever copy located): p.[176] blank. included Potocki is Helen Shaw’s This is distinguished by having all the And so the number of leaves is the Mystical Choice, 1981: a long wait). following points: same, but at the end the pagination is Removal of Potocki’s poem involved (i) The last leaf of the ‘Contents’, altered and there is one extra blank excision of seven leaves of text from [A8], pp.xv-xvi, is integral and sewn, page. The cancelling (replacement) every copy of the already printed (and, and lists on the recto the de Montalk leaves [A8] and [L5] are of course in the case of most copies, bound) book, poem as on p.154 of the book (between single leaves, and [M4-M5] is a fold (a and their replacement with corrected Isobel Maud Peacocke and C S Perry), conjugate pair of leaves); however, leaves. These were at first (probably and on the verso P W Robertson’s [M6,M7,M8] seem (oddly, and surely with copies that had already been cased) ‘Invocation’ as starting on p.168, inconveniently) to be single leaves, pasted in; later (presumably with copies following A H Adams’s ‘Sydney’; though they perhaps vary from copy to still in sheets) they were sewn in (ii) The leaf [L5], pp.153-154, is copy: in one copy seen, (g) below, sections. The mechanics of the task integral and sewn, and prints on the [M7,M8] appear to be a fold but in (h) must have been considerable, even for recto the end of Peacocke’s poem and [M8] is pasted in back to front, meaning Dent, who at their huge Temple Press on the verso ‘THE SONG OF A DEAD that it must be a singleton. complex in Letchworth Garden City had RAT’ by “Geoffrey de Montalk”; Of (b) four copies have been seen a large staff and did their own (iii) The last two leaves of the main (Turnbull Library 175,582 and 173,589; typesetting, printing, sewing, and text, [M4, M5], pp.167-168 and 169- National Library copy; copy belonging casing. Inevitably an occasional copy 170, are integral and sewn, and print on to Rowan Gibbs which had belonged to escaped correction, in whole or in part, p.168 Adams’s ‘Sydney’ and below it P W Robertson, so a contributor’s and in a few copies the “cancels” the first half of Robertson’s copy). (replacement leaves) were wrongly ‘Invocation’; on p.169 the second half (c) Final corrected copies: inserted – fortunately, as it is from these of ‘Invocation’; p.[170] blank; These have the text as in (b) but the “hybrid” (and “freak”) copies that the (iv) The leaves [M6] and [M7], pages corrected leaves instead of being pasted original form of the book must be 171-172 and 173-174, are integral and in have been newly printed and are part reconstructed, for no surviving sewn, pp.171-3 being the of the sections and sewn in. unaltered copy of the original printing “Bibliography” with “Geoffrey de (Only one copy has been seen of this has yet come to light. Montalk: / Wild Oats, The Author, final state, belonging to Niel Wright, Possibly none ever left the warehouse: 1927” as the final entry on p.172; probably indicating that most of the even the British Library deposit copy is p.[174] blank; copies sent to New Zealand were sent catalogued as having 173 pages, which (v) Leaf [M8], pages 175-176, is fairly early.) indicates that it was a corrected copy; integral and sewn, p.175 being “Index”, In fact, due no doubt to the complicated and the details of the book supplied by with “Montalk, Geoffrey de, 154” the (and probably rushed) nature of the Dent to the English Catalogue of Books, fourth item in the right hand column; operation, many copies (indeed, the issued in advance of publication for p.[176] is the Temple Press colophon.