Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Tuesday Poem - should not be attempted without serious sea-legs or oxygen tank....

Tuesday Poem this week has at its hub a poet who is part of a whole new NZ-US initiative. Joan Fleming has been published in the Duets poetry series which pairs NZ poets with US poets. Her chapbook is called Two Dreams in which Things Are Taken and she is paired with Emily Toder from Massachusetts and her chapbook I Hear a Boat. Here's how Fleming's poem begins..

Auntie talking to her niece by Joan Fleming
When I was young, I used to steal through the suburbs in the middle of the
night where we lived, and smash the light bulbs and garden gnomes from
people’s front porches. I thought the people had foolish decorations in places
where they never looked. ...

The editor of Tuesday Poem this week is up-and-coming poet Mariana Isara from Christchurch. From the hub poem, venture to the live blog roll of 30 poets from NZ, the US, the UK and beyond. There are poems from emerging NZ poets like Helen Heath through to old masters like Gerard Manley Hopkins. And then there are some surprises - a 'comment' poem created on Facebook by writers from all over the world (Fifi Colston's blog), and an extract from Moby Dick (Zireaux' blog). Zireaux - explains why he believes Herman Melville is a poet.

'...let us ride on one of Melville’s waves: The fourth paragraph of Chapter 114 (“The Gilder”) of Moby Dick. Feel the rocking onomatopoeia of his phrasing, the lurch and lull of his commas, the rolling motion of the “m”s, the spewing pitch of his spondees (“long-drawn,” “mild blue,” “glad May,” “halfway,” that frame-rattling “interpenetrate”).

No comments: