Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Sam Hunt unpublished poem on Tuesday Poem



This week's Tuesday Poem is Sam Hunt's Lines for a New Year from his new collection Knucklebones, and in the post there's an unpublished poem offered by the 2012 recipient of the Prime Minister's Award for poetry called Tell me what. This week's editor is South Island author and poet Helen McKinlay who says: 

"Along with his permission to publish 'Lines for a New Year', Sam very generously sent me a new unpublished poem. I was a fan before .... have seen him perform and admired his lack of pretentiousness, amazing memory and wonderful inclusiveness .... and I am even more of a fan now, and finding Knucklebones hard to put down.So many delicious lines. I found it hard to choose any poems let alone just one."

Once you've read Sam's poems at the hub flick into thesidebar of thirty poets to find some real treats written by themselves and others they've selected - including Janet Frame's 'Eater of Crayfish' and 'Banana and the Battered Women's Group' by Johanna Aitchison. 

Photo - Brett Phibbs

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are only 6 of the 16 parts to this work and as such it is an incomplete work, very concerning to see Sam's work out of context like this ! Please rectify as soon as possible.

Anonymous said...

This is only 6 of the 16 part poem. and as such is completely out of context - it would be good to see this rectified as soon as possible.

SR Campbell

Anonymous said...

Even more concerning to see any lines of poetry described as "delicious" -- a complete dereliction of the poet's moral duty to protect the world from cliche.

Mary MCCallum said...

He's right - the editor's mistake - it has been rectified - she was sick when she put it up last night and mistakenly left the end off it - feel free to publish the comment and I can comment afterwards

Mary McCallum said...

Hi Anonymous - Graham threw my emailed comment up for me earlier so readers would know the issue was sorted. You are quite right about the poem being incomplete and the editor, Helen McKinlay, realised what she'd done and has rectified it. She did a wonderful job getting Sam on board for the post, writing it up and posting two poems - we at Tuesday Poem are thrilled to have Sam Hunt there - however, the editor was unwell and didn't realise what she'd posted was only an extract. When she did, she rectified it straight away - which involved considerable work while she was still unwell.

Tuesday Poem apologises unreservedly to Sam Hunt and to his fans. The poem is there in full now and can be enjoyed as such - especially over this Xmas/NY period. It's great to know Tuesday Poem has discerning readers who will step in on behalf of poets - thank you Anonymous. We hope you enjoy both poems and commentary.

As far as the word 'delicious' goes - the choice is the editor's and we defend her right to say it.

Mary McCallum co-curator Tuesday Poem