NZ Poetry - reviewed by Siobhan Harvey

The Yellow Buoy – Poems 2007-2012

C. K. Stead

Auckland University Press

$27.99

‘Why poetry?’ is a poem, not a justification or apology, in C. K. Stead’s new collection, The Yellow Buoy: Poems 2007-2012.  Lyrically, imaginatively, emotively, it explicates the tug that pulls the poet to writing verse:

To give to the human order

a kinder face

a better shape.

To be and not

to be Hamlet beset

by slings and arrows.

To comprehend humanity; to speak and simultaneously feign evasion of the truth: at 80 and in his 15^th poetry book, there’s something frank and, in the articulation and shape, perfect about these words.  For they encapsulate the poetic drive and rational Stead has held for 50 years. Their ability to do so, their careful balance between clarity and form characterizes the wider work. Putting one in mind of great American poets like Billy Collins (ergo, his classic ‘Introduction to Poetry’), The Yellow Buoy is as richly worded and structured a poetry collection as you’ll find globally at present.    

The subjects Stead covers are extensive and inventive. Jetlag; an accident victim’s search for understanding; the dubious merits of the internet Cloud phenomenon; dreams, memories and creative recounting of influential Aotearoa writers: here and elsewhere, it’s not just the subject being conveyed but the style of conveyance which are most unforgettable. Forthright and no punches pulled have grown to become markers of Stead writings; and are no less apparent here as the poem, ‘The Gift’s retort to an infamous Charles Brasch diary entry evidences. Amidst this, the collection also offers a linguistic, expressive and topographic voyage of Columbia, Cornwall, Krakow, Liguria, Novi Sad and other shores, domestic as well as international.

Combine all of this with some new offerings which extend Stead well-known Catullus persona (‘Catullus 68’ and ‘Catullus receives the ONZ’) and some worthy translations of other poets’ works, and The Yellow Buoy is a profound, accessible and engaging collection. Why poetry? Stead asks. Given the stretch of subject, language, location and mind in his The Yellow Buoy, why not?

Singing with Both Throats

Maris O’Rourke

David Ling

$25

From an octogenarian poet to a septuagenarian one with a smart, confessional first collection by Maris O’Rourke who’s had numerous previous guises, including the first Secretary for Education under the fervid Lange government and a Director of Education for The World Bank. The book takes as its’ motif, thematic and visual, that New Zealand ornithological icon, the tui and its capacity to resonate from two voice-boxes, a concept which O’Rourke utilizes to explore duality in many forms – biculturalism; the dynamics of child-adult relationships and so forth. The examination of cultural and personal doubling is seen vividly in poems like those dedication to her early life experiences, ‘Fire Alarm’ and ‘Engagements’, and later, in works of belonging such as ‘Harakeke’ and ‘Aotearoa: a Sonnet’ in which the poet intones:

Here, I speak the language of the land,

hear the messages as rivers rise

I can read the sky, the sea, the sand,

know where crayfish hide and dolphins dive.

The most impressive, lasting poems, though, are those incantations to survival like the epic, ‘Lifelines’ which stretches over 6 pages and 16 parts and ‘Spells the Tame Children’ which opens with the kind of sting and parental dysfunction one can’t help but be confronted by and self-reflective in light of,

Wear the pram tyres down to the rim; throw in stones and stories as you walk.

   Weep in the bath at the never-ending task; drink gin and tonic tears.

 

Collectively, what you get in Singing with Both Throats is a book as raw as it is accomplished, the poet’s past lives and enduring obsessions informing the arresting imagery and insight, and providing a template for narrator and reader to intersect personal history, poetic travelogue and a survival-map. The result is a work of bite, beauty and intrigue.     

The Blue Coat

Elizabeth Smither

Auckland University Press

$24.99

Another septuagenarian wordsmith, this one with a much longer literary track-record: Elizabeth Smither. The poet herself needs little introduction. Her new collection, The Blue Coat, her 17^th, presents itself, above all else, as a book with a powerful ability to paint in words, colour and image. From the start, each poem offers a distinct shade – the opening verse’s ‘Black Labradors’, “the white tram” in ‘Leaf Flurry Tram’, “the blue glass stoppered bottle” in ‘Blossoms, Marshmallows’, “the darkest gold-encrusted maroon” in ‘The Chipped Limoges Plate’ and so forth. There’s something more than merely painted about this collection, however. Here, colour is used as a trope - for the decorated, the decorative and the decorator’s art of organization and, in typical New Zealand style, understated elegance. Time and again, the poems show a flair for pared back sophistication, as in the poem ‘The Governess Sky’:

A grey sky like a governess

in a calf-length coat

and a skirt longer than that.

A day when clichés might be spoken

with the kindliest of intentions

and passed to the listener with gloves

and no response needed. The grey sky

the grey governess with the grey gloves

doing all the talking.

Reading these words the reader sees and senses the delicate balancing act between flamboyant picturing and controlled expression Smither undertakes, crossing a tightrope, with each poem.

Like the titular blue coat or the attire in the latter poem ‘Ruby’s Heirloom Dress’, everything – word, imagery, structure – is well ‘dressed’, well ornamented, well controlled. Even the final verse, ‘Blessing the House for Departure’ offers a sense of assured management and composed exit,

The suitcases are outside the door.

The handbag and the umbrella.

Just time to touch the doorjamb

and say the departing prayer.

 God bless this house and all

who live in it. Have lived,

will live. May it stand

savouring the touch of this prayer….

Like the author herself, The Blue Coat is a grand dame dancing delicately upon our literary stage.

Wild like Me

Elizabeth Nannestad

Victoria University Press

$25

Finally, to the ‘baby’ of the bunch with 50-ish poet, Elizabeth Nannestad. Her poetry collections appear sporadically, but make a big impact when they are released. Her first, Jump came out in 1986 and went on to become the joint-winner of the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry. Her next, If He’s a Good Dog He’ll Swim was released a decade later to critical acclaim. 17 years since then, her third book, Wild like Me arrives, and what a wonder it is. Thematically it’s a part journey amongst Animalia as the opening poem, ‘Butterflies’ evidences:

There were butterflies in among the lavender –

how long they had been there I have no idea

so many times I lifted my eyes towards them

thinking of other things, and never thought: butterflies.

It was three days ago now finally I saw them

and today there is only the bright flinty sunlight

it’s colder, the lavender is plainer: they’re gone.

The poetic control – of vision, of language, of story – is, as in Smither’s work, startlingly adept. It continues through poems about ducks, grasshoppers, skylarks, cattle, wasps and even goats, all of which, combined, effect the primary theme, a la the title, of the wild, untamed, feral and undomesticated. Here then are the other journeys the poems in Wild like Me navigate, examining country life and the passing of the seasons and tides, the unconventional wife/ mother/ woman, the abandoned home and so forth. Through verse such as ‘One Good Reason to Keep a Cat’, ‘He Longs for War’, ‘High Tide in the Evening’, ‘Living with the Demon’ and the like, Nannestad interweaves all these subject matters into a vibrant scrutiny of human existence in rural settings. From start to finish, placement is vital in offsetting the delicate meshing of the topics, maximizing their comparisons and contrasts in a dynamic manner symbolized by the poem, ‘Wild’,

wild like the salt

of the sea, the sea

wild like the flight

of thousands as one

wild like the face

of the roadside flower

wild like the cry

at night of one

wild like me.

Wild, indeed.

About the reviewer

Siobhan Harvey is the author of the poetry collection, Lost Relatives (Steele Roberts NZ, 2011), the book of literary interviews Words Chosen Carefully: New Zealand Writers in Discussion (Cape Catley, 2010) and the poetry anthology Our Own Kind: 100 New Zealand Poems about Animals (Random House, 2009). Recently, her poetry has been published in Evergreen Review (Grove Press, US),Meanjin (Aus), Penduline Press – The New Zealand Issue (US), Snorkel (Aus) and Structo (UK). She’s Poetry Editor of Takahe and coordinates New Zealand's National Poetry Day. She was runner up in 2012 Dorothy Porter Prize for Poetry (Aus), 2012 Kevin Ireland Poetry Prize, 2011 Landfall Essay Prize and 2011 Kathleen Grattan Award for a Sequence of Poems, and shortlisted for the 2012 Jane Frame Memorial Award for Literature. A Poet’s Page containing a selection of her recorded work and texts can be found on The Poetry Archive (U.K.), directed by Sir Andrew Motion.

Siobhan Harvey is a regular poetry reviewer on this blog.