Wellington poet's tribute to netball greats

CAITLIN SALTER -  October 14 2015 - The Dominion Post

CAITLIN SALTER/FAIRFAX NZ

Wellington poet Mark Pirie with his netball poem collection, 12 Netball Poems.

Watching netball on the small kitchen television with his mother is a stand-out memory of Mark Pirie's childhood.

After the success of his cricket and rugby poetry collections, Pirie has gone back to his roots with a collection of netball poems, 12 Netball Poems.

Sports-mad Pirie has many hats. He works as a poet, writer, literary critic, publisher, anthologist and editor.
"I used to watch netball with my mum a lot. She was really into sport, so I got the sports bug from her as well as my grandfather," Pirie said.
His grandfather, Tommy Lawn, played rugby for Sydenham Football Club and Technical Old Boys in Christchurch and College Rifles in Auckland.

The netball poetry collection features 12 poems, 11 written by Pirie, and a poem about Irene van Dyk written by Bill Sutton that was published in The Wellingtonian.
Pirie wanted to celebrate the game and paint a portrait of some players with his collection.
Netball was a good sport to write poems about because the movement of the game was like a dance, he said .
"Netball is like ballet in that there's a lot of balance involved and a lot of skill with the athletes moving around the court.
"It's a hard game to play and I tried to bring that out in the poems."

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