Tim Jones: Books in the Trees

I Only Read It For The Interviews

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:47:00 +0000

I run round about one interview (usually, but not always, an interview with an author) on my blog each month. My own interviews this year were augmented by Johanna Knox's fascinating interview with Mandy Hager.

Here are the interviews from my blog in 2011 - and you can check out interviews from previous years as well.

2011: Interviews with:

Owen Bullock

Mary Cresswell

Tracie McBride

Laura Solomon

Janis Freegard

Anna Caro

Barbara Strang

Michael J. Parry

Meliors Simms

Mandy Hager interviewed by Johanna Knox - Part 1 and Part 2

Johanna Knox

Penelope Cottier

If that's not enough interviews for you, you can also check out the blog tour interviews with me about Men Briefly Explained - and the tour's not quite over yet!

Book Review: Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21, by Kathleen Jones

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:47:00 +0000

Kathleen Jones is a noted biographer and poet whom I have previously interviewed for this blog, in particular about her excellent recent biography of Katherine Mansfield, and who is one of the Tuesday Poets. She was also kind enough to provide an endorsement for my recent collection Men Briefly Explained.

Reviewing books by people one knows and likes is both easier and harder than reviewing books by complete strangers. Easier, because this knowledge might give the reviewer a little more insight into the writer's work - not that I am claiming any special insight!; and harder, because it is always possible that, despite liking the writer, the reviewer might not like the book.

I'm delighted to report that I don't have this problem with Kathleen Jones' latest book, her first full poetry collection, Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21. I like this book a lot, and furthermore, I liked it more and more as it went on.

If I was asked to say what this collection was about in three words (one of which had to be a conjunction), I'd say 'landscape and character'. My favourite poems in the collection are those which bring the two together, and since almost all of them do this, I was a happy and engaged reader throughout.

Many of these landscapes are harsh. Kathleen Jones has spent much of her life in Cumbria, in the north of Britain, and many of these poems bear the harshness of that northern landscape, the sense that the flesh over the bones of the earth is thin. But the collection begins even further north, in the glacial north of Russia, where

From the lake's edge the land seems
to go on forever - beyond politics,
into the impossible distances
of history, where women still

wash their clothes in the stream
and sleep above the stove.

("Aiming for Archangel: Lake Onega")

Winter is even more to the fore in "Winter Light", which Helen Lowe recently featured as a Tuesday Poem on her blog, and intimate relationships are described in terms of snow and winter too:

Under the duvet's white drifts
we trespass unconsciously —

a sleeping thaw that threatens
waking separation.

("The Silence of Snow")

Many of these poems feature a woman choosing, or preparing to choose, wintry solitude over warm entanglement - or having solitude imposed on her by circumstance, as in the title poem.

All the same, I think my very favourite poems in the book are those which are not (ostensibly, at least) about the narrator of the poems, but about an external figure. I chose "'To the Gods the Shades'", about a 1st-century Roman occupier of Britain guarding the Empire's northern border, as my Tuesday Poem this week because I admire the way in which Kathleen Jones evokes the man, his times, and the country in which he serves, all in 24 economical lines, not a word wasted, nothing flashy (which would be inappropriate for this poem), everything achieved by the skilled deployment of language. The high point of this poem for me is

scouring the Tyne gap through this bleak
border town where everything closes at five —

lines that bridge the gap between historical and modern times with the complaint of a cosmopolitan traveller, a complaint such as ancient Roman or modern Briton might equally make.

Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21 is full of such deft touches. Worth reading, worth re-reading.

Tuesday Poem: 'To the Gods the Shades' by Kathleen Jones

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:25:00 +0000

Inscription on a 1st century Roman tombstone in Hexham.

The wolf and wild boar wintered here
where Flavinus' impetuous latin blood
felt the unkindness of snow

and the granite hardness of the Wall
whose builders he defended against
the brutal insurgence of Pict and Celt.

Days of cracked leather, blistered hands,
the horses' breath rising like bath-house steam,
a northern mist obscuring the sun's retina;

remembering the soft, olive-perfumed
flesh of southern lovers in the rough,
hessian coupling of Celtic women —

the wire-boned, woad-stained, spoils of war,
who worshipped alien Gods and stank
of semen and ambiguous politics.

Flavinus, Standard-Bearer to the Troop —
speared by the carved barbarian
trampled under his horse — killed

by the cold driven in on the east wind
scouring the Tyne gap through this bleak
border town where everything closes at five —

his final dread — to leave his bones
to winter north in the sour peat, covered
by the same grey stone he died for.

Credit note: "'To the Gods the Shades'" was first published in the Lancaster Lit Fest Anthology and is collected in Kathleen Jones' 2011 poetry collection Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21, published by Templar Poetry. It is reproduced by permission of the author. Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21 can be ordered from Templar Poetry.

Tim says: I will be reviewing Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21 later this week. I'll say more then about why I like the collection so much, but let me say now that many of the poems I like best in this collection skilfully evoke both character and place, as this poem does so well. I thrilled to stories of the Roman conquest of Britain, like The Eagle of the Ninth, when I was young - these days, I have a rather different take on imperial adventures and the grandeur that was Rome, but this poem revives the shades of that harsh borderland and its harsh inhabitants.

Kathleen Jones is one of the Tuesday Poets. You can check out all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog - the hub poem in the middle of the page, and all the other poems in the sidebar on the right.

What I Listened To In 2011: Brought To You By the Letter W

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 06:40:00 +0000

I listen to a lot of music (though not when I'm writing, funnily enough), and I think a comprehensive list is beyond me, so here's a look at my two favourite bands of the year.

Note: I chose not to embed videos in this post because it slows down loading time so much - but there are copious links to YouTube videos below.

Warpaint

At the top of the corresponding list of my 2010 listening, I put Warpaint. I'd only just started listening to them then, and I have listened to a lot more of their music in 2011, including their first release, the 2009 EP Exquisite Corpse. Here is a clip of them playing one of the songs from that EP, Krimson, in Auckland at the start of 2011 - a show I wish I'd seen live.

One of the many things I like about Warpaint is their willingness to reinvent their songs in live performance: here are links to extended live performances of the two songs they use as the basis for improvisation, Elephants and Beetles. (One of the things these live performances showcase is what a wonderful rhythm section they have in drummer Stella Mozgawa and bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg - check out Elephants in particular to see this in action.)

Wild Flag and its forerunners

In September, a new band called Wild Flag released its self-titled debut album. The band was new, but the members came from such prominent '90s bands as Sleater-Kinney, Helium and the lesser-known (to me anyway) Minders. While Warpaint, at least in their recorded incarnation, is music for thinking and dreaming, Wild Flag makes me want to get up and jump around the room. Sometimes, imperilling the cat and the furniture, I do.

Here are Wild Flag's entertaining videos for Romance and Electric Band, plus a live-in-the-studio version of my favourite song of theirs, Black Tiles, and an extended live workout of Racehorse.

My enjoyment of Wild Flag led me to check out Sleater-Kinney and Helium. 2/3 of Sleater-Kinney, Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss, now form half of Wild Flag, while Mary Timony, the prime mover of Helium, is now co-frontwoman of Wild Flag with Carrie Brownstein. (The fourth member of Wild Flag is Rebecca Cole, whose keyboards keep the band sounding as harsh as Sleater-Kinney often do.)

I'm finding Sleater-Kinney to be an acquired taste that I haven't fully acquired yet, but I do like this live performance of the epic Zeppelinesque song from their final album The Woods, Let's Call It Love, which segues into Entertain.

But Helium are great! I now have their 1995 album The Dirt of Luck (I don't have any idea what that means, either), and here are a couple of my favourite tracks from it, Skeleton and Honeycomb.

What else?

Here are a few other songs and pieces of music, old and new, that have been particular favourites of mine this year.

Kylesa, Don't Look Back (album version - I can't find a live version with good enough sound) - and here is a live performance: Kylesa covering Pink Floyd's Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun

Arcade Fire, Intervention

Motorhead, We Are The Roadcrew (studio version)

The Real Thing, You To Me Are Everything

Smokey Robinson, Cruisin'

Gustav Mahler, Symphony #5 In C Sharp Minor - 4. Adagietto (the "Death in Venice" theme)

Frederick Delius, Walk To The Paradise Garden

Dmitri Shostakovich, Festive Overture

What I Read In 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:19:00 +0000

In the epic tradition of What I Read In 2009 and What I Read In 2010 comes ... What I Read In 2011! "It's what I wanted Transformers 3 to be if I'd only had a bigger special effects budget" says cult indie film director Michael Bay.

I read 59 books in 2011. Here are links to a number I reviewed.

1. Wit of the Staircase by Saradha Koirala - debut NZ poetry collection; I really liked the wry humour and linguistic play on show here
2. A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction, edited by Anna Caro and Juliet Buchanan - NZ speculative short story anthology, including my story "The Last Good Place"
3. A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis - British memoir and meditation on grief
4. Grendel by John Gardner - US novella: the Beowulf story imagined from the monster's point of view
5. Returning by Pat Whitaker - NZ science fiction novel - an intriguing mixture of SF and alternate history
6. Carry On, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse - British humour; a collection of Jeeves & Wooster short stories
7. Hemingway in Spain by David P. Reiter - Australian poetry collection centred on the titular author's exploits in Spain
8. Dwarf Stars 2010, edited by Joshua Gage - annual anthology of short speculative poetry published by the Science Fiction Poetry Association
9. The Baron In The Trees by Italo Calvino - Italian novel in translation; like all the Calvino I have read, very good indeed
10. Reindeer People by Piers Vitebsky - another very good book - a nonfiction account of time spent with indigenous reindeer herders in Siberia from a British author of Russian descent
11. From Smoke to Mirrors : how New Zealand can replace fossil liquid fuels with locally-made renewable energy by 2040 by Kevin Cudby - nonfiction/transport/climate change - takes an optimistic view
12. Lives of the Poets by John Newton - well-written NZ poetry collection that failed to grab me initially, but got more interesting as it went along
13. The Topless Tower by Silvina Ocampo - Argentinean novella in translation, nominally YA
14."The Spectrum Collection" edited by John Prescott - sampler of horror fiction and poetry from Dark Continents Publishing - NZ, Australian and US authors with some good horror stories and poems
15. Rock and Roll Never Forgets by Deborah Grabien - US rock'n'roll crime novel
16. Punctured Experimental by Iain Britton - NZ poetry chapbook, experimental but accessible
17. In Pursuit... by Joanna FitzPatrick - US biographical novel about Katherine Mansfield
18. The Teachings of Don B. by Donald Barthelme - miscellany from the great US fabulist including short fiction and comic strips; not as strong as I'd hoped, overall
19. in vitro by Laura Solomon - NZ poetry collection with a dark edge
20. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert - classic French novel in translation
21. Island by Penelope Todd - NZ novel with historical and romance elements - I was nervous I wouldn't like it given those elements, but I enjoyed it a lot
22. Cars at the End of an Era: Transport Issues in the New Zealand Greenhouse by John Robinson - NZ nonfiction/transport/climate change - takes a pessimistic view: a good counterbalance to #11 above
23. A Room With A View by E. M. Forster - classic British novel
24. Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett - Discworld novel - pretty good, but there is little new under the sun or above the tortoise after so many Discworld novels
25. The Best Of Kim Stanley Robinson - selected short stories and novellas of this great US science fiction writer. All the stories very good, many excellent
26. Trace Fossils by Mary Cresswell - NZ poetry collection, the first 'serious' poetry collection from Mary Cresswell - as with Janis Freegard's poetry (see #36), I enjoy the combination of science and poetry
27. The Guild by Felicia Day (Omnibus edition of Issues 1-3) - US graphic novel by the multi-talented Ms Day. (Felicia Day and Joss Whedon have an interesting mentor/mentee professional relationship - he helped her develop as a writer and actor, she showed him the way to make web series work. When it comes to turning a TV or web series into a graphic novel, on the evidence of this vs #37, I would say that Felicia Day has a surer grasp on what works in the comics medium.)
28. The Corrosion Zone by Barbara Strang - NZ poetry collection in which I especially enjoyed the poems about Southland, where both the author and I grew up
29. He'll Be OK by Celia Lashlie - NZ parenting manual for parents of teenage boys - slightly uneasy mix of research and anecdote, but reassuring overall!
30. Such A Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry - novel of India, written by this Indian novelist who emigrated to Canada. I found the characters fascinating but the plot improbable
31. Lan Yuan : The Garden of Enlightenment, ed. James Beattie - history of formal Chinese gardens and guide to Lan Yuan, the Chinese garden in Dunedin, New Zealand. I was captivated by Lan Yuan when I visited it for the first time this year, and found this short essay collection placing in context very interesting as well
32. Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme - US short story collection - again, not quite as good as I expected. Barthelme has written some wonderful stories, but the hit-rate in this collection was lower than I'd hoped
33. Mr Allbones' Ferrets by Fiona Farrell - NZ novel, mainly set in the UK, which I reviewed for Landfall Review Online
34. One Was A Soldier by Julia Spencer-Fleming - US crime novel - she is one of my favourite crime novel, and this was a particularly good entry in the series
35. Immortal Love by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya - Russian short stories in translation
36. Kingdom Animalia : The Escapades of Linnaeus by Janis Freegard - NZ poetry collection memorably organised around Linnaeus' classification system
37. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 8: Last Gleaming by Joss Whedon - collecting the final five issues (#s 36-40) of Buffy Season 8, the continuation of the TV series in graphic novel form. This season has been patchy to say the least, but the final issue returns Buffy to her, and the series', strengths
38. Genesis by Bernard Beckett - NZ YA science fiction novel - very interesting ideas, but the framing story didn't work for me
39. On The Overgrown Path by David Herter - US novella with speculative elements; the central character is Czech composer Leoš Janáček
40. True Spirit: The Aussie Girl Who Took On The World by Jessica Watson - record of her non-stop solo round the world yacht voyage - at 16, she was the youngest person to do this. An impulse buy at an airport bookstore that I really enjoyed!
41. Guarding the Flame by Majella Cullinane - fine debut collection by this Irish poet now living in NZ
42. Unless by Carol Shields - Canadian novel; I enjoyed it, but others who have read more of her work said this was not among her best
43. Mediated by Thomas de Zengotita - nonfiction account, and at times jeremiad, about the effects of pervasive media on perception, self-image, childrearing and politics
44. Burn by Nevada Barr - US crime novel - a long way from being this normally excellent author's best work, and probably the book I enjoyed least this year
45. The Coldest Place on Earth by Robert Thomson - narrative of one of the lesser-known Antarctic journeys, serviceably rather than excitingly told
46. The Day The Raids Came, edited by Valerie Morse - excellent collection of accounts by those caught up in the New Zealand police "terror" raids of October 2007 on Tuhoe and anarchist activists, a classic case of 'have new anti-terrorist powers, will use them'
47. Slightly Peculiar Love Stories, edited by Penelope Todd - ebook anthology of love stories by NZ and international authors, including my story "Said Sheree".
48. The Secret River by Kate Grenville - Australian historical novel of transportation, settlement, and conquest
49. The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin - slightly disappointing novel set in the Haninish universe by one of my favourite SF authors
50. The Carbon Challenge : New Zealand's Emissions Trading Scheme by Geoff Bertram and Simon Terry - NZ non-fiction; shows up how the Emissions Trading Scheme, supposedly set up to impose costs of greenhouse gas emitters, has ended up subsidising them instead
51. Portals by Robin Fry - NZ poetry collection - some lovely poems here, including this one.
52. Luuurve Is A Many Trousered Thing... by Louise Rennison - fiction/YA novel - a 'read something completely different' challenge for my book group - I enjoyed this more than I expected
53. The Cancellation of Clouds by P. S. Cottier - Australian poetry collection with a distinctively wry yet dark tone and very effective use of long stanzas and densely packed lines
54. Tongues of Ash by Keith Westwater - NZ poetry collection; a fine debut collection from my book-tour partner.
55. Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente - US fantasy novel based on Russian folklore; you'll have to wait till my Belletrista review to see what I thought of it ;-)
56. Scott's Last Biscuit by Sarah Moss - nonfiction/polar exploration and literature - liked the way it didn't just focus on the obvious examples - disliked the heavy-handed explication of what writers many years distant from us "really" meant
57. Not Saying Goodbye At Gate 21 by Kathleen Jones - first poetry collection from the noted biographer. Some wonderful landscape and personal poetry here - the best of these poems are those that bring the two together.
58. Tales For Canterbury, edited by Anna Caro and Cassie Hart - a fine collection of short stories (and a poem) by NZ and international authors, raising funds for victims of the Canterbury earthquakes. Includes my original story "Sign of the Tui".
59. The Comforter by Helen Lehndorf - a lovely debut poetry collection: warm, inviting poems and another great production job from Helen Rickerby's Seraph Press.

What does that all add up to?

I read:

21 novels or novellas
15 poetry books - 14 collections and 1 anthology
12 nonfiction books
9 short story collections or anthologies
2 graphic novels

Highlights

I was surprised to see that I'd read more novels than poetry collections, and that's probably because it feels like poetry was the highlight of my reading this year, with short fiction close behind. The only novel I gave 5 stars out of 5 to on LibraryThing was Italo Calvino's The Baron in the Trees, though Kate Grenville's The Secret River came close. Madame Bovary and Island were good too, and I enjoyed the ingenious storyline of Pat Whitaker's Returning.

I finished the year with two excellent poetry collections, Kathleen Jones' Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21 and Helen Lehndorf's The Comforter, and right from the first collection I read this year, Saradha Koirala's The Wit of the Staircase, I've found poems that have excited, moved and challenged me. One thing I'm keen to do next year is read more Australian poetry, to build on David Reiter's Hemingway in Spain and P. S. Cottier's The Cancellation of Clouds, both of which I enjoyed, and each of which is somewhat different from what I've read recently by any New Zealand poet. Vive la difference!

Short story anthologies have been another highlight of 2011, with the two anthologies from Wellington's own Random Static Press, A Foreign Country and Tales for Canterbury, and also the Slightly Peculiar Love Stories anthology from Dunedin's Rosa Mira Books, being particular favourites - and not just because I had a story in each of them :-). New Zealand continues to produce outstanding short story writers, and in the latter two anthologies, which mix stories from New Zealand and overseas writers, the stories by New Zealand writers stand up very well.

Nonfiction highlights included The Reindeer People, A Grief Observed, The Day The Raids Came and Lan Yuan: The Garden of Enlightenment. And when it came to graphic novels, I think Felicia Day has grasped the essence of translating one visual medium into another in a way that Joss Whedon, for all his brilliance in other fields, has yet to master.

Yay for books! I think I might read some more of them in 2012.

How To Buy My Books: Men Briefly Explained, Anarya's Secret And More

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 02:21:00 +0000

Books

My new poetry collection Men Briefly Explained is available from bookshops and a wide range of online stores, including Amazon.com and iTunes.
My Earthdawn fantasy novel Anarya's Secret is available from Amazon.com as a Kindle e-book.
My short story collection Transported is now available for the Kindle.
Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, an anthology I co-edited with Mark Pirie, won the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collected Work. You can buy Voyagers from Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle e-book, or buy it directly from the publisher at the Voyagers mini-site.

You can find details of all these books at my Amazon.com author page.

If you want a print copy and can't find one, please email me.

Recent Anthologies

Slightly Peculiar Love Stories is an anthology of 26 love stories by New Zealand and international authors, available as an ebook from Rosa Mira Books, which includes my story "Said Sheree". Isn't the cover great?
Tales For Canterbury is a fundraising anthology from which all proceeds go to the New Zealand Red Cross Christchurch Earthquake Appeal. It has an amazing lineup of authors - Neil Gaiman among them - and I'm delighted that my story "Sign of the Tui", original to this collection, is included.
For a great sampler of NZ science fiction and fantasy, try A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction, which includes my original story "The Last Good Place".
For the cricket fan, or the poetry fan, in your life: A Tingling Catch: A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009, which includes my poem "Swing".

The Tim Jones Review Of Books

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:26:00 +0000

When people ask me what I do, writing-wise, I don't usually answer "book reviewer". All the same, I do write the occasional book review, and this year I even ascended to the giddy heights of a feature article about one of my favourite authors.

Here are some of the book reviews I've had published in the last few years, plus that feature article.

In Belletrista

Belletrista is an online magazine dedicated to reviewing and writing about books by women, especially books in translation. You can find out more on its About Us page.

Though all the books are by women, a number of the reviewers are men, and I contribute occasional reviews. There are some great reviews and articles on the site, and I encourage you to check it out.

Feature article:

Be Careful Out There, Be Careful in Here: The Dangerous Worlds of Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Reviews:

New: Deathless, by Catherynne M Valente

The Topless Tower, by Silvina Ocampo, translated by James Womack

There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales, by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, translated by Keith Gessen and Anna Summers

The Word Book, by Mieko Kanai, translated by Paul McCarthy

Selected Prose and Prose-Poems, by Gabriela Mistral, translated by Stephen Tapscott

Kalpa Imperial, by Angelica Gorodischer, translated by Ursula Le Guin

The Secret History of Moscow, by Ekaterina Sedia

In Landfall Review Online

The Landfall Review Online gives the literary journal Landfall the chance to review the books it doesn't have space to review in its print issues. I have written one review for them:

The Unsuspecting Huia: a review of Mr Allbones' Ferrets, by Fiona Farrell

That's All, Folks (till 2012)

And with this list (which I'll make into a page on this site, and update it as new reviews comes out), I exit regular blogging mode and enter January weekly blogging mode.

Look out for my "What I Read In 2011" post, in which I complain about how little reading I've got done and then admit I've actually read more books this year than last year, and for my "What I Listened To In 2011" post, in which I reveal that a new band beginning with W has joined Warpaint in the pantheon.

Merry Xmas if you celebrate Christmas, Happy Holidays if you don't (or even if you do), and a Happy New Year, everyone!

Tuesday Poem: Appearances

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:04:00 +0000

It is autumn in the land of appearances.
Film sets are being taken down.
To the south, the audience
diminishes to haze.

Out beyond the Heads, the crash of guns.
Shore batteries, defend us!
Ships of every nation
have come to take our lamb.

A broadside works wonders.
We rush out in our dinghies.
If you are dismasted, take my life-raft.
Take my rubber ring, my hand.

Credit note: "Appearances" was first published in Bravado 7, July 2006.

Tim says: This poem has nothing to do with Christmas, except that I wrote it during my Christmas holidays a few years back, walking south along the ridge from Seatoun and looking at ships steaming into Wellington Harbour past the old gun emplacements.

You can check out all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem Blog - this week's hub poem in the centre of the page, and all the other Tuesday Poems on the right.

At Home He's A Blog Tourist

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 03:08:00 +0000

Latest Blog Tour Interview

Wellington poet and author Janis Freegard asks me about how Men Briefly Explained fits with my previous books, and what I'm working on at the moment: Interview with Tim Jones.

Previous Interviews

12 December 2011: Wellington poet and publisher Helen Rickerby asks me about the development of Men Briefly Explained as a collection, and I revealed that it started life as a never-published chapbook called "Guy Thing": Tuesday Poet: An interview with Tim Jones about Men Briefly Explained.

12 December 2011: Christchurch fantasy author, poet and book blogger Helen Lowe talks with me about whether men buy poetry, the identity of those mysterious men who write poetry, and what relationship there is between poetry and speculative fiction. Look through the comments for a giveaway I'm offering! A Magical Mystery Tour Through “Men Briefly Explained” — & A Few Side Topics — With Author Tim Jones

7 December 2011: Auckland poet, graphic poet, short story writer and novelist Rachel Fenton asks me to dance: Tim to dance: Rachel Fenton interviews Tim Jones.

6 December 2011: Wellington poet Harvey Molloy talks with me about men, mid-life crises, art and politics: An Interview with Tim Jones.

1 December 2011: Dunedin poet Kay McKenzie Cooke talks with me about Southland, prose poems, and the fabled Gore High School jersey: New Zealand Writer Tim Jones Explains.

27 November 2011: Canberra poet PS Cottier talk with me about hard work, whether the male sex has a future, and Swannis: Of Poems and Men: Interview with Tim Jones.

An Interview With Penelope Cottier

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 23:48:00 +0000

Penelope Susan Cottier, who usually writes as P.S. Cottier, is a poet and short story writer living in Canberra. Penelope was born in Oxford, England and moved to Australia as a baby. She has published three books; two of poetry and one collection of short stories.

Penelope's poem The Exquisite Confusion of the Prose Poem was my Tuesday Poem this week.

Penelope, I have just finished reading your second poetry collection, The Cancellation of Clouds, and I've enjoyed it very much. It seems to me that you combine a number of aspects in your poetry: political commentary, nature poetry (especially about birds), elements of fantasy and surrealism, and grounded observations of your life and the lives of those around you. Does that sound like a recognisable description of your poetry, or have I got it all wrong?

It does sound recognisable to me Tim, in the way you can read a map and recall a seldom visited landscape from it. All the elements you mention are there, certainly, but for me one of the major things I think of is the play of words in each poem, whether the topic is a serious one or a lighter piece (a distinction that I try to erase, anyway). I often think of my work in sporting terms, I'm afraid, and probably the most apt comparison would be chess boxing; I don't know if you're familiar with this, I've only seen it on youtube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5TQSKmS3o but it involves men with very flat noses playing chess in a ring and then whacking into each other. I try and combine the intellectual and the slap of surprise all the time, so it's a kind of simultaneous chess boxing.

I'm glad to hear you liked Cancellation; I was so worried, and having enjoyed Men Briefly Explained made me even more anxious. The tone of mine is so much rougher than yours; more unsettled, I think, although you also value humour.

I enjoyed the various political jabs in your poems - both in this collection and those I've read online. Would I be right in thinking you are not a huge fan of Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and his policies?

Byron's ability to suddenly insert an blinding political jab into the flow of his perfect couplets (say about Lord Elgin stealing the Greek marbles) is something I admire greatly, even envy. Today we tend to draw a rigid distinction between political and non-political writing. I sometimes think that there should be a new sport developed, where the crudest 'real world' poems face off against the very worst 'moment of personal revelation' poems. The former could be represented (in the green corner) by a truly inept rave about climate change, full of well-meaning (and valid) politics, the very obtuseness of which gives poetry and politics a very bad name. This is a creature which can sometimes still be seen in alternative publications or heard at poetry slams. In the white corner we could have the 'my mother just died and I feel sad' poem, which inevitably uses words such as 'numinous' and 'lucidity' and won't lower itself to any knowledge of the world outside the poet's ring of refinement. (Penelope stops rant, runs to check Tim's latest book, while not of the sort described, doesn't contain the words 'numinous' or 'lucidity'. Quick flick reveals neither, but she is still worried.) Both of these extremes make me puke, although my personal leaning is more towards the former, and there is just not enough good political poetry being written. (I don't know about New Zealand poetry in this context, I'm talking about Australia.)

Speaking of puking, Tony Abbott, with his open discussion of the importance of his women's virginity, his pandering to the lowest common denominator on climate change, and his virulent defence of the mining industry's fight against increased taxation is definitely not my cup of tea. Our Prime Minister Julia Gillard is by no means perfect, but next to Abbott she seems like a shining light. I recently wrote a poem called Abbott's booby, which is far from subtle in describing my reaction to him, but which is, I hope, saved from the ranting corner by humour. And fantastically detailed ornithology.

One thing that strikes me about your poetry is that even quite long poems often take the form of a single stanza, and that you use long line lengths in many of your poems. Technically, why does that approach appeal to you?

I hadn't really noticed this, and thank you for pointing it out. To put it in a negative way, I think that I am an extremely impatient writer, and want to get everything down quickly, with as little hesitation as possible, and that as I value the prickly, unsettling tone, I am not interested in smoothing things out later. I'd rather go for the KO than the points victory, but perhaps I need to look at my footwork. (I know I've flogged the boxing thing to death, I'll stop now.)

I sometimes feel that poems are being dictated to me, and it's a question of getting them down, catching them before the unseen speaker runs away.

There are some poems in Cancellation that use shorter lines, such as 'The atheistic angel' or 'Tiresias at the beach' but they are the exception. And the prose poems sometimes just cascade on and on.

I haven't read your first collection, The Glass Violin. Are the poems in The Cancellation of Clouds recognisably part of the same lineage, or does The Cancellation of Clouds represent a sharp break from your previous collection?

My first book contained near every poem of publishable standard that I had written, and there is more variation in quality there. Many of the topics you mentioned above are represented in the first collection too, but I feel I am writing better now, with more confidence and more ability to sift out the less successful works.

The Glass Violin was quite well reviewed, and one reviewer spoke of how 'busy' my world was. There is still a lot going on in Cancellation, but I think the poems speak to each other a little more coherently. I am trying out more forms too, notably prose-poems, which weren't in the first collection.

I was intrigued by something I read on your blog, referring to your first collection:

Yet I actually write quite quickly. I’ve just been a shocker about trying to have my work published. About a year ago I decided to put an emphasis on seeking publication, and I have been quite fortunate in finding places that liked my work.

I have three questions about this:

(i) What prevented or discouraged you from seeking publication for your poems for so long?

I lost quite a few years of my life to depression, which is now routinely described as the black dog, a personification that I find quite amusing, as it conjures up a fat black Labrador acting as a benevolent guide dog, a creature as far from the quiet, years-long desperation of losing one's way as it is possible to imagine. Anyone who speaks glibly of depression should be taken out and shot, in my liberal opinion. Poets do seem to have high rates of depression, but this is not what makes them poets.

I struggled to write during this time (although I did complete work) and was much too ill to cope with what I call the administrative side of poetry, or indeed any contact with the outside world. I felt ashamed at suffering from depression, which makes about as much sense as being ashamed of having cancer. I think at some level I blamed myself for being weak, and also that I had 'no reason' to be depressed, being in the sunny, white, middle class Australia I inhabit.

Interestingly, this is the first time I have discussed my illness in a public forum; as if the distance to New Zealand makes it easier to be honest. Although, of course, with them internets, there is no distance at all.

(ii) What caused you to change your mind and start submitting poems?

I'm tempted to simply write 'medication' and that is part of the truth. I finally got to the stage where I knew I was not going to die as a result of depression. I worked my way out of depression through employment at a national cultural institution, working in copyright law, an experience which was positive but which taught me that I am fundamentally not a lawyer. Then I wrote my PhD on Dickens, at the Australian National University, three months into which I had a baby. Miraculously, these two things that could have proven difficult, also helped pull me away from depression.

After the PhD I decided that I didn't want to try and be an academic either, and that I would try and work at my own writing, rather than produce scholarly articles.

Without my husband, there is no doubt that I would not be around by now. Because of him, I am also free to write as much as I want. So from a most traditional family structure I am now able to compose cutting poems about the world's injustices including the oppression of women, and from having survived depression, to write funny poems about Death. Death appears in most of my works, it seems to me, in one form or another.

Incidentally, I never used poetry to get out of depression; and my poems are not at all confessional. On the contrary, the slight distance I like to achieve through humour or word-play is something I value all the more for having been depressed. I invented the pen name P.S. Cottier, as I almost forgot to stick around. It's a reference to a post-script, and is also gender neutral, as I often write in a man's voice.

(iii) Do you think that in some ways it has been an advantage to have a lot of strong poems already written before you began to submit any of your poetry?

This is definitely true, although I'd rather not have had the extreme experiences that led to my nice little stockpile of poetic weaponry.

The Cancellation of Clouds is your third book; the one we haven't talked about yet is your short story collection A Quiet Day and other stories. I'm keen to hear more about that collection, and I'd also like to know: do you alternate writing fiction and poetry, or do you work on both during the course of a writing day or writing week?

I was very pleased to have A Quiet Day and other stories highly commended in the recent Society Of Women Writers NSW book awards in Sydney, in the adult fiction category. It is a tiny volume of stories, ranging from the slightly surreal to the examination of loss and renewal in a suburban context. The judge of the awards referred to my stories as having a 'poetic element', and certainly, plot is not my particular friend. Or character development. Just description and word-play, in a slightly different form.

I can envisage writing a volume in which prose-poems are mixed with stories that are just a verb or two from being prose poems. Whether people can envisage reading such a thing is another question. If only I could work in a science fiction element it might become the world's least publishable book.

No structure is imposed by me on my writing week except that I sit down each day at a particular time and write. I am quite looking forward to the minimal structure of being a Tuesday Poet, and posting something on my blog every Tuesday. I spend a lot more time on poetry than prose.

Each of your books has been published by Ginninderra Press. Have you enjoyed having a continuing relationship with one publisher?

Yes, I have enjoyed this. Ginninderra Press was originally based in Canberra, but moved to South Australia just before I sent them my manuscript for the first poetry collection. The two events were allegedly not related. GP publishes a lot of first writers, and it is not in the business primarily to make a profit. (As opposed to those other huge money-grubbing poetry publishers, with their Stephen King type print runs and huge advances!) They recently celebrated their 15th birthday.

All tiny presses have limited funds for promotion, so there is a great irony in the fact that the less commercial one's work is, the more one must work to promote it. This brilliant insight may have occurred to you too, Tim.

Many of my readers may not be familiar with as much Australian poetry as they should be - and I'm one such reader. Are there Australian poets, or for that matter any poets, you especially enjoy or have been influenced by?

Firstly, I will take your stated unfamiliarity and up it with my near total ignorance of New Zealand poetry. Hopefully involvement in Tuesday poets will go some way to changing this. And I will be going to a reading by New Zealand poet Vincent O'Sullivan in Canberra next year.

I must admit that my literary heroes, until recently, have been from England and, to a lesser extent, the United States. Emily Dickinson, the aforementioned Byron (now there's an interesting coupling), TS Eliot, Shakespeare; all very traditional. But I truly believe that you must read all this to be any good at all.

If you want to read Australian poetry on line, I recommend the Australian Poetry Library. http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/. You can search by poet or topic. Of course only one-third of the poets represented are women, but there are many fine poets here. I am totally in love with the works of joanne burns, a Sydney poet who writes prose poems, of great wit and intelligence, some of which are readable in the Poetry Library. Seeing her read last year was a genuine highlight for me.

There are also many fine poets in Canberra, such as Alan Gould, Geoff Page, Hal Judge, Kathy Kituai, Melinda Smith and many many others, and I try to go to as many launches and readings as I can without compromising my work. It is so good to be able to be a little social, after having been forced into myself by depression. I am also enjoying my doing own readings several times a year, and judging competitions.

Finally, and if you're willing to tell us, what writing projects are you working on at the moment?

I have just started working on a possible series of linked poems dealing with extinction starring the cane toad as narrator. The corroborree frog may also be in there. We'll see.

I am shocking in that if something catches my eye, whether it be a prompt for a competition, or an interesting argument on a web-site, I'll drop everything and wade in.

Most of my good work comes from chasing weirdness in this way, rather than having a particular end in sight. One of my first contacts with you, for example (after you had brutally rejected one of my poems for an e-zine in an editorial capacity!) was because you had an excellent poem about snails on your blog, by Janis Freegard, and I was about to publish a story about snails on mine. (I carefully avoided any puns about getting Shelley during my first email.) That was weird and fruitful. I'm also shocking in that I will post a poem on my blog that has not been published elsewhere; I just can't stand waiting at times, and going through the established channels of submitting to a journal.

And let's face it, if I wanted a proper, ordered career, I'd be a lawyer, billing every six minutes of my time to a client. I don't want that, and revel in my ability to write what I want. It's a privilege to be where I am now. My business card says 'poet'.

How to buy The Cancellation of Clouds

The Cancellation of Clouds is published by Ginninderra Press, as were P.S. Cottier's two previous books, The Glass Violin (poetry) and A Quiet Day and other stories (short fiction). Each can be ordered through the poetry and fiction sections of the Ginninderra Press website.

Chaps And Chapbooks

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:47:00 +0000

In the latest blog tour interview, Wellington poet and publisher Helen Rickerby asks me about the development of Men Briefly Explained as a collection, and I revealed that it started life as a never-published chapbook called "Guy Thing". It's all revealed in Tuesday Poet: An interview with Tim Jones about Men Briefly Explained.

Previous Interviews

12 December 2011: Christchurch fantasy author, poet and book blogger Helen Lowe talks with me about whether men buy poetry, the identity of those mysterious men who write poetry, and what relationship there is between poetry and speculative fiction. Look through the comments for a giveaway I'm offering! A Magical Mystery Tour Through “Men Briefly Explained” — & A Few Side Topics — With Author Tim Jones

7 December 2011: Auckland poet, graphic poet, short story writer and novelist Rachel Fenton asks me to dance: Tim to dance: Rachel Fenton interviews Tim Jones.

6 December 2011: Wellington poet Harvey Molloy talks with me about men, mid-life crises, art and politics: An Interview with Tim Jones.

1 December 2011: Dunedin poet Kay McKenzie Cooke talks with me about Southland, prose poems, and the fabled Gore High School jersey: New Zealand Writer Tim Jones Explains.

27 November 2011: Canberra poet PS Cottier talk with me about hard work, whether the male sex has a future, and Swannis: Of Poems and Men: Interview with Tim Jones.

Tuesday Poem: The Exquisite Confusion Of The Prose Poem, by P.S. Cottier

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:34:00 +0000

Exquisite, as if there's pleasure in my mongrel life. Dog of the boulevards, sniffing this way and that, torn between the mundane and the mellifluous. Hand on my leash pulls this way, towards rhyme and rhythm, then that way, towards common sense, if not the solid brass lamp-post of the best-seller. Trickle of golden adjective runs from me, moderated by the cut of verb. It must end, this torture, this constant orphaning. Father was a Poem of the Proper Sort/His Lines They Echoed as They Ought. Even when I will myself into a sad bad clang of couplets, they won't break the flow of this word after word, the hideous horizontality of being that beset me from the start. I am doomed to lie down, to cover myself with the rags of reason, frayed into flags of a red agonising interest, signalling the daytime nightmare of the metaphor. Cruel matador of the plunging quill, never-ending coup de grâce. Mother's mission, to share recipes and love stories with the masses, has eluded me. In cook-books she was legion; in romance novels legendary. She tied an apron of prosey appropriateness each time she entered the literary kitchen. Hand over honest hand, she ribboned herself in the present tense (or past simple). And her progeny is this half-slipped knot, the dropped stitch, the soufflé which never rises into ether and the crêpe can never be mere honest pancake, stacked into hearty flat use. Creeping creature of the half-light, twin of an invisible doppelgänger, neither one nor not either, I pull my carcass through the cruel streets of non-belonging. At least, at least, release is soon, that delicious sip of easy non-being. Be seeing. Been seen.

Credit note: "The Exquisite Confusion Of The Prose Poem" is from P.S. Cottier's second poetry collection The Cancellation of Clouds, published by Ginninderra Press, and is reproduced by permission of the author. The Cancellation of Clouds can be ordered from Ginninderra Press.

Tim says: I have recently finished reading The Cancellation of Clouds in preparation for my interview with P.S. (Penelope) Cottier, which I will be posting here later this week. I very much enjoy the spikiness, humour and energy of her poetry, which is well represented in this tale of the tormented prose poem, forever pulled this way and that.

P.S. Cottier has just joined the Tuesday Poets, and you can read her first Tuesday Poem post here: http://pscottier.com/2011/12/12/progress-by-p-s-cottier/. I look forward to reading more of her poems - and watch out for our interview later this week.

You can check out all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog - the hub poem in the middle of the page, and all the other poems in the sidebar on the right.

The Magical Mystery Tour (is coming to take you away)

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:37:00 +0000

The Magical Mystery Tour is coming to take you away - away, that is, to Helen Lowe's blog, where she talks with me about whether men buy poetry, the identity of those mysterious men who write poetry, and what relationship there is between poetry and speculative fiction. It all finishes up with Buffy, of course:

A Magical Mystery Tour Through “Men Briefly Explained” — & A Few Side Topics — With Author Tim Jones, an interview with Helen Lowe.

Previous Interviews

7 December 2011: Auckland poet, graphic poet, short story writer and novelist Rachel Fenton asks me to dance: Tim to dance: Rachel Fenton interviews Tim Jones.

6 December 2011: Wellington poet Harvey Molloy talks with me about men, mid-life crises, art and politics: An Interview with Tim Jones.

1 December 2011: Dunedin poet Kay McKenzie Cooke talks with me about Southland, prose poems, and the fabled Gore High School jersey: New Zealand Writer Tim Jones Explains.

27 November 2011: Canberra poet PS Cottier talk with me about hard work, whether the male sex has a future, and Swannis: Of Poems and Men: Interview with Tim Jones.

An Interview With Johanna Knox

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 23:46:00 +0000

Johanna Knox is the author of an intriguing new children’s book series for 8-12 year olds - The Fly Papers. The first book, recently released, is The Flytrap Snaps.

Described in reviews as everything from ‘fresh’ and ‘funny’, to ‘quirky’ ‘madcap’, and ‘bizarre’, this fast-paced mystery adventure is set in a booming movie industry town called Filmington. It features resourceful children, a ruthless venture capitalist, and a plethora of walking, talking carnivorous plants, who’ve been genetically engineered to star in horror movies.

Johanna has spent much of her career writing for museums, as well as for magazines, youth websites, and educational publications. However, her passion has always been fiction. This is her first published novel, and she has teamed up with her partner Walter Moala, a graphic designer, to bring it out under their own imprint – Hinterlands.

How did the idea to write The Fly Papers come about?

About eight years ago, our young son got obsessed with carnivorous plants, so we bought him a small collection of different species for Christmas. Then I think I became one of those dreadful parents who takes over their child’s interest! His obsession wore off (hopefully I didn’t smother it), but mine stayed.

I was fascinated with each plant’s personality. They felt more like pets than pot plants, and I used to wonder what they’d be like if they became animate.

I started a story about them but wasn’t sure where it was going, and put it aside. I came back to it, ages later, after the global financial crisis had hit. By then I’d thought a lot about debt, and consumerism, and financial exploitation. I melded those themes with the carnivorous plant story, and suddenly I was excited about it again.

It’s perfectly possible to read The Flytrap Snaps for fun without dwelling on financial issues, but those ideas are there, if readers care to delve into them. I’d like to think the book could make a good discussion starter if parents wanted to talk about money with their children.

How long did it take for the idea to become a published reality?

The year before last, a whole lot of things came together and Walter and I found ourselves in a position to do what we’d always talked about, which was publish our own books. We figured, ‘it’s now or never’, and it made sense to start with this carnivorous plant fiction series.

I've got a copy of The Flytrap Snaps, in front of me, and it looks great! How much effort did it take to get that superb production quality?

Thank you for saying so!

Well, Walter really drove the production process. We felt that if we were investing so much into the books, the production values should reflect that, and as self publishers, we could control the outcome.

Walter worked closely with MWGraphics on production. For example they collated all the illustrations and sample text onto A2 pages and tested the ink coverage on the paper stock on the printing press. It doesn’t get more accurate than that. We knew exactly what we were going to get before we went to print.

Walter has a great (and longstanding) relationship with MWGraphics, and they really went the extra mile to help us get a result that they were proud of too.

A major part of the appeal of the book is the illustrations by Sabrina Malcolm. How did Sabrina come on board as the illustrator?

From the start, we wanted the books illustrated. We were inspired by movies like Little Shop of Horrors, and old B-grade movie posters. We began to imagine what the plants could look like but, as Walter says, we needed the safe hands of a great illustrator who knew the subject, but would also add their own ideas.

We’d worked with Sabrina before, back when Walter was at Huia Publishers, and I was also doing a bit of children’s book editing for them.

Walter and I both worked on the Huia picture book Koro’s Medicine by Melanie Drewery. We were looking for an illustrator for it, and a friend recommended this woman Sabrina who had a background in botanical illustration – ideal for a book about native medicinal plants. So she came on board.

We loved working with her, and the book ended up as a finalist in the NZ Post Children’s Book Awards, so she did a great job.

Some years later we reconnected with Sabrina when our respective sons became good friends. When we needed an illustrator for a novel about carnivorous plants, it was a no-brainer to approach her, and that’s when we discovered that unbeknown to us she’d been harbouring a deep fascination with carnivorous plants for years!

Will Sabrina be illustrating the whole series?

I hope so! They’re a big part of The Fly Papers’ identity.

The Flytrap Snaps is published by Hinterlands. What made you decide to take this route to publication?

Walter and I had been running our business, Hinterlands, for years, contracting out writing and design services, and usually working for separate clients. The book series was a way to combine our experience and skills on a single project that we could take full responsibility for.

Do you envisage that Hinterlands will publish work by other authors?

We’ve always had that in mind as a goal, and we’ll look into it further down the track.

I was impressed by the list of bookshops that carry The Flytrap Snaps (on the right of the linked page). As a new publisher, how have you gone about getting this wide distribution? Was it difficult to achieve?

Before publication, we did a road trip through sections of the North Island, gauging and drumming up interest at independent bookshops. After it was published, we did our best to get in touch with as many of those shops – and other independents – as possible, to see if they’d stock it. And it’s ongoing. We’re constantly working on getting it into more places. But that does take time.

It’s been all about lots of emailing, plus in-person promotion to bookstores near us. We’ve also had kind friends and associates in other parts of the country help promote it in their locales. Plus whenever we go on a trip, we make sure we take a few books to show the local shop.

Forming good relationships with independent booksellers is really a holy grail for us. They have such a passion for books and for the whole process of matching books with people. They’re the ones who are likely to hand-sell your book if they like it … and that’s what you need when you’re starting out and don’t have a name.

The more booksellers we can find who decide they actually like our book and want to put it in the hands of customers they think would like it too, the better.

They don’t have to be independent booksellers of course – there are stores in chains where the individuals running it have the same ethic. Someone told me you’ll often find that kind of attitude in chain stores in small towns, where they may be the only bookshop around, so they become an extra special part of their community.

All that said, we’re discovering how brilliant and supportive libraries and librarians can be to deal with, too!

The advent of ebooks has had a big impact on adult fiction. Has it had the same effect on children's and YA fiction? Is The Flytrap Snaps available as an ebook, or if not, do you plan to turn it into an ebook?

I think ebooks are taking longer to take off in the world of children’s and YA literature, but it’s definitely happening.

We do plan to turn it (and the other books in The Fly Papers series) into ebooks in the not-so-distant future.

Walter and I love printed books though! We’re not luddites by any stretch, but we’ve both always loved the look and feel and smell of printed books, and somehow they feel more real, more substantial and more permanent.

When I have a new book out, and given my other commitments, I find it difficult to maintain the balance between writing and promotion - put another way, it's hard to get writing done when there's a book to promote. If you have a secret to maintaining that balance, I'd love to find out what it is!

Me? I’ve been searching for balance – any kind of balance – since I can remember. Maybe the balance is just in the constant seesawing.

It’s funny how this is such a major topic of conversation when writers get together! We always seem to be comparing notes about how we have or haven’t found balance of one sort or another, whether it’s writing vs promotion, writing for love vs writing for money, or writing anything vs family commitments!

To get back to your original question, promotion eats up a lot of time, and so does distribution. Even just the packaging, invoicing and mailing. All the jobs that individually only take a few minutes, really add up.

A wise friend recently told me how she likes to make sure she never lets a whole day get totally consumed by long lists of small jobs (like promotion and admin tasks). Instead she makes sure that every single day, she spends at least a bit of time making headway on a large scale job (like a novel manuscript).

I’ve tried to force myself to do that lately, and it’s really helpful. Otherwise, it’s too easy to put off the large-scale tasks, thinking I’ll wait till I have a day clear of small tasks. But that day never comes!

A slightly different question: do you enjoy the whole publishing and promotional side of the business, or is it a necessary evil that one has to undergo?

Hmm … it’s definitely an interesting learning curve, and it’s satisfying overseeing the entire process. On the other hand, sometimes it would be nice to have that extra support of an external publisher.

As well as continuing work on The Fly Papers, I’ve recently been commissioned by another publisher to write a book.

I’m finding this a very different experience. Just having the external validation of someone saying, ‘We believe that you can do this book,’ is so reassuring. Whereas when you self publish you need an amount of inner self-belief that it’s frankly impossible to maintain all the time.

When I can’t maintain it I have to go onto auto-pilot, and think, okay, whether I believe in this project or not right now, I just have to keep trudging along this path I’ve mapped out … keep putting one foot in front of the other.

When it comes to the actual promotion, it can be deeply uncomfortable trumpeting your own book, especially when it’s effectively self published. It’s like I have to split myself into two selves – the writer-me and the promoter-me. It’s not always a happy split, either.

The writer-me (which I’d suggest is much closer to the real me!) just wants to immerse myself in the story, and have a handful of people like the story for its own sake, and ignore all practicalities … But the promoter-me has to block out any investment in people liking the book for any reason other than that it’s a business venture, and we need to make some money off it! (And that means I have to get LOTS of people to like it.)

Right now, you’re really interviewing both those people, and this is an odd feeling. The writer-me is a wear-my-heart-on-my-sleeve kind of person who wants to answer everything you’re asking me fully and frankly, and not a little self-deprecatingly. But as I reply I’ve got the promoter-me in my head, interjecting sometimes with ‘you can’t say this…’ and ‘make sure you slip in something about that …’

On a lighter note, one fun thing about promoting this book is that I get to talk a lot about carnivorous plants, especially to kids. I love it that anywhere I set up a display or talk, there are always one or two children who seem so enthralled that they can’t leave.

They will come, look at the plants, and then wander off (or be dragged off) … Then a few minutes or half an hour later they’re back … And then later they’re back again, and each time they think up new questions to ask. These plants really seem to get under the skin of some children.

Can you reveal a bit about the second book in the series?

Well it’s coming out next year, and it has a lot of stunt wrestlers in it, as well as carnivorous plants.

One final question: what's the best thing about being a writer?

Not having to sit around wishing I was a writer, I suppose, which I would … if I wasn’t.

On the other hand, occasionally, when things aren’t going so well, I dream about chucking it all in and becoming a florist or a herbalist or a perfumer. I reckon lots of people must have fantasy alter-ego jobs that they float away to when things get too much in their real job.

Anything else you’d like to say?

Well, the promoter-me says I have to tell you that The Flytrap Snaps makes a really good gift for bright, inquisitive children when packaged up with a real Venus flytrap from your local garden centre. Especially as in the back of the book you’ll find detailed instructions for looking after your own Venus flytrap!

Invitation To The Dance

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:22:00 +0000

The hits just keep on coming! (And yes, I did write "Yummy Yummy Yummy I've Got Love In My Tummy", and yes, I did write "Ferry Across Wellington Harbour To Eastbourne, Stopping At Matiu/Somes On Request", which Gerry and the Pacemakers insisted on changing to "Ferry Across The Mersey" because it was more 'relatable'.)

But this is a different type of hit - a dancefloor hit. A dance card, in fact, marked for me by Auckland poet, graphic poet, short story writer and novelist Rachel Fenton. It's the latest stop on my blog tour. It is...

Tim to dance: Rachel Fenton interviews Tim Jones.

Previous Interviews

6 December 2011: Wellington poet Harvey Molloy talks with me about men, mid-life crises, art and politics: An Interview with Tim Jones.

1 December 2011: Dunedin poet Kay McKenzie Cooke talks with me about Southland, prose poems, and the fabled Gore High School jersey: New Zealand Writer Tim Jones Explains.

27 November 2011: Canberra poet PS Cottier talk with me about hard work, whether the male sex has a future, and Swannis: Of Poems and Men: Interview with Tim Jones.

The Men Briefly Explained Blog Tour: Harvey Molloy Interviews Me

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:14:00 +0000

The latest interview on my blog tour to talk about my new poetry collection Men Briefly Explained, published by Interactive Press, is up.

Wellington poet Harvey Molloy talks with me about men, mid-life crises, art and politics: An Interview with Tim Jones.

Previous Interviews

1 December 2011: New Zealand Writer Tim Jones Explains, an interview by Kay McKenzie Cooke.

27 November 2011: Of Poems and Men: Interview with Tim Jones, an interview by PS Cottier.

The Men Briefly Explained Blog Tour: New Interview Up

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 01:58:00 +0000

I've embarked on a blog tour to promote my new poetry collection Men Briefly Explained.

What that means is that I am visiting a series of blogs during the next few weeks to talk about Men Briefly Explained. As the interviews go up, I will be posting links to them here.

My latest interview is with Dunedin poet Kay McKenzie Cooke - one of my favourite New Zealand poets - and you can check it out here: New Zealand Writer Tim Jones Explains.

My first interview was with Australian poet PS Cottier, whom I will in turn be interviewing on my blog in a few weeks' time:

27 November 2011: Of Poems and Men: Interview with Tim Jones, by PS Cottier

Out The Tent, by Madeleine Marie Slavick

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:29:00 +0000

Early night hills move
to profile, wear bushy velvet skirts
with some outcrop warts

Coming closer, five feral cows
chew old rice terraces and step
down the series like a lesson in obedience

Crabs, shy in their uneven saddles,
scurry in grass as dry as newspaper,
their hole in one of these sands

Then boat engines chainsaw
at our thin tent, police angle shouts
into shoulder radios, helicopter lights scan our fear:
A man has disappeared

We hear the myths: a spearfisher
from a dark rock corner, diver and shark,
nightsurfer, swimmer in the undertow
of three great things: night and sea and solitude

We become different lumps of sleep
and wake each time we turn over
The dogs at the next tent sigh

One of us leaves to sleepwalk
and arrives at the wet sounds below,
a beach toppled with the unattached

Where is all the light from anyway?
The sky stays grey
and the tides patient,
rinsing everything out twice a day,
like new parents

Credit note:This poem is from Madeleine M. Slavick's collection "delicate access", poems in English with translations into Chinese by Luo Hui, and is reproduced by permission of the author.

Madeleine M. Slavick is a writer and photographer. Madeleine has several books of poetry and non-fiction and has exhibited her photography internationally. She has lived in Germany, Hong Kong, and the USA, and was until recently based in New Zealand. She maintains a daily blog: touchingwhatilove.blogspot.com.

Tim says: I suspect this poem wasn't written about a night in the New Zealand bush, given the mention of old rice terraces, but it reminds me very much of nights spent outside in the rain in a tent, and mysterious lights that pause and move on. I'm a sucker for a great last line or couplet - this one is wonderful!

You can see all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog - the hub poem in the centre, and all the week's other poems on the right.

The Men Briefly Explained Blog Tour: First Interview Up

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 22:13:00 +0000

I'm going on a blog tour to promote my new poetry collection Men Briefly Explained.

What that means is that I will be visiting a series of blogs over the next few weeks to talk about Men Briefly Explained. As the interviews go up, I will be posting links to them here.

My first interview is with Australian poet PS Cottier, whom I will in turn be interviewing on my blog in a few weeks' time.

Check out the interview here - and look out for new ones:

27 November 2011: Of Poems and Men: Interview with Tim Jones, by PS Cottier

What Readers Are Saying About "Men Briefly Explained"

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 20:21:00 +0000

Readers are saying some very nice things about my new poetry collection, Men Briefly Explained.

Here are three comments from people who have read the collection:

Tim, your book arrived this morning, and I'm having to FORCE myself to stop reading and get on with the work I need to do. I am especially moved right now by "The Problem of Descendants". It's a magnificent book. - Johanna Knox

By the time you reach the third age of man you want to turn to the toddler pages and live the whole book again - Rachel Fenton

By turns poignant, insightful and laugh-out-loud funny, Tim Jones brings his trademark dry wit to a great new poetry collection. Thoroughly enjoyable! – Mary Victoria

This reviewer and this reviewer have said nice things, too.

We are approaching a time of the year when many people give gifts, so if you would like to buy a copy of Men Briefly Explained, here's how to do it:

In Person

You can order Men Briefly Explained through your local bookshop. Please tell them the title, the author name, the publisher (IP/Interactive Press) and (just for good measure) the ISBN, which is 978-1-921-86932-7. They should have no problem getting hold of it.

Or - even simpler - just email me at senjmito@gmail.com and I will make sure you get a copy.

Online

Here you have a wide range of options:

You can find out more about the book, and buy it directly from the publisher, at the Men Briefly Explained mini-site.
You can buy Men Briefly Explained from Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle ebook. (You don't need a Kindle to read this - just a Kindle reader programme for your computer, which is easy to obtain.)
It is also available from Amazon.co.uk in paperback and ebook formats.
Men Briefly Explained is available in a range of formats from eBookpie and for the Kobo.
Men Briefly Explained is now available from the iTunes store for your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or for your computer if you have iTunes.

Go on - you know you want to, and based on what other readers have said so far, you won't regret buying a copy.

Tuesday Poem: The Reader, by Robin Fry

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:13:00 +0000

The new anthology is here.
I read through it
turning the pages on and
on
from its end to its beginning
seeking connection
sifting
winnowing...

And —
here it comes
surprising me at last —
the rare, the numinous one
like the flick of a silver tongue
light falling
from another room.

Credit note: "The Reader" is from Robin Fry's new collection Portals, published by Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, and is reproduced by permission of the author.

Portals is available directly from Robin for $15, sent to Robin Fry, 19 Bolton Street, Petone, Lower Hutt 5012. Robin can also be contacted by email: robinfry@paradise.net.nz

Here is an excellent article* from the Hutt News about Robin and her writing: Life's experiences inspire words.

*Stuff's page title is wrong, though - this is Robin's fifth collection.

Tim says: I went to the launch of Portals at the Lower Hutt Library, which was a great success: 60 or so people came along, Jo Thorpe gave an excellent introduction which you can read on the ESAW website, lots of people bought the book, and Robin read very well.

I have been reading Portals this week and, among a number of poems I like very much, "The Reader" jumped out at me because it so well conveys the experience of looking at a new anthology and hoping to find one or more poems that take the breath away.

There are some fine poems in Robin's previous collections, too - here are links to a couple from her previous collection, Time Traveller:

Hurry
Riverine Elements

You can check out all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog - the hub poem in the middle of the page, and all the other poems in the sidebar on the right.

Why I Won't Be Voting National

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:59:00 +0000

I won't be voting National at this year's General Election.

Now, this won't come as a great surprise to those who know me. My opposition to the National Party started in the Muldoon years and hasn't wavered since - so a government which is Muldoon 2.0, but with a friendlier smile, isn't likely to appeal to me. I live in Wellington Central, and for the record, I will be giving the Green Party my party vote and Labour MP Grant Robertson my electorate vote.

But I think I have got some particularly good reasons for not voting National this time - and ironically, perhaps, they date from before the 2008 General Election. At that time, I was the Convenor (and I'm still a member) of the Sustainable Energy Forum, and, much to my surprise, I was invited to a lunch with National Energy spokesperson Gerry Brownlee and a whole lot of energy company heads.

I felt like a fish out of water, but more to the point, Gerry felt he was among friends, and he told those energy company heads, in no uncertain terms, that when National came to power the shackles would be off. They could forget any concerns the Labour Government might have had about climate change or the environment. You dig it or drill it or mine it, Gerry said, and we'll back you up.

You could say many things about Gerry Brownlee, and I'd be happy to join you, but you couldn't say that he hasn't been true to his word. From the moment National came to power, they have shown a complete disregard for New Zealand's and the world's environment. While cynically promenading a "clean and green New Zealand" brand in international tourism markets, they have thrown the doors open at home to:

Mining in National Parks - yes, they lost the first round on that issue, but they haven't given up
Offshore oil drilling in waters even deeper and riskier than the Gulf of Mexico
The mining of massive quantities of lignite in Southland which would release billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere
Fracking (hydraulic fracturing) to extract more oil and gas - a dangerous technique which has already been shown to lead to both groundwater contamination and localised earthquakes when used overseas, and which has been banned by France, a country not known for its environmental credentials
A massive and vastly expensive programme of motorway building to serve the interests of the trucking industry, which is also being served by National's downgrading of our rail system.

In other words, National are taking our economy back to the 1950s and massively increasing our dependence on fossil fuels.

And how do National propose to reconcile all this with New Zealand's international commitments to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions? They don't, perhaps because the Cabinet is full of climate change sceptics - as recently as 2005, John Key professed himself among them. They simply hope that the international audiences to whom they promise action on climate change won't notice what the Government is doing at home.

Now, there are lots of other excellent reasons not to vote for National. But New Zealand's environment is the foundation of New Zealand's wealth, and in turn, the liveability of New Zealand depends on the world having a liveable climate. John Key's Government has shown utter disregard for any meaningful action on climate change, either with New Zealand or internationally, and complete contempt for the New Zealand environment. That's why I won't be voting National.

Tuesday Poem: Video Poems from the Book Tour + Radio Interview

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 09:30:00 +0000

I was going to resume normal Tuesday Poem service this week, but instead, here is some YouTube video from the Men Briefly Explained / Tongues of Ash book tour, plus a radio interview I did for Radio New Zealand's "Arts on Sunday" programme.

If you think "I would love to buy one of the shiny books featured in this video", here is how to do so:

Video Poems from the Book Tour

These video highlights from our Wellington event at the Wellington Central Library and our Eastbourne event at the Rona Gallery and Bookshop include (a) Keith Westwater reading (actually, this is the whole vid) ...

The West Winds Gang is back
Camera Obscura revealed: 1. The layered memories of a place
Papaitonga Reserve in the duck-shooting season
Evensong in a graveyard of villas
Winds and time

... and (b) Tim Jones reading:

Impertinent to Sailors
Belong
Queens of Silk, Kings of Velour
Baxter-Curnow Band Live at Hyde Park 1969
Epiphenomenon
... and then, rather mysteriously, I read "Impertinent to Sailors" again

Radio New Zealand interview

Sonia Sly of Radio New Zealand interviewed me for the "Arts on Sunday" programme on Radio New Zealand. Here is the interview in mp3 format:

http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/art/art-20111113-1435-chapter_and_verse_-_tim_jones-048.mp3

Next week, I promise, I'll have an actual Tuesday Poem up on my blog! In the meantime, you can check out this week's Tuesday Poems here: http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com

Buy One Or The Rat Gets It!

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 07:31:00 +0000

And no, I am not talking about Men Briefly Explained. (A rat did take up residence at our house a while back - the cat brought it in, let it go, and proved completely inadequate to remove it. In the end, I played "St. Anger" at it until it ran away.)

I am talking about this rat, here: http://rosamirabooks.blogspot.com/2011/10/slightly-peculiar-love-stories-perused.html

Rattie has moved on from occupying Slightly Peculiar Love Stories to occupying Rosa Mira Books as a whole, and he has begun to make marketing decisions - like halving the price of both Slightly Peculiar Love Stories and The Glass Harmonica for this week and next week.

But that's not all. The rat has let power go to his head, and he's making publisher Penelope Todd draw a cute little picture of him each time you buy one of these ebooks. But, like a rodent Scheherazade who has had a gender change and isn't married to the sultan and er I think I'll stop now, his continued portayal depends on you, gentle reader, buying ebooks from Rosa Mira Books.

You don't need an ebook reader to read them - you just need a computer. They are amazingly easy to read on the screen. And they are bloody good.

So go to it. Take the plunge. Buy an ebook from Rosa Mira Books, and keep the rat in cute little outfits.

The Load-Out

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 11:57:00 +0000

The Men Briefly Explained / Tongues of Ash book tour is over. I'm back in my home, Keith is back in his, our publisher David is back in Australia, and the roadies have loaded the last of the gear into the trucks ... OK, I may have made that last part up. They actually loaded the gear into pantechnicons.

We travelled from Dunedin to Auckland via Christchurch, Wellington, Eastbourne, and Paraparaumu. Along the way, we slept under hedgerows, in deserted fields under the stars, and in the houses of friends. At our performances met up with real-life friends and friends from the Internet. We sold books. We signed books. We read organised sequences of words from books. We got in cars and planes. From the planes, we could see clouds. From the cars, we could see election billboards. We saw John Key a lot. We didn't see Phil Goff. We saw Annette King, though - she came to our Wellington launch.

We didn't have contract riders, but if we had, they would almost certainly have stipulated only macrobiotic food, a room set aside for meditation at every venue, and the removal of all the brown M&Ms.

Actually, I like the brown M&Ms.

Tim reading at the Rona Gallery launch event in Eastbourne. Thanks to Sally McLennan for the photo.

Sometimes, I read before Keith, and sometimes, Keith read before me. Sometimes, David read before both of us. I quickly discovered which poems from Men Briefly Explained worked well in front of a live audience, and which didn't. I attended an excellent voice workshop for poets a few days before the tour started, and in tribute to this, I used my voice quite a lot on the tour. By our Auckland gig, it was showing definite signs of wearing out.

Seriously for a moment: though it was tiring at times, I enjoyed the tour very much. The physical touring is over, but now there's a virtual tour to think about. Watch several other spaces!