Tim Jones: Books in the Trees

Tuesday Poem: "technical difficulties"

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:02:00 +0000

technical difficulties
defeat the blogger:
ten thousand freezing hells!

I had intended to post Janis Freegard's poem "Alice Spider Discovers Surrealism" - from her new chapbook ... from The Continuing Adventures of Alice Spider (Anomalous Press, 2013): http://www.anomalouspress.org/books/alice.php - as my Tuesday Poem this week, but our home internet melted down last night as I was working on the post.

Though order and good government is now restored, it seems unfair to to waste the sweetness of Janis' poem on the evening air, so I shall save it for a more timely post next Tuesday. In its stead, this stanza of frustration.

A Deadline for Australians, A Convention for All of Us

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:53:00 +0000

Editor's note: It's been a while since I posted a Tuesday Poem - now that I blog only once a week, the Tuesday Poem has to compete for space with other posts - but I have neither forgotten nor dropped out: expect a Tuesday Poem here next week. I also have to choose a hub Tuesday poem for the forthcoming week in which I'm the editor!

A reminder to Australian poets and writers: 4 June 2013 is the deadline for submissions to The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, which P. S. Cottier and I are co-editing. Check out the submission guidelines, and remember: expat Australians, wherever they may live, are welcome and encouraged to submit!

And, whatever your nationality, I recommend checking out Au Contraire 2013, this year's New Zealand National Science Fiction Convention. The previous Au Contraire in 2010 was the best New Zealand NatCon I'd been to in ages - I especially enjoyed the stronger-than-usual focus on writers and writing. I'll be involved in some poetry-related programme items at Au Contraire, and I happen to know that at least three other Tuesday Poets will be involved with aspects of the Convention as well - so anyone with an interest in speculative fiction or poetry should consider coming along.

My April Book Watch Column For The New Zealand Herald

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Tue, 07 May 2013 00:56:00 +0000

Here is my second "Book Watch" column from the NZ Herald, published in the Herald on Sunday on 28 April. The first three reviews were used, but one of the advantages of reprinting the column here is that I can include all four!

My first column is also available on Books in the Trees.

Book Watch Column 28 April 2013

Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, by Shehan Karunatilaka (Vintage, 2012) - see http://www.amazon.com/Chinaman-Shehan-Karunatilaka/dp/0099555689 (US $9.99 Kindle ebook; also available in paperback and hardback)

Shehan Karunatilaka, who is a guest at the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival 2013, studied at Massey University. Perhaps this is why this entertaining picaresque about the greatest and least recognized Sri Lankan cricketer, Pradeep Mathew, a Tamil spinner whose imaginary exploits often echo the real exploits of Muttiah Muralidaran, is full of references to New Zealand – from the expected (Hadlee, the Crowes, Dipak Patel) to the less expected (Anchor Milk). And the denouement of the book takes place in and around Whanganui!

This novel weaves a rich tapestry of cricket, politics, corruption, the Sri Lankan civil war, and a dogged journalist with a dodgy liver determined to track his elusive quarry down. Highly recommended.

PS: Shehan Karunatilaka is a guest at this year's Auckland Writers & Readers Festival - something I didn't know when I started writing the review!

Amigas, by Elena Bossi and Penelope Todd, published by Rosa Mira Books (2012) – see http://rosamirabooks.com/books/index.html#Amigas (US $10.00 ebook)

Argentine writer Elena Bossi and New Zealand writer Penelope Todd wrote this bilingual novel (that is to say, the novel exists in complementary but not identical English- and Spanish-language versions within one ebook) after meeting at the University of Iowa Writing Programme in 2007 - and it's an interesting and enjoyable novel, though sad at times. It follows the chance meeting of two teenage girls, one from New Zealand and one from Argentina, at Rome Airport in 1969; their developing friendship, in person and then by letter; and the threat that hangs over that friendship. To say any more would be to enter spoiler territory – check it out for yourself!

Enter Night: Metallica: the Biography, by Mick Wall (Orion, 2011) - see http://www.amazon.com/Enter-Night-A-Biography-Metallica/dp/B007K4FIGA/ (NZ $29.99 paperback)

Mick Wall's biography of Metallica is very strong on their early years as progenitors of thrash metal, and on the musical and personal significance of bassist Cliff Burton, killed in a bus crash in 1987. But as the years and the albums go by, the book becomes less and less informative. There's a lot more to be gleaned about their struggles as adults from the excellent documentary Some Kind Of Monster than there is from Enter Night. All the same, for its eyewitness account of 1980s Metallica, this is good reading for all Metallica fans.

Names: Poems, by Marilyn Hacker (Norton, 2010) - see http://www.amazon.com/Names-Poems-Marilyn-Hacker/dp/039333967X/ (US $23.95 hardback, 11.66 paperback)

Marilyn Hacker is a distinguished American poet whose work I had not previously read. Contrary to my perception of her as a “difficult” poet, and though many of the poems in this collection are long, I found them to be moving, engaging, beautifully written and full of meaning. There is a sureness of voice which I enjoyed, but without the dogmatism that can be its shadow. These poems were a very pleasant surprise to me, and are worth the attention of any poetry lover.

Tim Jones is a Wellington author, poet and editor. His latest book is poetry collection Men Briefly Explained. Find out more at http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.co.nz/

An Interview With Gareth Renowden

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Thu, 02 May 2013 20:21:00 +0000

Gareth Renowden is a writer, photographer and truffle grower based in the Waipara Valley, north of Christchurch. In nearly 40 years of working with words he's written for and worked on newspapers and magazines in New Zealand, the US and the UK. His small farm is the only property in NZ to produce three species of truffle: the Périgord black, bianchetto and Burgundy truffles he produces are used by New Zealand's finest chefs and restaurants. He's written books on olives, truffles and global warming, and runs the Hot Topic blog covering climate science and policy from an NZ perspective.

Gareth, what led you to make the move from journalism and nonfiction into fiction?

It's not really a move, more a change of the material I'm working with. Journalists talk about working on stories, after all. In anything more than the most basic news reporting -- any kind of longer form writing -- you have to tell a story. You have to lead the reader through a sequence of events, and you have to do it in a way that makes them want to reach the end. There has to be some kind of narrative for them to follow. The big difference, for me, is that when you write fiction you have a much bigger palette to play with. That's exciting and difficult -- and more than a little addictive.

The Aviator was born out of my writing about climate change, and my experience in what passes for debate about the need for action. I wanted to paint a picture of the sort of world we're heading towards, and at the same time examine some of the science and politics that's taking us there. We're on the cusp of remarkable developments in technology and biology, but there's a race going on between mankind's attempts to stuff up the planet and our ability to develop and apply technologies that will fix the problem. I could write lengthy and learned dissertations that no one would read, or I could write a sci-fi book that would entertain and inform, and that no one would read. I chose science fiction because it was more fun, but remain to be proved wrong about its readership... ;-)

Did you have any role models in terms of writing a novel built around the effects of climate change?

As a child of the 50s and 60s in Britain, I grew up reading Dan Dare in The Eagle, and watching scratchy old black and white Doctors doing battle with daleks on cardboard sets. I read Biggles and WE Johns' lesser known sci-fi series (http://www.wejohns.com/SciFi/), graduated to Jules Verne, HG Wells and John Wyndham, and then on to Bradbury, and the great British sci-writers of the 60s -- Aldiss, Moorcock (especially the Jerry Cornelius books), Ballard and so on. Wyndham was certainly influential. His books are sci-fi thrillers -- a sort of prototype for Michael Crichton when he was good -- very much of their time. Aldiss called them "cosy catastrophes", which is very apt. I re-read The Kraken Wakes recently, prompted by this interview (you were wondering why it took so long to reply), and reminded myself why his stories were so memorable.

The Kraken Wakes is more or less a retelling of The War of the Worlds, with aliens arriving from some unspecified planet and setting up camp in the ocean deeps. Havoc ensues, with the last third of the book devoted to the collapse of civilisation as the aliens flood the planet by melting the ice at both poles. To a modern reader, the writing seems a bit stilted, the plot forced by the narrator's need to be at the heart of the action (he's a radio journalist, of course), but it's a wonderful imagining of catastrophic events set in a world emerging from the Second World War and teetering towards the Cold War, where ocean liners plied their trade, the airline industry was just beginning to ramp up, Britain still had delusions of grandeur, and television was something new and hi-tech and used only to try and spot the aliens in the ocean. There was humour in there too -- much play made of the Russian reaction to events, and the vagaries of the British media of the time. Wonderful, in other words.

I first read TKW in 1968, probably around the time that I read Ballard's The Drowned World. The Beatles' White Album would have been the soundtrack. Both books could be described as early climate fiction, but at the time everybody expected an apocalypse to be triggered by all-out nuclear war. The threat of nuclear annihilation was a potent and realistic fear that informed all sorts of creative work in the 50s and 60s - it was the zeitgeist. At the time, nobody would have thought that burning fossil fuels might be the agent of dramatic change or a threat to civilisation. For that you needed aliens or bombs.

In the novel, New Zealand and much of the US are still relatively liveable, despite the drastic effects climate change is having on other parts of the world. Do you expect NZ and the US to be less affected, at least initially, than other countries?

New Zealand, yes, at least at first. But the USA will be vulnerable to rapid change because the whole of the northern hemisphere is going to see changes we can only guess at because of the loss of the Arctic sea ice cover (which will happen before too many more years pass).

Rapid climate change doesn't necessarily mean devastation. It more likely begins with dislocation and attempts at adaptation, which in some places will work, and in others turn out to be impossible. The one thing you can't escape is the rising ocean, so anywhere where there are lots of people living on a big river delta there are going to be problems. There will be forced mass migrations.

With a partial exception in the US scenes, formal Government doesn't play much of a part in the book - in particular, the New Zealand Government seems to have disappeared. Is that partly so you can use the book as a test-bed to see what different social structures might form in such a world, or is it just that you think governments won't survive the effects of climate change?

Governments are mostly shadowy things in The Aviator because that's what they are to most people in everyday life. Lemmy and Kate are trying to lead lives that to them are ordinary, even if they are of necessity extraordinary to us. I suppose I would argue that governments all over The Burning World are being distracted by the need to try and sustain themselves (and perhaps their electorates, or at least supporters) in the face of the immense geopolitical changes driven by rapid climate change. There is still government in NZ -- probably trying to privatise the remaining biofuel plants.

A friend who read and enjoyed The Aviator commented to me that her favourite part of the book was the little section devoted to what became of the climate deniers in this post-climate-change environment. Would I be right in thinking you took particular delight in writing this section?

It's a fair cop. Anyone who follows the online tussling between climate deniers and reality will find much in that section that's familiar. It's the most overtly satirical part of the book, born out of some of the fun I've had with my comic tales of Christopher, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, as seen through the eyes of his manservant, Old Scrotum, the wrinkled retainer (http://hot-topic.co.nz/monckton-and-the-big-waka/). I enjoy writing to make people laugh, and it's an important part of what I tried to do in The Aviator. It's a gloomy world, The Burning World, and a certain amount of black humour helps to get you through...

I hope it's not doing you a disservice to say that The Aviator reminded me at times of Kim Stanley Robinson's work - though, curiously, not so much his climate change trilogy as his Mars books. Although KSR is an atypical American science fiction author in many respects, he does share that typical American enthusiasm for large scale techno-fixes. Do you think geoengineering, which plays a part in Kim Stanley Robinson's climate change trilogy, has a part to play in mitigating the effects of climate change - and if so, how does the world prepare for that option?

I consider it an honour to be compared to KSR, for which many thanks. I have read his climate trilogy, and while enjoying them didn't think they worked as effectively as Galileo's Dream or 2312. In the latter, KSR's treatment of a climate changed earth is very interesting -- New York as a new Venice, asteroids hollowed out to create refuges for terran biomes: fascinating stuff.

In The Burning World I have geoengineering being tried and failing, but it plays no part in the storyline. That's something for a later book perhaps. In the real world I think it's almost inevitable that attempts will be made to geoengineer the planet to reduce warming. Two reasons for inevitability: at some point, governments are going to panic when the rapidity of climate change becomes obvious. There will be demands to do something, and - because it will be too late to stop change by reducing emissions - geoengineering will suddenly become attractive. Second: techno fixes are already being suggested as the only feasible response to warming. It's argued that it's too expensive and disruptive to stop burning fossil fuels, so let technology solve the problem. Some methods are in the realm of hard SF - space mirrors or sun shades, for instance - while the more likely (or at least affordable) approach would be to add sulphate aerosols high in the atmosphere. That could be done quite quickly and crudely by adding sulphur to jet fuel.

The problem, of course, is that geoengineering with or without big emissions cuts is making a real Faustian bet with the future of the planet. Suppose we do manage to cap warming by spraying aerosols in the atmosphere, we are then committed to doing it for ever -- unless we are also planning to remove carbon from the atmosphere. If for any reason - like war, or cost cutting - we stop spraying the gunk, then we unleash a burst of rapid warming that would be truly catastrophic. There are also other major difficulties - like the ocean acidifying - that won't go away without carbon removal.

Carbon removal processes are therefore more or less inevitable as well. The world will have to go beyond zero emissions to re-burying some - preferably all - of the fossil carbon dug up over the last 100 years. In The Burning World, it's been tried, but the big methane releases from the Arctic have rendered them redundant.

I understand The Aviator is intended to be the first volume in a trilogy. Can you give us any hints of what's to come in the next volume, and when it might appear - or are you operating a strictly "no spoilers" policy?

I'm sketching out the second and third books at the moment, and plan to get down to writing book two in the second half of this year (there's a revised and updated edition of my 2005 book on truffles to finish first). Given that I'm not yet entirely sure what to put in and what to leave out, and that things will inevitably change in the writing, I'm not going to give too much away. It would be safe to assume that Lemmy's boss, whose disappearance triggers Lemmy's travels, will finally turn up. And Lemmy and Kate will continue to tour the world, visiting some of the regions not featured in The Aviator. There will be mammoths, and a singular surprise at the end.

Book availability details

The Aviator is available as an ebook and paperback, from most major retailers worldwide. More information from the Burning World web site (http://burningworldbooks.wordpress.com/), and Gareth's web site (http://limestonehills.co.nz/books/the-aviator/). From most places in the world, the cheapest way to get the paperback is from the Book Depository in the UK: free delivery and only NZ$18.58. (http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Aviator-Gareth-Renowden/9780987669735/?a_aid=HotTopic) To cut out the middlemen, you can buy the ebook for $6.99 direct from the author... (http://limestonehills.co.nz/books/the-aviator/)

Amazon: ebook: http://amzn.to/Uc6mcx

Paperback: http://amzn.to/PzroAZ

Barnes & Noble: http://http//www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-aviator-gareth-renowden/1113049315?ean=2940044850514

Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/The-Aviator/book-MxmfAKshvkmTZXNx0bGgSQ/page1.html?s=gFWxbJPri0OWuV-AyuL_ew&r=1

Apple NZ (also available in all Apple iBooks stores): http://itunes.apple.com/nz/book/the-aviator/id557437145

3rd Birthday Communal ‘Jazz’ Tuesday Poem: Scratch

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:12:00 +0000

The third anniversary Tuesday Poem "Scratch" is now online; I had the honour (and challenge) of supplying the final stanza! Tap your feet to the Tuesday Poets' polyrhythms here: http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/3rd-birthday-communal-jazz-poem.html

I Belong To The Regeneration

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 10:47:00 +0000

I'm happy to report that my short story "Rescuing the Airmen" has been accepted for inclusion in Regeneration: New Zealand Speculative Fiction II, which is being published by Random Static and launched at Au Contraire 2013, this year's NZ National Science Fiction Convention

The Table of Contents is below. There are a lot of fine writers in there - quite apart from being pleased that I have a story in the book, I'm looking forwards to reading it!

You can check out Random Static's other books and products as well, including two other anthologies that I have stories in, A Foreign Country and Tales for Canterbury.

Table of Contents for Regeneration

Random Static Ltd is pleased to announce the table of contents for Regeneration: New Zealand Speculative Fiction II. Once again, we have a fantastic range of stories by talented authors, and we look forward to sharing them with you.

Last Harvest – Matt Cowens
Rescuing the Airmen – Tim Jones
Hunting Ythan – Mary Brock Jones
The Mistress of Fishes – O.J. Cade
Max's Black Box – Grace Bridges
In a World Full of Birds – I.K. Paterson-Harkness
Insomnia – Kylie Thorne
The Spectre Spectrum – Debbie Cowens
Carving Out a Life – J.C. Hart
Kiwi or Queenie – Jennifer Compton
Emptying Roesler – Simon Petrie
Tapping the Skin of the World – Anna Smith
Doorway – Rebecca Harris
Monocarpic Colony Blues – Elizabeth Gatens
Harvesting the Gyre – Jonathan James Todd
The Origami Tree – A.J. Fitzwater
Evacuation – Fran Atkinson
Splintering – Anna Caro
Mother's Milk – Dan Rabarts
Cave Fever – Lee Murray
Coat – Grant Stone
Ren – Toni Wi

Regeneration is due to be launched on the 12th of July at Au Contraire 2013 - watch this space for more details and pre-order information.

Tuesday Poem: Revenant

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:07:00 +0000

When they pulled me from the water

I had scarcely finished breathing

My fingernails dripped blood and sand

My slack-jawed face had turned the blue of ocean

They pushed and pulled my heart to action

I stumbled from the cooling sand

and ate the proferred wafer

All along my neck and arms

the hair stood up in terror

I knew you would see nothing

My eyes still blink

my lips still speak my

feet still strike the pavement

We laugh and smile

and in your speech I

hear the kelp pods cracking

But in the moonless dark of night

avoid the outer windows

I walk beneath the summer rain

and see the green mouth closing

In my wake the crusted salt

dissolves upon the grass blades

Credit note: "Revenant" was published in my first poetry collection, Boat People (2002).

Tim says: I tried this idea - a fantasy/horror transfiguration of the time I nearly drowned in 1989 - as both a short story and a poem. I never got anywhere much with the story, but this poem made it into my first collection. If I was writing it now, there are some things I would do differently, but I like the lurching rhythm that gets going for a while in the third stanza.

The Tuesday Poem: Is particularly worth checking out at the moment, as the jazz poem the Tuesday Poets are collectively writing for the third anniversary of the Tuesday poem is growing vaster than empires, and a good deal quicker.

My First "Book Watch" Column For The New Zealand Herald

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 10:17:00 +0000

A couple of months ago, Nicky Pellegrino, who edits the New Zealand Herald's books page, contacted me after seeing my two-part summary of my 2012 reading (Part 1 | Part 2) to ask whether I would be interested in writing an occasional "Book Watch" column for the Herald on Sunday: short comments on 3 or 4 books I've read recently, with no restrictions as to the genres covered.

That seemed to fit pretty well with the fact that I keep track of my reading on LibraryThing, so I said "yes" - and here is my first column. Only the first three of these pocket reviews were published in the Herald, but as I really enjoyed Wolves Eat Dogs I have posted that mini-review here too.

Book Watch Column 24 March 2013

The Glass Harmonica, by Dorothee Kocks, published by Rosa Mira Books (2011) - see http://rosamirabooks.com/books/index.html#tgh (US $7.00 ebook)

This novel by US author Dorothee Kocks was the first book published by Dunedin-based ebook publisher Rosa Mira Books. It is a beautifully-written story of Revolutionary France, post-revolutionary America, and the invention of pornography as a commercial genre. The central character Chjara, a Corsican virtuoso of the glass harmonica, is vivid and engaging. I wasn’t always convinced by the actions and motivations of her American lover Henry, but that’s a minor flaw in this fine novel which was a pleasure to read on my newly-acquired Kindle.

Flaubert's Drum, by Sugu Pillay, published by IP (2012) - see http://ipoz.biz/Titles/FD.htm (NZ $15 ebook, $28 paperback)

Already an accomplished playwright and short story writer, Sugu Pillay is now showing her strength as a poet. Born in Malaysia, she now lives in the South Island. Flaubert’s Drum, which is her first poetry collection, is a very interesting and wide-ranging set of poems that moves between Asia and New Zealand, between epic and earthquake, between the turtles of Chendor Beach and the schist of Lindis Pass. I especially enjoyed the final section of the book, which does a lovely job of tying the book’s strands together. Technically accomplished and often moving poetry.

The Aviator, by Gareth Renowden, published by Limestone Hills Publishing (2012), book 1 of The Burning World series - see http://burningworldbooks.wordpress.com/ (NZ $6.99 ebook, US $15 paperback)

Gareth Renowden is best known as a journalist and science blogger – in particular, for the Hot Topic blog on climate change. With The Aviator, Book 1 of a planned series, he turns to science fiction. In a world in which runaway climate change proceeds unchecked, airship pilot Lemmy (no relation to Motörhead) and his AI and human companions tour the world from their base in the Marlborough Sounds, visiting the communities springing up in parts of the world made newly livable and experiencing the terrible consequences of runaway climate change throughout most of the world. If you like the great near-future science fiction novels of Kim Stanley Robinson, I think you will enjoy The Aviator.

Wolves Eat Dogs, by Martin Cruz Smith, published by Pan (2005), available from Amazon.com - see http://www.amazon.com/Wolves-Dogs-Arkady-Renko-Novels/dp/0671775952 (from US $10.88 paperback)

Martin Cruz Smith made his name with his first novel featuring melancholy but determined Russian detective Arkady Renko, Gorky Park. This is the fifth Renko book, and it's outstandingly good. Renko is the classic good cop in a bad place: dogged, incorruptible and determined on uncovering the truth whatever the cost to himself. In this book, the bad place is the Zone of Exclusion surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear plant. Smith does a great job of putting Renko in the path of the teeming wildlife and the secretive humans that live in the Zone. Highly recommended even if thrillers aren’t normally your thing.

Tuesday Poem: Ford Madox Brown, The Last Of England

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 20:53:00 +0000

“THE LAST of England! O’er the sea, my dear,

Our homes to seek amid Australian fields,

Us, not our million-acred island yields

The space to dwell in. Thrust out! Forced to hear

Low ribaldry from sots, and share rough cheer

With rudely-nurtured men. The hope youth builds

Of fair renown, bartered for that which shields

Only the back, and half-formed lands that rear

The dust-storm blistering up the grasses wild.

There learning skills not, nor the poet’s dream,

Nor aught so loved as children shall we see.”

She grips his listless hand and clasps her child,

Through rainbow tears she sees a sunnier gleam,

She cannot see a void, where he will be.

Credit note: The name of this poem is actually "For the picture, 'The Last of England'". Ford Madox Brown wrote it in 1855 to accompany his famous painting. It exists in a couple of versions; this version hangs in the Birmingham (UK) Museum and Art Gallery.

Tim says: Ford Madox Brown began work on this painting in 1852, when emigration from the UK was at its height - according to Wikipedia, over 350,000 people emigrated that year, from a country whose population is much smaller than it is now.

I have this painting as a black and white illustration in a book, and had always imagined that the couple in the foreground (modelled by Ford Madox Ford and his wife Emma; their children also appear in the picture) were staring back at England. In fact, the white cliffs of Dover are in the top right of the picture, and the couple are looking resolutely away. When my family and I sailed out of the English channel in 1961 on our way to New Zealand with a boatload of assisted immigrants, I imagine the emotions felt by the adults on board may have been somewhat similar.

The Tuesday Poem: Moves between cultures.

Words On The Wind: Wellington Central Library, 6pm Wednesday 20 March

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:13:00 +0000

I'm looking forwards to taking part in this reading at Wellington Central Library tonight:

And I also enjoyed taking part in this interview with Sally Dunn for the Nelson Mail: Beyond Infinity: Writing Science Fiction.

Tuesday Poem: Media Advice To The Disgraced CEO

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 11:38:00 +0000

Don't try to sell your story. That would only remind the public
of the millions in bonuses, the failed investments, the workers
turned out on their ear. Don't try to sell your story,
but make sure you have a story to tell.

It's hard to appear contrite - we know. Think of yourself
as an actor playing a part. Mention a disabled relative you've
(quietly, anonymously) been helping out. A cause
you're passionate about: animal rescue, flower shows.

That first interview is crucial. Show them
you're not a monster but a man. A monster doesn't care - a man
makes mistakes, has made mistakes. You admit mistakes were made.
You're only human and you got things wrong.

And as for your latest bonus: you offered to return it,
but the company said no. So what you're going to do is,
you're donating it instead. (Animal rescue, flower shows. A hospital?)
But for this interview, you wouldn't have told a soul.

Remember contrition? Now you have to show it. The interview
is hard for you, and by the end you're dabbing at your eyes.
The public will swallow any grade of bullshit
that is packaged with a redemptive tear.

Credit note: This is a new and previously unpublished poem.

Tim says: You might think that this poem is inspired by recent events, but I couldn't possibly comment.

The Tuesday Poem: Is ready to rock.

Tuesday Poem: Jump In The Fire

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:27:00 +0000

Toss it all in. The smoke

thick, greasy, the cinders

cuffed this way and that

by a turbulent breeze.

Hide your eyes. Retreat

until the wind backs off.

Seize handfuls, volumes. Let fire ants

devour the close-furled leaves.

There's something — you feel it —

of the night, of the lupine

act, unclawed, unfurred,

of living through another day.

Something of triumph. You dart

back, and then back to the flame.

Credit note: "Jump In The Fire" was first published in my third poetry collection, Men Briefly Explained.

Tim says: I guess this poem has its origins in the garden waste fires Dad used to build when I was young, fires with a flammable core surrounded by turf that were designed to burn at a low heat for a long time so that we could load on more grass, branches etc as we worked on our large and unruly garden - this was when we lived in Otatara, south of Invercargill, in the late 1960s. Somewhere along the way, a sport of book-burning seems to have attached itself to the concept.

The Tuesday Poem: Is going to wait till the midnight hour.

The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry - Call for Submissions

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 07:37:00 +0000

They're heeeere! Cross-posted from my co-editor's blog, here are the full submission guidelines for forthcoming anthology The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry. Australians, and expatriate Australians, are welcome to submit up to three poems for the anthology. The closing date for submissions is 4 June 2013. Make sure to read the full guidelines before you submit, and have fun out there!

THE ANTHOLOGY

The Stars Like Sand is a planned anthology of Australian speculative poetry. Speculative poetry is poetry in the science fiction, fantasy, horror and related genres. (Please see below for a fuller definition.) It is intended that the anthology will include both new and previously-published poetry, and include a historical survey of the field. The anthology is intended for publication in 2014.

The anthology will be published by IP (Interactive Publications Pty Ltd) of Brisbane, a leading Australian poetry publisher. IP previously published Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand in 2009 (see http://www.ipoz.biz/Titles/Voy.htm). Further information about IP is below.

The editors are New Zealand poet Tim Jones, who co-edited Voyagers, and Australian poet P. S. Cottier. Please see the editor bios below.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Please note: Submissions do that not follow the guidelines below are unlikely be successful. In particular, attachments will not be read.

1) Submissions are now open. Please submit your poem(s) by midnight on 4 June 2013. Any submissions received after the editors check their email the following morning will not be considered.

Submission format

2) Send no more than three (3) poems in an email message to starslikesand@gmail.com with the subject line "Submission to The Stars Like Sand".

If you submit more than three poems, whether in one message or in separate messages, we will read only the first three you submit. You are welcome to send fewer than three poems.

3) Include your poem(s) in the body of your email message. Do not send attachments. Attachments will be not be read.

If your poem has special formatting requirements which cannot be reproduced in the body of an email, please send it anyway within the body of your email, but include a note about the formatting requirements. If necessary, we will get back to you to request a copy in the correct format.

4) Due to space limitations, we prefer to be sent poems of 50 lines or less. While we will still read longer submissions, they will have to be exceptional to be included. There is no lower limit on lines, so you are welcome to send haiku and other short forms, provided you send no more than three poems in total.

5) You are welcome to submit both unpublished and previously-published poems:
a) Unpublished poems: Unpublished poems selected for inclusion will be eligible for the Rhysling Awards: see http://www.sfpoetry.com/rhysling.html
b) Previously-published poems: Please supply full details of previous publication, including online, magazine and book publication. If permission is required from a publisher for your poem to be reprinted, we will ask you for the publisher's contact details, and for your help with securing permission to reprint the poem in "The Stars Like Sand" should your poem be selected for inclusion.

6) If you are unsure what speculative poetry is, please see the notes below. If you are still not sure whether your poem fits, please send it anyway - we would rather read some poems that don't fit than miss out on good but "borderline" poems.

7) After your poem(s), please include a biography of no more than 100 words in the body of your email message. Your biography may be edited for reasons of space.

Responding to submissions

8) We will respond to all submissions as quickly as possible. However, the time taken to respond depends on the volume of submissions received. Please be aware that, due to size limitations on the anthology, many submitted poems of merit will, unfortunately, have to be rejected.

9) Previous experience suggests that we are unlikely to be able to include all the previously-published poems we initially select for inclusion, due to difficulties obtaining reprint permissions. Should this occur, we may return to some poems that we were unable to include in our initial selection and ask the poets whether we can now include these poems in the anthology. We will do this only as and when necessary, so please do not resubmit poems which were initially rejected, or submit new poems, unless we ask you to.

Payment

10) All poets included, or their estates in the case of deceased poets, will receive a free copy of the anthology. There will no monetary payment for included poems.

Who can submit?

11) Residents of Australia, and Australians not currently resident in Australia, are eligible to submit. If you are unsure whether you are eligible to submit, please include a note in your email submission letting us know your situation.

WHAT IS SPECULATIVE POETRY?

Speculative poetry is poetry that falls within the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, plus some related genres such as magic realism, metafiction, and fabulation. It is not easy to give precise definitions, partly because many of these genres are framed in term of fiction rather than poetry.

A good starting point is ""About Science Fiction Poetry" by Suzette Haden Elgin, the founder of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, which you can read here: http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/SFPoetry.html

Despite its title, this article is applicable to all forms of speculative poetry.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Tim Jones

Tim Jones is a New Zealand poet and author of both literary fiction and science fiction who was awarded the New Zealand Society of Authors Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature in 2010.

Among his recent books are fantasy novel Anarya’s Secret (RedBrick, 2007), short story collectionTransported (Vintage, 2008), and poetry anthology Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand(Interactive Press, 2009), co-edited with Mark Pirie. Voyagers won the “Best Collected Work” category in the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Awards. Tim's third poetry collection, Men Briefly Explained, was published by Interactive Press in late 2011.

Tim's poem "The Translator" appeared in Best New Zealand Poems 2004, and his short fiction has appeared in, among many other venues, Best New Zealand Fiction 4 (2007), and The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories (2009). His short story “The New Neighbours” was included inThe Apex Book of World SF, Volume 2 (2012).

In 2011, Tim edited a special issue of the Science Fiction Poetry Association's online journal Eye to the Telescope, devoted to speculative poetry by Australian and New Zealand poets – see http://eyetothetelescope.com/

P. S. Cottier

P.S. Cottier's third poetry collection is the suite of poems "Selection Criteria for Death", published inTriptych Poets Issue Three, Blemish Books in 2012. She has shared the David Campbell Award, given for the best unpublished poem by an ACT region writer. Her prose poem "Pod, cast", originally awarded first place in a US science fiction competition in 2008, was included in The Indigo Book of Australian Prose Poems (2011). Penelope has had many fantasy and science fiction poems published in non-genre journals and newspapers, such as The Canberra Times and Eureka Street.

Penelope is also widely published in speculative journals in Australia and elsewhere, such as Star*Line(US) and Chiaroscuro: Treatments of Light and Shade in words (Canada). Her poem "Fingernails" was recently nominated for the Rhysling Awards, and her magic realist poem "Eight things you may not know about Vladimir Putin's dog" was included in the inaugural Australian Poetry members' anthology.

She wrote her PhD in literature at the Australian National University.

ABOUT IP

Interactive Publications Pty Ltd has been in business since 1994 and has been growing steadily since then. IP currently publishes 35+ titles per year, and is the second largest publisher of literary titles in Queensland.

Interactive Press is one of four imprints of IP. Interactive Press is one of the leading poetry imprints in Australia, publishing up to eight titles each year. Interactive Press titles are generally released via conventional print, as well as in print on demand (POD) and various eBook formats for outlets such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Kobo, Overdrive, eBooks Corp and Wheelers, making them accessible to audiences world-wide.

IP's publisher is Dr David Reiter, himself a prize-winning poet and author.

Tuesday Poem: Dogs, by John Horrocks

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 19:26:00 +0000

I have three dogs:

Top- fast and lean. Half Labrador, he sidles around like a furtive waiter,

hoping for the tip he never earned.

Jack – he’s clever but too old. When a bitch is on heat he wanders away

and looks for food.

Boy – good-natured, though he eats chooks. My favourite.

A good worker if not tired from chasing rabbits.

Hairy.

Hats are back! I was surprised to see a dog

in a chic little place in Willis Street.

I was sipping caffe latte and taking in

the ambience - those rimu floorboards,

a real fire in the hearth, crazy

hats with flowers and jewels

hanging from wires.

Tongues spoke from a painting

of melting heads with a German

message ... about Zeit?

and there was a cool young poet

reading of places like St Peter’s, Paris, Pamplona.

Time indeed for reverie, a step back,

lost in that audience where mulled
wine

glowed in slender hands,

the world and all its destinations

swirling in the whirligig of words.

I wanted to hold the moment,

say, “Wait, this is beautiful.”

Banal maybe, but i did feel something

more than merely satisfying.

Then in that moment of completeness

this scruffy devil of a dog appeared.

It went straight to me,
ignored every poetaster

and beautiful person,

then sniffed at each of my shoes

as if to say,

“What are you doing here – you

interesting person?

Where are your dogs?”

Credit note: "Dogs" is from John Horrocks' collection Raw Places (Steele Roberts, 2005), and is reproduced by kind permission of the author. This version has some minor variations from the version that appears in "Dogs".

Tim says: John and I met last year when we read together at a poetry event at the Greytown Arts Festival organised by the rather wonderful Madeleine Marie Slavick. Afterwards, there was lots of swapping of poetry collections among the nine poets who took part, and I thereby obtained a copy of John's collection Raw Places. John is a farmer as well as a poet, and many of the poems are about his farm in the Wairarapa - but as a country boy trying to make good in the big city myself (cue banjo music), "Dogs" especially resonated with me. John tells me the poem is based on an actual event that happened to him at a Jenny Bornholdt reading.

An unrelated note: I attended the first New Zealand Poetry Society Wellington meeting of the year last night, where there were two guest poets: Andrew Nance, a recent graduate of the Iowa Creative Writing programme, who is currently teaching at the International Institute of Modern Letters in Wellington, and Colin Patterson from Leeston: "Colin is a retired farmer and unlikely poet, who entered his writing career late but with gusto. He is well-known around the South Island for his hearty performances."

It would be almost impossible to imagine two more contrasting male poets in genre, style and presentation - the witty, sophisticated, drawling American with his retinue of poetry students in summer frocks, followed by Colin Patterson's archetypal (and beautifully-performed) bush poetry - but I enjoyed them both. It was a great way to kick off the Poetry Society's year.

The Tuesday Poem: Features the strong devoted.

Please fill in this survey by Wednesday for a student research project

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 22:25:00 +0000

A couple of months ago, I helped out student Shannon Patraj with the first part of a research project on blogging. Now Shannon would like the help of readers of this blog with the next part of this research - by filling in this short five-question survey. The questions in it are especially applicable to writers:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KNFVYLX

The deadline for responses is Wednesday 20 February,* so it's close - sorry for the short notice!

Shannon has provided the following context for the survey:

"I am studying Creative Media Production at the Higher National Diploma level, and one of the current units I am doing is Contextual Studies. The first assignment done on your blog, was to identify and demonstrate an understanding of the institutional context which impacts on its production.

There is a follow up assignment that has be built on the same media production as the first. Understanding of the product should be deepened by conducting various primary and secondary research methodologies. The research is to explore how consumers of the media product receive the chosen product using theoretical approaches.

This essay will be accompanied by a power point presentation in class to demonstrate a thorough understanding of what was written."

I hope you'll be able to fill in the survey and help Shannon out.

*The deadline was originally Sunday 16 February, but Shannon was subsequently able to get an extension.

Tuesday Poem: Dante And Isaac Asimov

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:22:00 +0000

Dante and Isaac Asimov
agree to divide up the world.
"You can have the facts, Isaac,"
says Dante, waving his bagel,
"and the fiction. Just leave me the poem, O.K?"

Isaac thinks about that. He's
unsure of this underfed stranger.
"The poem?" "Inferno and so forth. It's
all the fame I need." "That's fair," says Isaac.

Dante spreads his hands and smiles.
"Write all you like, my friend.
They'll still remember me
when you are long forgotten.
Don't you agree?"

Isaac shrugs. "You're too
concerned about such things.
Ten books a year and I'm happy-
it doesn't matter much what on."

He sees that his plate is clean,
shoves back his chair. "Excuse me, please.
My typewriter calls. Perhaps
we'll meet again?"
"Perhaps. Enjoy your work, my friend."

Isaac is swallowed by the wind.
The poet lingers, looking at faces
swirling by his window.
"Always hurrying," he says.

Credit note: "Dante and Isaac Asimov" is from my first collection, Boat People (HeadworX, 2001).

Tim says: Isaac Asimov was a famously prolific writer on a wide range of topics besides the science fiction novels he is best known for. Dante was not so prolific (as far as we know - though some scholars believe he wrote most of John Grisham's legal thrillers under the assumed name "William Shakespeare".)

The Tuesday Poem: Marches on with measured tread.

The 52 Books I Read In 2012: Part 2: 27-52

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:22:00 +0000

My previous post covered the first 26 books I read in 2012. This post covers the remaining 26, and a third post will discuss my thoughts on the reading year past and the one ahead.

Note: the links from the book title and author, where available, are to the relevant LibraryThing pages.

27. 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson - novel/SF (4/5)

I enjoyed this return to the inhabited Solar System of KSR's magnificent Mars Trilogy - in many ways, this book is a sequel to the final volume in that trilogy, Blue Mars.

This book doesn't have any characters who are as memorable as the half-dozen or so leading characters of the Mars trilogy - but all the same, if you want a single-volume tour of KSR's future system, this is a fine place to start.

28. The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi - memoir/graphic memoir (4.5/5)

I thought the first part, covering her childhood in Iran, was outstanding, but although the second part, covering her adolescence outside Iran and eventual return to the country is also good, it didn't grip me quite as much as the first part. All the same, this was well worth reading - and everyone in my book group liked it very much, which is rare indeed for our group!

29. Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel - memoir/graphic memoir (5/5)

Another wonderful combination of graphic novel and memoir from Alison Bechdel. After Fun Home, which centred on her father, the focus of Are You My Mother? isn't a surprise: this time, the parent is seen through the prism of psychoanalysis rather than literature, but the result is just as thought-provoking, involving and moving. Highly recommended.

30. Hide Me Among the Graves by Tim Powers - novel/historical fantasy (3.5/5)

This was pitched somewhere between Powers' alternate-history fantasies involving the lives of the poets with added Nephilim, and his ghost-catching mythology. I like the former but dislike the latter, so it's no surprise that I found this book very good in some parts and frustrating in others. The literary clan in peril here is the Rossetti family, but compared to the portrayal of Shelley and Byron in previous novels of this stripe, they never really came alive for me as characters.

So ... good, but not great, Tim Powers.

31. Graft by Helen Heath - poetry/collection (4/5)

A fine collection by Helen Heath - the highlight for me being some excellent poems about science and scientists, such as this award-winning one:

http://theredroom.org/2012/01/17/tuesday-poem-making-tea-in-the-universe-by-helen-heath/

32. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick - novel/science fiction (4.5/5)

When I went through my "Philip K. DicK phase" in my late teens/early twenties I read many of his novels, but never this one. That's a pity, because it's very good, bringing back that distinctively Dickian sense of living in a Universe whose arbitrary, provisional nature can almost be sensed.

33. Blood in the Water by Jane Haddam - novel/mystery (3.5/5)

Entertaining and well-plotted police procedural, although the ending didn't work all that well for me.

34. Just Then by Harry Ricketts - poetry collection (3.5/5)

Harry Ricketts is best known for The Unforgiving Minute, his biography of Rudyard Kipling, but he's also a fine poet. There's an element of miscellany about this book, but the best poems are very good indeed. This is my favourite: http://theredroom.org/2012/06/12/tuesday-poem-phoenix-foundation-by-harry-ricketts/

35. The Heir of Night by Helen Lowe - novel/heroic fantasy (4.5/5)

Very well-written and well-constructed first volume in a heroic fantasy tetratology - although there may be science-fictional elements to this world as well. Helen Lowe is an excellent writer and brings a richness of detail to this novel that makes it well worth reading.

For news on the progress of this tetralogy, and plenty more besides, check out Helen's excellent blog.

36. Mansfield With Monsters by Matt Cowens and Debbie Cowens - short story collection/mash-ups (3.5/5)

This (to my knowledge) is the first New Zealand example of the mash-up genre - it's superficially in the tradition of such books as Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, but in fact the spirit of this book is much more respectful towards the original stories by Katherine Mansfield, the great New Zealand short story writer of the early 20th century.

How well these Mansfield-with-added-horror stories work depends for me on the tone of the original stories (some but not all of which I'm familiar with). There is a good dose of New Zealand gothic in Mansfield stories such as "The Woman at the Store", and the extra elements of horror work very well here. In some of the other stories, they didn't work quite so well for me - but overall, the concept pays off and Matt and Debbie Cowens have done a very good job with this book.

Here is my interview with Matt and Debbie Cowens: http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/mansfield-with-monsters-interview-with.html

37. The Gathering of the Lost by Helen Lowe - novel/heroic fantasy (4.5/5)

Impressive continuation of the tetralogy begin in The Heir of Night (#35 above). The protagonist, Malian, has aged from 13 to 18 between the two novels, allowing this one to have a darker tone and more adult material - The Heir of Night felt like a YA novel, but this one much less so. In addition to the quality writing and characterisation, the hints being given out about the background of the world make me want to keep reading. Looking forward to the next volume!

38. How It All Began by Penelope Lively - novel/realist fiction (4/5)

Well-written novel about the chain of consequences set in motion when an elderly woman is mugged, and how this affects a range of characters. The main storyline is beautifully written and well-resolved - some of the other storylines are less appealing, or dealt with too abruptly. Very enjoyable, though.

39. Triptych poets: issue three - by P.S. Cottier, Joan Kerr and J.C.Inman - poetry/collection (3.5/5)

I enjoyed 2/3 of this three-poet collection very much - the final third wasn't as good, but still interesting. My full review is here: http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/book-review-triptych-poets-issue-three.html

40. Warm auditorium by James Brown - poetry/collection (4/5)

Seventh collection by New Zealand poet James Brown. I have reviewed this collection for Landfall Review Online and the review should appear in their February 2013 issue: http://landfallreviewonline.blogspot.co.nz/

41. Rock Bottom by Sarah Andrews - fiction/mystery (3/5)

I have read several mysteries by Sarah Andrews. She is excellent at writing about landscapes, geology, and the science v creationism debate - and here she has the canvas of the Grand Canyon to work with. But the mystery is perfunctory and even a doofus such as I was instantly able to see whodunnit. This would have been better as a nonfiction book about rafting the Grand Canyon - I would really have enjoyed that.

42. Firewall by Henning Mankell - novel/thriller (3.5/5)

The first Henning Mankell novel I've read was the last Wallander novel he had published, and although I didn't know that when I read it, I had the sense of an author who had grown tired of his character. Not bad at all, but not as good or as gripping as all the praise for the Wallander novels had led me to expect.

43. Dwarf Stars 2012, edited by Geoffrey A. Landis and Joshua Gage - poetry/anthology (4/5)

The Science Fiction Poetry Society's annual Dwarf Stars anthology collects up the best short-short speculative poetry of the past year. I have read several of these anthologies (and nominated one of the poems included herein, Rod Usher's "Before Science Stepped In"), and I think this is the best that I've read. In addition to Rod Usher's poem, I especially liked "The Robot Scientist's Daughter" by Jeannine Hall Gailey and "Containers" by F. J. Bergmann.

More information about "Dwarf Stars" and the SFPA's other publications is available at http://www.sfpoetry.com/

44. The View From Up There by Gerry Te Kapa Coates - poetry and fiction/collection (3.5/5)

A first collection - mainly poetry, but also a few stories - from Gerry Te Kapa Coates, who is now showcasing his skills as a writer to go with those he has already demonstrated in engineering, iwi leadership, sustainability and a whole range of other areas.

I discuss with Gerry his writing and how it relates to other areas of his life in this interview: http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/an-interview-with-gerry-te-kapa-coates.html

45. The Great Fortune by Olivia Manning - novel/war novel (3/5)

I read this for my book group. The first novel in the author's "Balkan Trilogy", it came well recommended, and several other people in the book group liked it - but I found the characters uninteresting and the story, although potentially engaging, told in too roundabout a manner to hold my attention.

On the other hand, the novel is well written at a sentence-by-sentence level, and I was trying to read it at a particularly busy time when anything more complicated than Janet and John might have been too much for me, so I am giving it a cautious three stars.

46. Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years 1969-1979 by Michael Palin - nonfiction/diaries (4/5)

These diaries cover Michael Palin's Monty Python years, though their coverage of "The Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian" is better than that of making the TV series, and Ripping Yarns, and towards the end begin to look ahead to the second half of his career - the travel programmes and non-Python films.

For a Python fan such as myself, these are well worth reading. Non-Python fans might find the minutiae of the Python years less interesting, but these diaries also give a good picture of what Britain was like in the 1970s - very different, in many respects, from today.

47. The God Species by Mark Lynas - nonfiction/environment - (3.5/5)

I have only skim-read this book so far and want to reconsider it in more depth. Lynas argues that the environmental movement needs to reconsider many of its most cherished attitudes, notably its opposition to nuclear power, because the alternative to nuclear, i.e. coal, is far worse for the climate.

I'm with him on the fact that we must stop new coal-fired power stations being built, and ultimately phase out coal, if we are to maintain a liveable climate - but I also got annoyed by his lone-prophet-in-the-wilderness tone. Despite that, I think this book is well worth reading - and I may reconsider the rating above when I have read it in more depth.

48. Invaders (What They Don't Tell You About) by Bob Fowke - nonfiction/children's/history (3.5/5)

As an appetiser to the next book on the list, I read this MG-ish nonfiction history of the Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Viking invaders of Britain. My main interest was in the latter, but I enjoyed the first two sections too. These books are in the tradition of "Horrible Histories" - that is, history as nasty, brutish and short.

49. Blood Of The Vikings by Julian C. Richards - nonfiction/history (4/5)

I was looking for a book about Viking Britain - in particular, the area of Viking-occupied Britain known as "the Danelaw". This book was too general a history of the Vikings in Britain and Ireland to give me the details I was looking for, but it is a good introduction for a non-specialist such as myself.

It's the book of a TV series, which means that some sections appear to be written to facilitate shots of a rugged presenter addressing the camera while walking along a windswept beach - but, if this is a fault at all, it's a minor and understandable one. Worth reading if you're interested in this under-emphasised period of British and Irish history.

50. My Family and Other Strangers by Laurice Gilbert - poetry/collection (4.5/5)

I enjoyed this first collection by Wellington poet (and New Zealand Poetry Society president) Laurice Gilbert tremendously, and I say a few things about that and share one of Laurice's poems here:

http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.co.nz/2012/12/tuesday-poem-i-would-rather-by-laurice.html

51. Stalin's Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith - novel/mystery (4/5)

I have the first three of Martin Cruz's Smith Arkady Renko detective novels, and didn't realise that this was the sixth. The first three are excellent - this is till good, but feels a bit like a retread of the first in the series, Gorky Park. Still worth reading if you like mysteries and/or Russia, though.

52. The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller - novel/mystery (3.5/5)

A mystery set in 1920 and focusing on the consequence of the execution of a British officer for cowardice during World War 1. I found the description of the era fascinating, and the mystery is interesting too, but rather let down by an ending in which the villain of the piece explains his motivations and actions in considerable detail.

The 52 Books I Read In 2012: Part 1: 1-26

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 11:37:00 +0000

As I have been doing since 2009, I kept track of my reading during 2012 on LibraryThing. This post is a compendium of those notes. The quality & depth of comments on the books I read varies widely - this is much more likely to be a relfection of how busy I was at the time, rather than the quality of the books!

This post covers the first 26 books I read in 2012. The next post will cover the remaining 26, and a third post will discuss my thoughts on the reading year past and the one ahead.

In a subsequent post, I'll talk about my highlights of the 2012 reading year, and some thoughts about the year ahead.

Note: the links from the book title and author, where available, are to the relevant LibraryThing pages.

1. Sympathy for the Devil by Justin Gustainis - novel/supernatural thriller (3.5/5)

A real guilty-pleasure holiday read, this one - I enjoyed it, though there were some fairly large plot and character motivation holes to navigate around. If I tell you that among my tags for the book are "demonic possession" and "Republican Party", that should give you a pretty good idea of whether you'd enjoy it!

2. When A Billion Chinese Jump by Jonathan Watts - nonfiction/politics/environment (4.5/5)

A well-written account of the many environmental issues China - and therefore the world - is facing by the Guardian's Asia environment correspondent. Fascinating but rarely encouraging reading.

3. delicate access by Madeleine Marie Slavick - poetry/collection/dual language (4.5/5)

This book was the perfect complement to my #2 - a collection of poems written in English and translated into Chinese by Luo Hui, dealing, sometimes obliquely and sometimes directly, with life in China and Hong Kong. There are many very fine poems in this collection.

4. The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics by James Kakalios - nonfiction/physics (4/5)

My son, who is very keen on physics, keeps asking me questions about quantum mechanics that I can't answer. Before I get to the stage where I can't even understand the questions, I thought I'd give this backgrounder on quantum mechanics a try.

I enjoyed the early chapters, but found the later chapters on the applications of quantum mechanics in technology less interesting - I would have preferred more on the fundamental scientific and philosophical issues raised by quantum mechanics. But that wasn't this book's brief, and it did what it does do very well.

5. Tymon's Flight by Mary Victoria - novel/fantasy (4.5/5)

Really enjoyable first novel in the Chronicles of the Tree YA fantasy trilogy by Wellington writer Mary Victoria. It's not often these days that I get caught up in a fantasy or SF story as I used to do when I was teenager, but Tymon's Flight brought back those delicious "what's going to happen next??" feelings.

Here is my interview with Mary Victoria: http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/interview-with-mary-victoria.html

6. Backbone by Harry Laing - poetry collection (3.5/5)

Some good poems in here, especially in the closing sequence "Heated", but also a number that didn't come alive for me. I have heard Harry Laing perform his poetry and he is excellent - I think I'd gain a new appreciation of these poems if I heard them live.

7. Relinquished by Thomas W. Devine - novel/thriller (2.5/5)

8. In Cold Pursuit by Sarah Andrews - novel/thriller (4/5)

A pair of thrillers to carry me through a busy couple of weeks. The woman-in-sexual-peril plot of "Relinquished" didn't appeal to me, even though it's quite well done, but I did enjoy "In Cold Pursuit", despite some deficiencies when viewed purely as a thriller, as I said in my review:

The strength and weakness of this book is that it is based on a two-month stint the author spent in Antarctica. She does a great job of writing about the places she visited and the people she met there (or their fictional analogues), but the attempt to graft a thriller plot onto the travelogue doesn't work so well, as the protagonist of the thriller goes on side trips that tell the reader a lot about Antarctica and about climate science but threaten to derail the plot.

So, if I was rating "In Cold Pursuit" purely on its thriller elements, I would give it about three stars - but, if you are at all interested in fictional descriptions of Antarctica, people who choose to live in Antarctica, climate change, and the way science is done, as I am, it's well worth four stars.

9. Land Below The Waves by Julie Leibrich - poetry/collection (3/5)

10. Samiha's Song by Mary Victoria - novel/fantasy (4/5)

Reading has taken a bit of a back seat in the last few weeks, but I have finished these two. Land Below The Waves is a New Zealand poetry collection from 2004 that has some very good poems but seemed a little uneven to me.

Samiha's Song is the second volume in Mary Victoria's Chronicles of the Tree trilogy. I didn't like it quite as much as the first volume, Tymon's Flight, mainly because it took a while to get going, but it does the things the second book of a fantasy trilogy should do: it deepens the world in which the story takes place, introduces new complications, and prepares the main character for the trials to be faced in the concluding volume, Oracle's Fire. I think that should be a cracker.

11. The Prince of Soul and the Lighthouse by Fredrik Brouneus - YA comedy fantasy (4/5)

I liked this book a lot. It's the first book for which I've been asked to provide a book-cover quote, and here is what I said:

"This road trip with reincarnation is full of teenage hormones, forbidden - well, inadvisable - love, signs, portents and coffee-addicted zombies. If the Dalai Lama and Terry Pratchett collaborated on a novel, it might read something like this."

12. Road Markings by Michael Jackson - memoir/travelogue (4/5)

Michael Jackson is a distinguished NZ-born anthropologist, now teaching at Harvard. This book is the narrative of a recent return trip he made to New Zealand. There are some fascinating reflections on national culture, 'firstness' and the dilemmas of the expatriate here.

Here is my interview with Michael Jackson: http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/interview-with-michael-jackson.html

13. No Ordinary Deal by Jane Kelsey - nonfiction/international politcs and trade (3.5/5)

This is a book about an important subject - a highly secretive set of international trade negotiations over the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, which if enacted will lock participating countries even more firmly into the failed neoliberal model of international trade and finance.

Unfortunately, most of the chapters are written by academics who do far less than they should to make the subject matter clear and comprehensible to the general reader. That's a great pity, given the importance of the subject matter.

14. Oracle's Fire by Mary Victoria - novel/fantasy (4.5/5)

Concluding volume of the "Chronicles of the Tree" trilogy, and I think it makes for a very strong finish to the trilogy.

I wouldn't say I'm the target market for a YA fantasy trilogy, but I enjoyed these books a lot.

15. Hilary and David by Laura Solomon - epistolary novel (4/5)

I enjoyed this recent novel by NZ author Laura Solomon, which I reviewed for Landfall Review Online: http://landfallreviewonline.blogspot.co.nz/2012/07/friends-on-facebook.html (NB: For some reason I have a lot of trouble with links to Landfall Review Online reviews. If this link doesn't work for you, please just go to the LRO home page and search for the review.)

16. The Quantum Universe: Anything That Can Happen, Does by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw - nonfiction/science (4.5/5)

A very good concise guide to quantum theory, especially as it applies to elementary particles.

17. The Ten PM Question by Kate De Goldi - fiction/YA novel (4.5/5)

A lovely coming-of-age story about a boy with anxiety, a mother with agoraphobia, and the new girl in the boy's class who catalyses change in his life.

18. How To Live By The Sea by Lynn Davidson - poetry/collection (3.5/5)

Lynn Davidson is a skilled poet, and there is a lot to like in this book of poems about living by the sea, family and relationships - but I have to admit that this collection didn't really engage me.

I think that's my fault rather than the book's - I tend to enjoy poetry collections more when I read them in one or a few sittings, whereas in this case I read a poem here and a poem there over the course of a month or so. Reflective poetry and a busy life don't always go well together!

19. E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation by David Bodanis - nonfiction/science (4/5)

I don't usually enjoy science books which are focused more on the biographies of the scientists than on the science itself, but perhaps because Bodanis is a historian, he carries of this mix of biography and science very well. A strong secondary theme is the waste of scientific talent caused by the sexism that has historically held back female scientists, several of whom are included in this tale.

20. The Intentions Book by Gigi Fenster - fiction/novel (4/5)

I liked most of this debut novel by NZ author a great deal, but one section of it didn't work so well for me, as I discuss in my review for Landfall Review Online: http://landfallreviewonline.blogspot.com/2012/08/heart-of-ranges.html

21. The Tenderness of Light by Mary McCallum - poetry/chapbook (4/5)

Very enjoyable poetry chapbook by NZ writer Mary McCallum, who although best known for her novel "The Blue"started off by writing poetry. Rich, detailed poems - I want to read this one again.

22. Master of the Grass by Nina Gabrielyan - fiction/collection (3.5/5)

This collection consists of a novella followed by six short stories, and I reviewed it for Belletrista: http://www.belletrista.com/2012/Issue18/reviews_4.php

23. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi - novel/SF (3.5/5)

There's a lot to be impressed by about this near-future SF novel, set in a future which is, if not post-apocalyptic, at least post-a lot of bad things. Both the style and the plot appear to be strongly influenced by William Gibson's Neuromancer, with good helpings of J G Ballard and Joseph Conrad in the mix, but this is biopunk rather than cyberpunk.

The novel's great strength is in its depiction of its future Thailand, and in the depiction of those characters who get enough attention to be well depicted. Its major flaws - and they are sizeable enough to have created a lot of controversy - are:

1) The author crams too much in - too many storylines, too many tangents. The result is that some characters, such as the gifted but shadowy genehacker at the core of the plot (whose name suggests a sizeable tribute to Gibson), remain figures from central casting - in this case, Marlon Brando playing Mr Kurtz.

2) The titular character, Emiko, is a genetically programmed sex slave who suffers several brutal sexual assaults in the course of the novel. Spoiler alert: She turns into an assassin and wipes most of her tormentors out, but nevertheless, the relish with which these scenes were described left a nasty taste in my mouth.

Despite those criticisms, it's clear that Paolo Bacigalupi is a very talented writer who thinks deeply about the worlds he creates.

24. The Affair by Lee Child - novel/thriller (3.5/5)

The book group I'm in hops wildly from genre to genre - that's the second-best thing about it, the best being the people - and so we tackle books I would never normally read, like this one.

I was expecting something in the Tom Clancy line, but this was quite a bit better than I expected - even though the solution to the murder mystery is telegraphed quite early in the novel, which makes the introduction of a lengthy read herring in its second half rather annoying. Jack Reacher is an engaging character, and the milieu of the novel is well-drawn - although I knocked off half a star for Reacher's readiness to act as executioner as well as judge and jury. He's the human equivalent of a drone strike.

25. Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson - nonfiction/travelogue (3.5/5)

In this travelogue of a journey around Europe in 1991 or thereabouts, Bill Bryson is his usual entertaining self for the most part, but his frequent bitching about the strange habits of foreigners did get on my nerves after a while.

26. Beyond Today: A Values Story by Claire Browning - nonfiction-history/politics (3.5/5)

In 1977, when I was still too young to vote, I joined the Values Party, New Zealand's first green party (and one of the world's first). By the time I joined, Values had passed its high-water mark, but its successor party, the Green Party, is now a major player in New Zealand politics.

I expected this book, published to mark the 40th anniversary of the Values Party's foundation, to be a history of Values and how it influences the Greens, but that's a relatively small part of the book. Most of the book covers Claire's views of how the Greens should move forwards, and it ends with an excellent chapter from former Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons.

If you are interested in green politics (big or small "G"), "Beyond Today" is well worth reading.

Here is my interview with Clare Browning: http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/an-interview-with-claire-browning.html

Here endeth Part 1...

Tuesday Poem: I Would Rather..., by Laurice Gilbert

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 19:47:00 +0000

I would rather…

· cut my toenails in the dark with a machete

· slash my wrists and lie bleeding in a puddle of leeches

· self-diagnose a suspicious lump by looking it up on the internet

· roll cheese at Coopers Hill, run with the bulls at Pamplona, swim with the sharks in Shark Alley

· trek across Central Australia in bare feet and a black crushed velvet Goth dress

· answer an online dating ad for an outgoing, intelligent and well-travelled professional man with his own successful business

· visit Liberia without anti-malarial tablets, climb Everest without oxygen, hitch-hike in Afghanistan in a mini-skirt

· recite poetry naked in Manners Mall on a Friday night in July

· drink water from the Ganges during a cholera epidemic

· go back to university to study accounting

· have the soles of my feet tattooed

than write another funding application to Creative New Zealand

Credit note: This poem first appeared in Valley Micropress (May 2010), where Laurice Gilbert was the Featured Poet, and is the final poem in Laurice's first collection, My Family & Other Strangers (Academy Aotearoa Press, 2012). It is reproduced by permission of the author.

You can purchase My Family & Other Strangers for $12 by:

(a) PayPal - linked from this page: http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/aboutlaurice

(b) Emailing Laurice at laurice.gilbert@paradise.net.nz to get bank account details for direct credit.

Tim says: I went to the launch of Laurice's collection this past Sunday. It was a warm and fun launch, filled with family and friends, and introduced by a witty slideshow compiled by Laurice's husband Wally Potts, with well-timed interjections from Laurice. The collection is full of lovely poems about family, and I had decided to ask Laurice if I could use one of them as my Tuesday Poem, when she closed the reading with the poem above. How could I resist?

But, since it's Christmas, I want to wish a Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays to all poets and lovers of poetry; to the frustrated compilers of grant applications and the inscrutable examiners of grant applications alike; to saint and sinner, publican and publicist; to the long and the short and the tall, and all the ships at sea. I hope everyone has the chance for, and enjoys, a lovely and well-deserved holiday.

The Tuesday Poem: Wonderfully rounds out the year.

My Flash Fiction "Aftermath" Nominated For A Pushcart Prize

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 10:55:00 +0000

In 2012, I have been working steadily away on stories for a third short story collection, but I haven't yet got to the stage of making many subissions to magazines and anthologies.

I have, however, had several short-short stories aka flash fictions published by the excellent New Zealand-based monthly flash fiction magazine Flash Frontier, whose editors Michelle Elvy and Sian Williams have done a great job since starting the magazine in late 2011. They pulled together an outstanding lineup of authors for the international issue, as well as all the New Zealand authors who have been published in Flash Frontier since its inception - as shown by the list of contributors.

I was very pleased to hear from the editors recently that they have nominated my story "Aftermath", which was first published in the April 2012 issue of Flash Frontier, for a Pushcart Prize, together with five other stories from Flash Frontier. It's always nice to get this sort of recognition, and I hope to have further flash fictions in Flash Frontier - and, I hope, in other venues too - next year. Thank you, Michelle and Sian!

Aftermath

After the party we drove the last guests home down streets already filling with the desperate and dangerous. The return journey was arduous, our new armour plating proving its worth more than once.

Sir Charles, manning the machine-gun nest at the gates, gave us a cheery wave as we swept into the driveway. Our path from the motor pool was lit by the fitfully flaring skies. To our left, the men under Tompkins were taking up the croquet lawn, ready to plant kale, to plant leeks, to plant the seed potatoes long tended in secret by O’Brien. No varietal rights lawyers would trouble him now.

Mother was surprisingly chipper. She gave me a peck on the cheek and sent me upstairs to help with the blackout curtains. “Everything’s going like clockwork,” she said. “Like clockwork.”

Standing watch in the upper gallery was tedious. I will not deny that I had fallen asleep at my post when the first wave of attacks began. We heard the chattering of Sir Charles’ machine-gun; we heard it fall silent. I learned later that only the massed charge of the under-gardeners, who had been concealed in the ha-ha for such an eventuality, repelled the attackers from our gates.

In the morning, we dragged Sir Charles’ body to the petunia border for burial. We stopped for a minute’s silence to mark his passing. Then Mother blew a single, mournful note on a party favour, and we returned to the task of further reinforcing the gates.

Tuesday Poem: Delegates

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 11:32:00 +0000

Delegates

Storm stuffed with snow

stomps the sky’s boots

through hallways, conventions.

Delegates register, scatter

to the four sides of the square,

to the Four Seasons.

A corner suite. Storm

thrums the windows. Each year

they re-enact the ritual:

her hands meshed in his hair,

his stubble chafing her thighs.

She arches on the wardrobe door.

Next morning, at the plenary,

they sit apart. Each time they vote

a secret warmth escapes their hands.

Credit note: "Delegates" was first published in my third poetry collection, Men Briefly Explained.

Tim says: I can't remember why, but the idea of a couple who conduct a secret affair at an annual convention they both attend popped into my head, and this is the result. For some reason, the idea only works if the annual convention takes place in winter.

The Tuesday Poem: Keeps getting better.

My Guest Post On Poetic Inspirations: The Swells Of The Quiet Ocean

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 12:18:00 +0000

No Tuesday Poem from me this week, but I've included several poems and extracts from poems in my guest post on the Poetic Inspirations blog, The Swells of the Quiet Ocean, which talks about my uneasy relationship with the sea in general and the Pacific Ocean in particular.

I'm very grateful to Maryanne Pale for giving me the opportunity to write this guest post for Poetic Inspirations - and I encourage everyone to follow her excellent blog.

Tuesday Poem: One's One And Only Haiku

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 03:52:00 +0000

King Arthur today
a sofa, two chairs
an occasional table

Credit note: First published in Learning a Language: New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology 2005, edited by Margaret Vos.

Tim says: Frantically busy. Running late. No Tuesday Poem posted last week - little chance of one this week. Facing being drummed out of the regiment,* possible court-martial. What to do?

Then - inspiration strikes in the form of P.S. Cottier posting a haiku. Note to self - adopt same policy - post a haiku! RSM McCallum thereby satisfied, honour of regiment intact. One problem: self not a noted writer of haiku, little inspiration to write one.

But! Chap rummages around in old files, finds the above - one and only haiku ever attempted, and by Jove, published too. Matter of Britain - most satisfactory. Not really a haiku in the strict sense but as Padre says, there are no atheists in a fox-hole. (Note to self: must ask Padre if he has experimental evidence of same. Poss. of survey, troops answering questions on religious belief or lack of while taking shelter from live fire. Would take troops' minds off their troubles, buck them up. Good for morale.)

*The regiment of Tuesday Poets. Jolly good show, everyone!

An Interview With Gerry Te Kapa Coates

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 23:33:00 +0000

Gerry Te Kapa Coates (Ngāi Tahu) was born in Oamaru, but has lived in Wellington for most of his working life. He has been a writer since schooldays, initially concentrating on poetry with work published in journals like Landfall. He works as an engineer and company director, but has done many varied and creative things in his career - from journalism and stage lighting design to working with Ngāi Tahu and Te Tau Ihu on their Treaty claim settlements. A past published finalist in the Māori Literature (Pikihuia) Awards in 2001, 2003 and 2007, his book of poetry and short stories The View From Up There was published in 2011. He is now working on further collections and longer works including a novel. An engineer/poet is a rare breed. He still finds that working − and looking after mokopuna – takes its creative toll.

How long has The View From Up There been in preparation, and is it a satisfying feeling that the book has now published?

When I started writing, being published was only a vague notion, although I submitted a poem in 1961 to Canta (the University newspaper) that was published under my pseudonym at the time ‘Jerez’. In a burst of enthusiasm in the early 80s I submitted – and was mostly rejected − by the literary periodicals of the time such as Landfall, Islands, Poetry NZ etc. The advice I was given by publishers later was that ‘poetry didn’t pay’ and to look at self-publishing, which always seemed to me to be rather self-seeking. It’s always a salutary feeling to walk into a library – or a book remainder shop – and see the attempts of the thousands of authors seeking fame. So when Roger Steele, who had previously given me advice to self-publish, offered to publish my collection I was very happy, and even happier with the result and the feedback. But getting any acclaim through reviews is still difficult for New Zealand authors, especially for poetry.

How would you describe your fiction and your poetry to readers unfamiliar with your work?

I’m never sure whether ‘accessible’ is a good attribute, but I think my poems are. They are relatively straightforward and rely on the use of words to evoke a feeling, rather than fancy devices. The same reviewer who called them accessible also said ‘I suspect the true test of a "good" poem is when the reader is able to pick up a poem and find something of their own life experience in it.’ Another well-read friend of mine said ‘I find many modern poems hard to understand. The poet is so close to his or her subject that it is impossible for an outsider to gain entry to his thought process. But your poems are not like this. They have depth, but I was able to enter just a little of your world, and share your feelings.’

My stories often tend to have a Māori flavour, but again I want them to be a ‘good tale’ whatever the reader’s background. If I see myself as an indigenous writer – which I do – then I make sure the ‘politics of difference’ as Witi Ihimaera says, is evident. But sometimes I’m just a writer – as in love poems for example.

You have had a long and successful career as an engineer, sustainability consultant, and director of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. Do each of these feed into your writing, or is your writing something apart from any of these?

Yes, many of my poems and stories are loosely based on my life-experience, but not necessarily autobiographical – for example I didn’t fight in Vietnam, but I was a protester against the war. Being deeply involved with Ngāi Tahu politics and its Treaty Claim settlement process meant I was in touch with my roots, and also aware of the red-neck anti-Māori sentiment that the settlement generated in the form of Letters to the Editor. Apparently John Huria asked me at a panel discussion at the Christchurch Writers’ Festival ‘Is writing a poem like lighting an airstrip?’ according to Fergus Barrowman. I probably didn’t hear him because the sound system on stage was so bad, but my answer (to Fergus) was ‘Maybe more like lighting a play - which I do as well!’ Everything – life, career, reading – all feed into my work in some way.

The View From Up There includes both stories and poems. Was it an easy decision to include both in the collection, and are you satisfied with how this combined approach has worked out?

It was the publisher’s decision, but I hadn’t thought it through and the difficulties it would provide for libraries and bibliographic listings to adequately categorise it. In future I think that despite the book being more interesting with a variety of genre, I will do poems and fiction separately.

In commenting on The View From Up There, author Phillip Mann says:

“I admire the grace of these poems, and the carefulness which keeps them clear and direct. I also appreciate the ease with which they are able to bring together the Maori language and English, achieving a synthesis that is uniquely true to the country.” – Phillip Mann

Can you tell us about the ways you have bought Te Reo Māori and English together in your work?

When I first assembled the selection, I hadn’t realised how much Te Reo was implicit in many of the poems. In the end I did a glossary that spread to 70 words and two pages. Ideally a poem should be able to include Te Reo and English seamlessly. But even a poem needs a footnote to put it in context. I can’t recall how many readers have said they were so glad to discover the ‘Notes on the Poems’ at the end, but usually after they needed it. Maybe next time they’ll be footnotes.

Phil also said after the book was published, ‘I think it is an excellent collection. Your poems achieve what poetry does best. They explore those moments of realization and change which occur when life suddenly opens up before us, sometimes terrifyingly so − as a when a loved one dies, or a car crash reminds us of our own mortality or when suddenly we know we are happy and in love or we confront a distasteful political reality. While the poems are personal, they encourage us to see the universal in the moment for, as has often been said, Death is our only certainty as in grief, and a car crash in New Zealand is very like one in Finland or Peru, and love, it seems to me, is a flower which thrives despite barbed wire, pollution, economic downturn or our own tongue-tied silence. Which things said, I also admire the patient craftsman who works on the words until they shine.’ I thank him for those insights.

You were a guest at the Christchurch Writers Festival 2012. Do you enjoy reading at such events, and the ‘public performance’ aspects of being a writer?

That was the first Festival where I’d been an invited ‘official writer’ although I have read publicly before. I enjoy both the reading, and the selection of what to read. At Christchurch, because it was a Ngāi Tahu writers’ panel, I chose to read poems with a Māori context but at the end I read a new love poem I’d just written the previous week. I was blown away by several responses including from an out of town couple who felt deeply connected to the poem. Those interactions make it all worth it.

Who are some of your favourite authors of fiction and poetry, and in particular, are there authors and poets you particularly enjoy whom you feel haven’t received the attention they deserve from critics and the public?

The poets I have been influenced by include (apart from the ones everyone has been influenced by like T S Eliot etc) Robert Graves, e e cummings, Philip Larkin, James K Baxter, Alastair Campbell and latterly Glen Colquhoun. At the Christchurch Writers Festival I was also reacquainted with Riemke Ensing, Bernadette Hall and Cilla McQueen whom I’ve admired. Also an amazing Māori poet Ben Brown (Ngāti Pāoa, Ngāti Māhuta) whose performance readings are fantastic.

Fiction is more difficult to pin down. Short stories by kiwis Owen Marshall or Maurice Duggan, and by Alice Munro and Lydia Davis. And novels by authors from many countries. The Nobel prizewinners are a good start – the Norwegian Knut Hamsun’s epic Growth of the Soil or Sigrid Undset’s even grander Kristin Lavransdatter were a great influence. Also the so-called ‘Angry Brigade’ of British writers in the 60s.

The Steele Roberts website mentions that you are working on a novel – would you care to say more about this?

An extract from its early stages entitled ‘The Exploration of Space’ was published in Huia Short Stories 5 (2003). It’s about a Māori rower who goes to Munich in 1972 with the Olympic team and has a love affair with an Israeli team member who is killed, and how this, and his whakapapa history, affects his later life. After mulling it around and writing more chapters I’m still quite a way from finishing it. I need to deal with the ‘Enemies of Promise’ and start working on it again, rather than my erstwhile career. Roger Steele said after my book launch ‘This will change your life, Gerry.’ Although it’s less than 12 months now, he was right. One of them is that writing has become more of a priority, and hopefully some opportunities to become a writer in residence and have the space to concentrate will arise.

Book availability details

The book is available at Steele Roberts’ website http://steeleroberts.co.nz/books/isbn/978-1-877577-64-2 or elsewhere online by Googling the title or my name.

It’s also available in New Zealand at quality bookshops such as Unity Books and the University Book shop in Christchurch.

In addition to his Ulysses 2012, which was my Tuesday Poem this week, Gerry kindly allowed me to use another poem from The View From Up There to conclude this post.

Strawberries

Nothing like a tube in your neck
to make a grown man look fragile.

“Yes -I’m a part time plumber,” joked Pania
the vivacious nurse, ideal to buck up
tired spirits, except you looked a bit
too tired to be bothered with flirting
for the fun of it, despite your strength
and your manly chest - not the chest of a
middle-aged man (as they would put in the papers)

You, at this time, in this place
this home away from home
can only be described as looking wan.

There’s nothing like hospital food
to push you back to life and remembering
what it was like to be eating with gusto
be well again, able to race up stairs
pee over a fence and do all those things
that being in bed proscribes - a catheter
and a bed pan in the wings do inhibit
freedom of movement, of action.

Sorry about the strawberries - I forgot
you’d not be eating right away
but partly they’re there for titillation
if not for you, for Pania and her laughing eyes.

And you, out of the privacy of the
operating theatre back in the light

(although it’s really blinding in there -

just seems dark with the loss of consciousness

and the mystery of it all) with your tripes only

partly intact, what now. Can you recapture that
zest for life and use your libido in other ways?

I admire your strength and acceptance,
for in the end we all have to face it alone
whatever ‘it’ is - things that stop working,
sensations that dull, appetites that get lost

strawberries that crumble into dust.

Tuesday Poem: Ulysses 2012, by Gerry Te Kapa Coates

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Jones) — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 10:53:00 +0000

You and I are not now that strength
which in the old days could
move earth and heaven

But we have grown old together
rather than matching each in aging
which is our strength and comfort.

What happened to your body
happened to my eyes and I
no longer see you getting old.

You are still just a version of 33
though there are times when my
rose tinted glasses fail, but seldom.

We can still move the earth, maybe
not heaven at the same time, except
perhaps in the morning on a good day.

We can forgive each other much
now that nothing − yet everything − still
matters in this, the journey of the souls.

Something ere the end may yet be done,
be realised, that this life was indeed a bed
of roses of which we could not get enough.

- 2012

Credit note: This poem is not previously published, and is reproduced by permission of Gerry Te Kapa Coates, whom I'll be interviewing on this blog later this week.

Tim says: "Ulysses", by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is one of my favourite poems - certainly my favourite 19th-century poem - and I have previously used it as a Tuesday Poem on my blog. So, when I asked Gerry to supply a Tuesday Poem as a teaser for my interview of him later this week, I was delighted when he sent "Ulysses 2012", which is full of ingenious references to its great original as well as being a lovely poem in its own right.

The Tuesday Poem: Is justified and ancient, and it travels across the land but usually winds up here.