John O'Connor's poetry seems to be getting better and better. If there was a haiku lying trapped under a stone high up on Mt. Cook, O'Connor would search and find it. O'Connor is an eternal searcher for truth. However much truth evades us, John O'Connor nails it flat wherever he goes. The truth of perceptions; not always transcribed from historical events such as the brilliant "The Versailles Road, Louvecionnes" and "Something to Say" are so nailed. O'Connor is an internation poet whose concerns are wide, rather than local. Perhaps that puts out of the gambit of poets in New Zealand who are embraced as our true literary heroes. It is hard to single out anything in the book as being more outstanding than the rest. The most impressive sequence is "painting the wooden butterfly". The note on p.93 traces the genealogy of John O'Connor and his pioneer roots here. His catholicism met with the same clashes with protestantism that caused much stress and strife in those days, before New Zealand learned to live with itself and the many other cultures and religions which flocked here for the new life. O'Connor captures some of these differences with wit, strong images and almost Poundian recall of detail. It is difficult to isolate lines from this memorable book. Read "Up In Smoke" (about the Papal succession) and well, here it is, from "family Bible" "
.the last photo of Sarah and Edward / is marred only by a drop of / moisture like rain on her left cheek" or in one of the better of his brilliant haiku: "scattered / across water parts / of the sun". Good reading indeed.
Telegrams From The Psych Ward and other poems by Mark Awodey, W.P.C.-Minimal Press Collective, Box 114, Warner, New Hampshire, USA.
The fact that this book is into its second edition (first printing), is impressive. The theme is insanity, not just the preserve of poets, but all artists The poet "spins
.. leaving no thread", "different men weave with guile and glue", - these are nice words, a bit Eliotish perhaps. The rest of the book also displays some very clean wordage. He produces lines (from "telegrams from the psych ward"), "A good friend / once believed his brain /was in his left foot /he almost hopped / while trying not to limp" that have a depth of meaning unusual in poems of this kind. Awodey is certainly one of the most startlingly original poetic voices I have heard for a good while, and I note that his concerns are universal, not just local, as is the case with so many overseas poets. However, many of his images are local, as in ("Rain"), "exuberence flowed flowed through flames of hair from / blasts of rain / sustained in open air on sixty miles / of North America". Awodey's work is sustained power seldom lax, certainly never unenthusiastic and quite simply, in an age where just about anything masquerading as poetry can get onto at least an electronic magazine or personal page, is astounding stuff.
PINGANDY new and selected poems by Harvey McQueen. HeadworX Press, 26 Grant Road, Thorndon, Wellington.
This book contains a lot of McQueen's earlier poems from his published collections, numbering four, from 1981. Known by many as principally an anthologist, McQueen's poems could be assumed to contain few surprises (for instance, "Akaroa DHS" is a bit boring). Other show bright little flashes of internationally orientated ingenuity: "Room", which seeks to explain what we're in; explains abashedly "every space has its own rituals" which doesn't help us greatly in explaining any inherent truths contained in them. It is difficult to do justice in reviewing a book like this in the space available here. Someone will come along no doubt and do it in more detail. My general comment remains that McQueen deals with a lot of life's little happenings a sort of 'I saw this, I saw that' eeking out into life's grey amalgum then the poet informs us, (in "Room"), that "during the advertisements I open yet another red (for those overseas imbibers, a 'red' is a can of Lion Red beer). Don't get me wrong. I've always been a fan McQueen's poetry. He does take you out of the ordinary even while he is still banging his tin drum, and often hammers home a lot of life's annoying points that one thought one had forgotten. In the concluding lines of "Room", McQueen states that "there is room for everything". McQueen makes rom for a lot of it. The later poems are much tighter; sense-based, concrete-based but not blessed with too much imagery or surprise. "Worth a Chance" is definitely worth it though. When considering Iceland poppies, the poet waxes true to poetry and states, in the concluding lines: "in time, new commitments / involvements, but at present / a flourish of colour". McQueen is what a lot of New Zealand poetry is, which obviously makes him a good anthologist, and our distinctive New Zealand work so well known. In "Two Sparrows Dead", there is the telling of two sparrows who collide head on into glass. Apart from the odd statement that 'she created them" (who is 'she'?), McQueen says that "most things work, but not for long". This is a rhapsodic book, and the work rambles on, working its way into and out of word-bogs to give us, at times, some quite startling insights. Definitely worth the punt, I would say.
MAGAZINES:
Sport 23, published by Sport, Box 11806, Wellington, New Zealand. Published twice a year. Subscription: $27 for two issues. This issue, 192pp.
This issue leads with a major article by Greg O'Brien on the sale of the Colin McCahon painting "Storm Warning" by the Art History Department at Victoria University, Wellington. Sold to fund the acquisition of other artworks and and for gallery extensions, it is claimed as a victory of monetarism over aestheticism. One really wonders if McCahom wanted this work to remain on permanent display at the Victoria University at the time he painted it. Surely it could be said that art movements arise to comprehend the artworks supplied. In this context is interesting to see that O'Brien says that the supporters of of "post-humanism" suggest that we have transcended art's ability to get inside the human situation as a method of understanding. He (along with the rest of us poor ignorant sods out here), admits that this would have been anathema to McCahon. However, we can always rely on postmodernism (although I saw somewhere that someone posted an obituary to postmodernism in the New York Times recently), which "would make his (McCahon's) work an easier pill to swallow". Lots of folk really thrive on bitter pills. I admit that to some, the issue as to whether the painting was to stay or go, would be a dire hard-fought and emotional battle. However, the painting is, and will be forever, as intact as when McCahon completed it at the time not even knowing what it actually meant or would become to mean, in the context in which it now finds itself. Regardless, it is still a part of us all, as ever. It can't become lost just because it goes into private ownership. Quite frankly, I see McCahon as not so much as recreating a new hope for humanity in his painting, "Storm Warning", but creating an image of drear negativity, as perhaps this battle over where this painting should end up, actually is.
Many of the poems in this issue are elegant and sincere Chris Orsman has (guess what?) "Storm Warning", and Ian Riach in "Getting Away Poem for Chris Larsen". Others, such as James McNaughton's poems seem rather banal and trite while Kerry Hines' poems are interesting, somewhat under-stated, but well-constructed "Custard Square" being the best of these.
Elizabeth Smither's prose, "Please Fill your Pyx" is as polished and as delightful as ever. Laurence Fearnley's "Beauty" rollicks along nicely sustained monologues are hard to do. Barbara Anderson's story "The Right Sort of Ears" rambles somewhat, Derek Schultz' "Dizzy" just doesn't do it for me. Tim Corballis' "The Road Out of Town" being the least intelligible of the rest.
Sport, in this issue presents good work, and good comment, but overall the stories are better than the poems. Perhaps the editors should cast their net a bit wider and get some stronger, more varied and vibrant work.
JAAM 12. Young New Zealand New Writing. Published by the Jaam Collective, 26 Grant Road, Thorndon, New Zealand. This issue, (October 1999) edited by Helen Rickerby and Ann-Marie Clarke.
Jaam publishes a wide selection of writers including a selection, including five overseas writers. This is good to see,, also the fact that that Jaam receives support from "Creative New Zealand" and can now pay writers for their contributions. Even those who reside overseas! The word 'young' in the subtitle of Jaam is deceptive. There's some pretty old folks in here. Good to see them. Because of the co-operative nature of this publishing enterprise the editorship changes for each issue. This is not the way things used to happen with literary magazines in New Zealand. In the editorial, the editors urge people to submit work to the several other literary magazines in New Zealand, write lots more, and is a 'wake-up call' to some older writers who may have given up in frustration having submitted work to the 'closed shop' magazines that have existed in New Zealand for generations. To this degree Jaam is the closest thing we have to an 'open-forum' for writers. The editorial policy is forward, not introspective. Well, from those 'hundreds of submitters, the editors have made some splendid choices. The prose in his issue is pretty brisk and largely unsubtle. David Lyndon Brown's story, "The Key" is about the young and the brainless' foray into a fashionable party where anything goes. Well it can keep on going so far as I'm concerned, but it's fun anyway. The story has little reference to imagery or plot, being one of those open-ended sex-freaky things. I can live with writers like these in the new millenium. One wonders whether stories like his "Three Times an Accident" get into Jaam by pure accident. But the illustration for this (by Karen Hester) is superb. Disguised as 'conversations with God', Anne-Marie Clarke's story "Staring at Cows" is a bit venally internal, while Georgina White's story "Meeting Point" is better. The Fredrico Monsalve story, "Three Times and Immigrant" exudes greater maturity, and is actually quite entertaining as well as ringing with some much needed innovation.
Of the poems, Hayden Barr's "too many times" was convincing although his second effort "a lovely night" is a bit trippy for my taste. The late Simon Williamson's poem is a good effort and shows why we are going to miss him so much. Mark Pirie's "Looking Through the Dark Glass" for Louis Johnson (1924-1988) is quite impressive the best I've seen of his work. A lot of the other work is clever, but marred often by chiches notably in "Curves" by Jason Towersley.
The direction Jaam is taking in it's policy is putting it in good stead to becoming a major force in literary magazine publishing in the future.
