Tuesday Poem: 'Alice Spider Visits her Nanna' by Janis Freegard

Alice Spider goes to South Shields to visit her Nanna. Nanna doesn't like the Blairs. Every time Cherie comes on the television, Nanna says, that skinny little bitch. Tony fairs no better. He's a crook. Look at him, grinning like a Cheshire cat. He's bloody evil. Nanna doesn't support a united European currency.

People starving in Africa? They should sterilise them. Asylum seekers? Taking jobs from our men. Striking miners? I didn't give them a penny. They never gave the pensioners any coal. Northern Ireland. Your Granddad always used to say, there'll never be peace in Ireland. They should pull the soldiers out and then drop an atom bomb on them.

As long as it only killed the right ones.

Nanna's a Sun reader. She can tell you about every affair that every politician, footballer and television personality has ever had, not to mention their operations. She wasn't sorry when Diana died. EE, she was a slut. Them poor bairns.

(Alice knows that even if she were an Irish miner slut in Africa, Nanna would still get up early to cook bacon and eggs for her breakfast, despite Alice's protests. It's a different kind of love you have for your grandchildren, says Nanna.)

I must have first met Alice Spider in AUP New Poets 3. She's quite charming character, fun to hang out with, but perhaps a little unpredictable. I came across her again in JAAM 28, and then this year she got her own book: The Continuing Adventures of Alice Spider (I kind of always knew she would). The book was published by Anomalous Press in the US, and was part of a fun Kickstarter campaign (which is how I got my copy), but you can also get it from Matchbox Studios in Wellington or Unity Books in Wellington.

I chose this poem simply because it appeals to me, but I'm having a bit of trouble articulating why. I find it quite funny, in a wry way, though bigotry shouldn't be funny. I guess it's the split, the tension, between the good person you know and love, and the terrible things they say and think. 

Janis Freegard's debut poetry collection, Kingdom Animalia: the Escapades of Linnaeus, was published in 2011 by Auckland University Press. She also writes fiction and is a past winner of the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award.  She lives in Wellington with an historian and a cat. She has been writing poems about Alice Spider since she was 18. I expect to see Alice around some more, having new adventures, some time in the future.

For more poems, visit The Tuesday Poem blog: 

Tuesday Poem: 'Three Hummingbirds' by Janis Freegard

Three Hummingbirds

I
My mind is full of aspidistras. I went to the house of
the glorious witch. We ate hummingbirds’ eggs and
small slices of persimmon glazed with honey. I wanted
her to teach me how to fly, but all I could say was
‘aspidistras’. In the courtyard, hummingbirds hummed –
a sad tale of missing eggs. I took the hand of the
glorious witch. We walked together among the
persimmon trees. ‘Teach me how to dream of
aspidistras,’ I begged her. She laughed her honey-
glazed laugh and then, and then, we were flying like
hummingbirds, high above the courtyard.


II
In the white stucco room with the man from Japan, we
listened to some wilder shade of green. I sensed the
presence of mules, underground. The man from Japan
performed magic tricks with a cigarette. There was a
cup on top of his wardrobe and I said: there’s a cup on
top of your wardrobe and he said: it’s got spaghetti in it.
I haven’t laughed so much since I learned to fly. The
underground mules toil subconsciously beneath the
motorway. I’m wondering how far until breakfast.


III
Two days ago I was floating beneath the surface
wondering whether to come up for air and today I’m all
hummingbirds. My garden is full of persimmons and
cups of spaghetti. I have flown with a witch until
breakfast. A man from Japan made a white stucco room
disappear which has got to be a good thing. I have
played with mules and danced through aspidistras. Our
minds, unfortunately, have minds of their own. Three
hummingbirds. All humming.

Janis Freegard


A few months ago I went to the launch of Kingdom Animalia: The Escapades of Linnaeus, Janis Freegard's debut collection of poetry (published by Auckland University Press). At it she was dressed up quite fantastically, including wearing a mask with a very long beak- you can see her wearing it in this video of her reading a 'The Icon Dies' on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfS_b52SBNE.

At the launch she also read the poem which I think is my favourite in the collection - 'Three Hummingbirds'. Thanks Janis for letting me share it. I enjoy it's energy, it's sort-of narrative thread, but most of all the surrealism. Though, there may be more realism to it than I suspected: Janis says 'the cup of spaghetti on top of the wardrobe and the magic trick with the cigarette come from a real life incident.'

Janis Freegard was born in South Shields, England, but has lived in New Zealand most of her life. She has a science degree from The University of Auckland, with Honours from Victoria University of Wellington. Her work was included in AUP New Poets 3 (2008) and, also a prose writer, she won the BNZ Katherine Mansfield short story competition in 2001. Freegard lives in Wellington, New Zealand with an historian and a cat and blogs at http://janisfreegard.wordpress.com.

Check out the other Tuesday Poems, which are appearing already, via the Tuesday Poem blog.