Joanna Preston at Poetry Society tomorrow

Monday 16 April, 7.30pm
The Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave Street
Poetry open mic for all poets and performers. Please get your name on the list by 7.30pm. The open mic will be followed by a short break and then a guest reading from Christchurch poet Joanna Preston, winner of the inaugural Kathleen Grattan Prize, and the Mary Gilmour Prize (Australia), for her first collection, The Summer King.

Robert Sullivan and Poetry Society (and Helen Cubed at the Ballroom)

I mentioned earlier that Robert Sullivan was reading at the Poetry Society in March, but it was in the middle of a long ranty post, so it's worth reiterating.

He's reading on Monday at 7 pm (which is earlier than usual), at the Thistle Inn, Mulgrave Street, Thorndon. There will be an open mic, and there is a $5 entry fee ($3 for members).

Also, Helen, Helen and I have been making preparations for our reading tomorrow at the Ballroom: http://wingedink.blogspot.com/2011/03/helen-cubed-come-see-us-read-poetry.html. I am still having serious debates with myself over what poems to read, but will try to read a mixture of older and newer stuff. See you there?

James McNaughton at this month's Poetry Society meeting

This is probably the last of my sudden flurry of posts - at least before this week's Tuesday poem.

This month James McNaughton is the guest poet at the Poetry Society meeting. His first book, The Stepmother Tree, was in my recollection full of playful and kind of crazy fairytale-ish poems. I liked it. His second book, I Want More Sugar, was published in 2008.

Meeting will begin with an open mic, and is the same bat time, same bat place:

Monday 19 July, 7.30 pm
Upstairs at the Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave Street.

Poetry Society - five poems by five poets and an AGM

I was sorry to not make it to see/hear Jennifer Compton read today at the Ballroom in Newtown. She's always an excellent reader. I'm sure it was popular, and I imagine that, like every month I think, there was standing room only.

I'm afraid I'm probably not going to make it to the Poetry Society meeting this month either, but you can! It's tomorrow night (Monday 21) at 7.30, upstairs at the Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave Street.

It will begin with the AGM, and then will feature five poets, reading five poems each: Jack Duggan, Anne Harre, Tim Jones, Sugu Pillay, and Mercedes Webb-Pullman. Free entry.

Poetry events in Welly

It's poetry week this week in Wellington, perhaps...

Poetry Cafe
Tomorrow (Sunday 16 May), 4 to 6 om
Ballroom Cafe, junction of Adelaide Rd and Riddiford St, Newtown. The guest poets are going to be Gerald Melling and Geoff Cochrane, with music from Terry Shore.

Poetry Society
Monday (17 May), 7.30 pm
At the Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave Street.
This month's guest poet is Pat White, who is currently the Randell Cottage fellow. Entry: $5 (NZPS members $3).

Jennifer Compton returns to the Poetry Society

This is rather late notice if you don't already know about it, but poet Jennifer Compton is reading at the Poetry Society tomorrow night. The details:

Our guest poet this month is New Zealand-born and Australia-based Jennifer Compton, currently Writer-in-Residence at Massey University. Jennifer last read for us in 2008, as Randell Cottage Resident.

The meeting will open as always with an open mic and end with a Q&A session with Jennifer. Entry: $5 (members $3)

Monday, 19 April 2010
7:30
Thistle Inn
3 Mulgrave Street
Wellington, New Zealand

Poetryish stuff to do: John Ansell at the Poetry Society

This Monday the Poetry Society kicks off for the year with John Ansell, poet and 'funny man', as the guest reader. It will start off with an open mic.

Mon 15 Feb 10, 7:30pm - 9:30pm
Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave St, Thorndon, Wellington
$2 at the door

Charlotte Simmonds at this month's Poetry Society meeting

This month's Poetry Society meeting is actually tomorrow, which seems to have come rather quickly. (This whole year has gone terrifyingly quickly, and this next less-than-three weeks before we launch Ithaca Island Bay Leaves will go very quickly. It's almost ready to go to the printers though, so I'm confident that it will all be done in good time.)

Charlotte Simmonds, this month's guest reader, is the author of The World's Fastest Flower, which was published last year and was a finalist in the Best First Book category of the book awards. I had heard good things about it from my friend Emma, who, when she first read it, enjoyed it so much that as soon as she finished it she started reading it again from the beginning.

I realised, after hearing that she was the next guest reader, that I'd seen/heard her read at a couple of open-mic poetry readings, and had been really impressed both times. So I decided I'd read her book before the reading, and I really enjoyed it.

How to describe it? It's a bit different, and thank goodness for that. It's like a breath of fresh, youthful air. It's not all necessarily easy poetry, but it isn't dense or dry. It isn't what you'd expect - or, at least, it isn't what I've come to expect.

There's a prose-poetryness about many of the poems, with lots of long lines, little narratives. But the language is playful and intense. Sometimes the poems were clear, sometimes they made no sense, but only a few didn't grab me. Many of the poems seemed very personal, raw even, but the narrative voices/personas are different from each other, and many are clearly not the poet (or at least not a straight-forward version of the poet), so it's a bit more complicated.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing her read. If you want to go along too, the details are:

Monday 16 November, 7.30 pm
The Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave St
Entry: $2
The meeting will open, as always, with an open mic.

Watching for Smoke launch, and my Poetry Society reading

I’ve been a bit quiet lately. While this has partly been because my computer is still being fixed (Dad has replaced so many bits of it, in order to find out what wasn’t working, it’s going to end up as a different computer altogether), mainly I’ve just been recovering from a whole bunch of things, including the launch we had for the latest Seraph Press book, Watching for Smoke by Helen Heath (and getting lots of books made beforehand), and the reading I did at the Poetry Society the day after.

Watching for Smoke launch

This was lots of fun. I’d gotten a bit anxious because instead of arriving an hour beforehand to set up, as I planned, we got there with 15 minutes to spare due to a girl falling off her motorbike close to our place, and my kind friends bringing her up to the house to have a cup of tea and attend to her grazes. I needn’t have worried though – there were already people in the kitchen putting jam and cream on pikelets, and my team of family and friends helped us finishing setting up in record time (thanks guys!).

Being in an old church hall (St Peters in Paekakariki), and with treats such as the aforementioned pikelets, it had the feeling of a ‘ladies-a-plate’ sort of event, but in the best possible way. Kids ran around, or danced to the fabulous music of Dan, Stefan, and another musician whose name I’m afraid I didn’t catch.

Dinah Hawken launched the book. As well as being a poet admired both Helen and myself, Dinah is Helen’s supervisor for her MA in creative writing. (Helen will be putting the finishing touches to her portfolio, perhaps at this very moment.) Dinah said lots of lovely things about the book and about Helen’s poetry in general. She also said that she kind of wished that all poetry books could be just little books, like this chapbook, rather than having to be larger volumes. While I’m a fan of larger poetry books too, there is something very satisfying about the smallness and concentration of a chapbook.

Helen then talked and read a few poems, including one not from Watching for Smoke which she read especially for her father. We sold quite a few books, but I still have a few left (and a few left to make – though not too many). If you want to buy one, I’ll sell them to you for $15 direct – just email me at Helen.RickerbyATparadise.net.nz. Unity Books in Wellington will have some soon, where they’ll be $20.

Voyagers event and my reading at the Poetry Society

It was a bit of a busy day – immediately before my reading I attended the Wellington event for the Voyagers New Zealand science fiction poetry anthology publicity tour. (This must be the best-publicised book in NZ in recent history – and it’s actually published by an Australian

company.) Co-editor Tim Jones, who was MCing, kindly let me read first, so I could sneak off early to get myself together. I was very sorry to have missed most of the other readers, but I did end up really needing the time to get a bite to eat and, mainly, spend ages mucking around with my friend Angelina’s computer to get the datashow working. Actually, I didn’t muck around with it much, it was mainly my new heroes Angelina and Poetry-Society attendee Lonnard, who finally beat it into submission – or rather facilitated communication between the computer and the projector.

As always, the reading began with an open mic, and I thought it an especially good one. One of the highlights was Harvey Molloy reciting 'Caedmon’s Hymn' in Old English.

Everyone was wondering what I was going to do with the datashow, but I started off my reading low-tech, so they had to wait. I read some of my new poems that are playing with various ideas related to cinema, and then I showed them my wee video poem, ‘Calling you home’.

The main thing I used the datashow for was just to show an image while I read my poems. I’d tried this at my reading in Palmerston North in May, and it seemed to go well. So I expanded it a bit this time and while reading poems from My Iron Spine about women from history, I showed an image of the woman the poem was about (except Marie Curie, for whom I was unable to find a picture before my borrowed computer refused to connect to the internet any more that afternoon). So I had pictures of Kate Sheppard, Minnie Dean, Emily Brontë, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath. My final poem was ‘Artemisia Gentileschi’, which is basically talking about her life while talking about her paintings, so it was really great to be able to have people look at the paintings while listening to the poem. It made a lot more sense to a lot of people, and I think helped them to get the funny bits (there are one or two) in the middle of what is mostly a fairly grim, raw poem (it gets much more hopeful at the end).

We had quite a lively question time, and my favourite question I think, was ‘Did you realise that all those women looked like you?’ I didn’t, and I still don’t really think they do.

Invitations to stuff

If I haven't yet invited you to either the Watching for Smoke book launch (Sunday 3.30 St Peter's Hall Paekakariki) or my reading at the Poetry Society on Monday (7.30 Thistle Inn 3 Mulgrave Steet Thorndon), then I have probably lost your email address (hopefully temporarily) when my computer died (but the hard drive is hopefully ok), or you live out of town and I thought it was to far for you to come. I have discovered that, while Facebook is kind of a bit waste of time, it is really good for inviting people to stuff.

The other thing I should invite you all to is a reading for the Voyagers science fiction poetry anthology. We contributors are reading at the Wellington Central Library at 5.30 on Monday (just before my Poetry Society reading). There's also a reading at the Paraparaumu library on Tuesday at 5.30 (but I'm not entirely certain if I can make that).

There are Voyagers readings all around the country - Dunedin last night, Christchurch tonight, and after Wellington there will be some in Auckland. I think this is one of the best-promoted books I can remember, ever. (Oh except perhaps those boy wizard books and anything by Dan Brown.)

I read at the Poetry Society

And, this is my 200th post, so I wanted to do something a bit special with it – which is to announce that I’m going to be the guest reader at the October meeting of the Poetry Society! I’m very excited about this and I hope you will be able to come.

It's going to be on Monday 19 October, 7.30 pm, upstairs at The Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave St.

I’m going to read a mixture of new stuff and poems from My Iron Spine. All going well, I'm going to spice it up a bit with a little bit of multi-media, as I did at the reading I did in Palmerston North in May.

This will be the second time I've been a guest reader at the Poetry Society. The first time was long, long ago - more than a decade ago - when I was guest reader with Ingrid Horrocks and Paul Wolffram. We were new, young poets. It was very exciting to have people take us seriously. But then, I'm always excited to be taken seriously.

Lewis Scott at Poetry Society

African-American-New-Zealand jazz poet L E Scott is the guest reader at this month's poetry society meeting. He's always a great performer.

Monday 21 September, 7.30pm
Upstairs at The Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave Street

The meeting will open, as always, with an open mic. Entry: $2.

Science fiction poetry at the Poetry Society

How remiss of me! I should have written about this ages ago!

Some of us poets who had work included in Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand are going to be reading at the next meeting of the NZ Poetry Society in Wellington THIS MONDAY (17th August). The meeting will be at the Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave Street, at 7.30.

For more info about this, and who is going to read, you can read all about it over on Tim Jones's blog: http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/2009/08/voyagers-sets-sail-with-great-crew.html

NZ Poetry Society AGM and free poetry workshop

Monday 15 June, 7.30 pm
The Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave Street, Wellington

There will be no guest poet this month. The Annual General Meeting will take place, followed by a mini-workshop for those attending the AGM. This will be run by the National Coordinator, Laurice Gilbert, and there will be no charge (but you have to attend the AGM to qualify).

Poetry readings in Welly: Chris Price and Glenn Colquhoun

I've taken the day off work to catch up with myself. I'd envisaged sitting here in the sun tapping away at the computer, but instead the weather is windy and rainy and vile. I suspect I may not leave the house ALL DAY. Oh goodness, now there's thunder and lightning, and it's raining so hard that I can't see the city. I can barely see across the valley. And the gutter seems to be overflowing. Sigh.

Anyway, that's not what this post is about. It's about two poetry events to attend next week, if you're in Wellington.

Poetry Society: Chris Price

Monday 18 May, 7.30pm
The Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave St
Guest Poet: Chris Price, poet, editor, and educator at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Chris's latest poetry collection, the blind singer, will be available for purchase. The meeting will begin with an open mic. Entry $2.

Writers Read Series: Glenn Colquhoun

Thursday 21 May, 6-7 pm, followed by Q & A and refreshments.
5D16 (Wellington Campus, Massey University, Wallace Street, Entrance A, Block 5, Level D, Room 16).

Poetry reading by Glenn Colquhoun, doctor, children's writer, and best-selling poet. This is a free community event open to students, staff and the general public. We welcome your friends and colleagues. RSVP: d.puna@massey.ac.nz

Oh yay, the city has reappeared. It looks rather grey and washed-out though. My courtyard has also ceased flooding. Hurrah.

My Iron Spine reviewed, me interviewed in Poetry Society mag

It's been a bit of a crazy week - more on that in my next post - and I've been wanting to write this post since last weekend, but hadn't found the time.

At the end of last week my pdf of the New Zealand Poetry Society magazine, A Fine Line, arrived in my inbox, with not only a review of My Iron Spine, but also an interview with me.

First of all, the review. It was by Anne Harré, who also did the interview. She seems to like it - says it's 'an intriguing combination of poems'. She's a bigger fan of the first, autobiographical, section than the rest, which many people seem to (whereas most of my favs are in the second section). She says it 'lilts along' and that 'the images are, at times, sublimely beautiful, yet manage to convey a deceptive naivety. '

Ultimately the poems in this first section work because they are personal. It is the personal voice of the poet that cuts through deceptively simple narrative and grabs the reader’s attention through to the end.

She says of the second and third sections: 'While entertaining, they don’t hold the same sway as the first section', but likes 'Emily Dickinson'.

All in all, it's pretty positive: 'Overall, though, this is an accomplished collection. Rickerby has a strong poetic voice that draws the reader in and is well worth a read and a re-read.'

The interview, which was conducted via email, is the first in a series Anne is going to do with poets in the magazine. She sent me the questions, and I found I had to think a lot about (most of) them to come up with my answers - especially 'What is the point of poetry in the 21st century?' (What do you think? Let me know.) A really interesting exercise.

Anyway, Anne has very kindly said I can re-publish the interview here, so here it is.

Much of your work reads as deeply personal, deeply felt. How important to you is the personal, and how do you deal with the vulnerability that poetry provides?

I find it kind of curious that people respond to my work in that way. Some of the poems in My Iron Spine are deeply personal, but most of them are biographical – about other people. Sometimes poems that are autobiographical are not that personal, and sometimes poems that seem autobiographical aren’t. The more personal ones, I usually try to layer with other things, so they maybe don’t seem so personal. And the poems I write that are really personal haven’t seen the light of day.

This personal–impersonal thing in poetry is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’m pulled in both directions. Part of me wants to write impersonal, opaque, imagistic poetry, and the other part of me wants to write about my personal feelings and experience and say things that we’re normally too afraid to say. Sometimes poems become really universal by being very personal and specific – I’m not expecting people to be interested in me so much as find something that means something to them in my work.

Which writers inspire you, and why?

I’m inspired by heaps of different kinds of writers in different ways. In terms of poets, some I’ve recently been inspired by are Eliot for his gorgeous opacity and Sharon Olds for her honesty. Anne Carson and Anne Sexton have been inspirational in recent years. I’m also inspired by the poets and writers I know, as I see them change and grow and reach. I’m inspired by non-fiction a lot too, and lately I’ve been inspired by Alain de Botton’s combination of philosophy and the personal. Lots of novelists have inspired me – Jeanette Winterson and Margaret Atwood probably being the two major ones.

Do you ‘wait for the muse’ or are you one of those disciplined writers that try to write something every day?

I guess I’m somewhere in between. I’d love to write every day, and I did during a halcyon period when I wasn’t working. But in these days of full-time employment, that isn’t working for me. I do need to make some time and space though, or the muse doesn’t visit very often. I’ve found that going somewhere like a café, where I won’t get distracted by home things, and just thinking and reading and writing rubbish in my journal often creates a space where poetry can come.

Robert Frost wrote that “to be a poet is a condition, not a profession”, so for you is it one or the other (or a bit of both)?

It’s definitely not a profession for me – sounds too much like I expect money from it. It’s more like a condition or a vocation. For me it’s something I do, or something I am, depending on how I’m feeling about it and how much I’ve written lately.

What’s the point of poetry in the 21st century?

This is a difficult one to articulate. I’ve spent a bit of time thinking about the value of art, and I really do believe it is important, even in these days when we tend to value the utilitarian and the economic. And, while I think that art does have utilitarian and economic value, I think it’s really important to have art as both creators and audience; to make us think about things differently, to give our lives meaning, beauty and something bigger than ourselves.

For many people, poetry in particular maybe isn’t that relevant; but for me it is. The value and difference of poetry is its intensity of language. Probably more than any other art form, it works with metaphor and subtext – you say something, but you’re also saying something else. It might mean it enables you to say or explore something you might not have otherwise been able to. Or, that you’re saying multiple things at one time – for example, my poem ‘Winters of discontent’ is partly about the classical myth of Persephone and Demeter, partly about my own experiences of depression, partly the archetype of dying in winter and regenerating in spring, partly about the reader’s experiences of sadness or loss, and so on…

What is the appeal of live readings (either as an audience member, or performer)?

Hearing a poem read is very different to reading it on the page. I enjoy both and, although a few poets are quite bad at reading their work and it’s better to read it on the page, hearing the poem read can bring words to life in a different way. It’s interesting hearing the rhythm and pace the poet envisaged for the poem.

In recent years I’ve come to really enjoy reading my work, probably as I’ve gotten better at it – though, being a shy person, I can still get a bit nervous. I enjoy it when you get a good response from the audience – turns out I quite like instant gratification, like everyone else. It’s also helpful when it shows you that something isn’t really working, or that something works better on the page.

Do you prefer crunchy peanut butter or smooth?

Definitely crunchy, and only with honey.

What are you working on at present?

The poetry project I’m working on is what I hope will become my next book, Cinema. They’re poems that are loosely inspired by film – some specific films, some film technique, some film-related experience. And I’m still writing some more random poetry.

Inspired by the film stuff, I’m also starting to video poets reading their poetry, with the aim of sticking them on the internet and making them available to people. I’ve got several publishing projects on the way, including a new Seraph Press book (Ithaca Island Bay Leaves by Vana Manasiadis), and JAAM. And I’m blogging – http://www.wingedink.blogspot.com/ – and I’ve recently joined Twitter. As well as twittering inane things about what I’m up to, I also ‘tweet’ short extracts from poems I like.

April Poetry Society Meeting with guest reader Clare Kirwan

From the national coordinator:

This month's Guest Poet is Clare Kirwan, a performance poet from Liverpool. Clare is on her first World Tour, which she has named Dead Good Down Under, a reference to her membership of Liverpool's Dead Good Poets' Society. She is a comedian as well as a poet, and this looks to be a great evening.

"Welcome to a world where silence speaks many languages, bones grow in gardens, and the birdsong is only in your head. A world where all things are made of glass but breakages need not be paid for, where moments are crystallized: the lollipop man murdered, the iron statue running for it, and your mum planning world domination."

Clare is doing other gigs while she's in the country. Last month she did Poetry Live in Auckland, and later this month she appears in Thames. She spent Easter in Christchurch, so she's not far away, and has promised me she won't lose her voice to a bungy jump.

See you on Monday 20th April, 7.30pm (for open mic) at the Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave St.

Wellington Sonnet Competition reading

From the Poetry Society:

Hi all. Please remember we have an extra meeting this month, to host the Wellington Writers' Walk Trust's Sonnet evening. Prizewinners in last year's contest will read their winning sonnets (the top prize was won by Michelle Amas, with a truly wonderful sonnet), and some of the Highly Commended entries will have an airing as well. A satisfying number of NZPS members were in the honours list.

There will be an open mic for anyone who entered the competition, as well as any other members of the audience who have a sonnet to share.

The venue is our regular meeting place, The Thistle Inn, at 3 Mulgrave St, Wellington (near the Railway Station), and the meeting will start at 7.30pm.

Also, if you're that way inclined, you might be interested to know that Poetry Society now Twitters: http://twitter.com/NZPS

Stuff I've been up to lately

I've been up to heaps of things lately - possibly too much - and there are heaps more things I ought to be doing. Quite a few of them are poetry-related.

Saw Kate Camp at the Poetry Society
She read mostly new poems, which was nice. I particularly enjoyed her reading of a poem twice. She read it first without telling us anything about it, and while it wasn't a poem that made obvious sense, you could make your own interpretations of its images. A bit later, she read it again, but this time first told us what it was about, the story that had inspired it. It was like a whole other poem. It was clearer in meaning, but less universal. It was quite a fascinating exercise.

Saw Richard Langston at the Poetry Society
Richard Langston combines being a journalist for TV3 with being a poet. He's an engaging reader, and he also mainly read new stuff. I was inspired by his quoting of the end of what I thought was an uncharacteristic Philip Larkin poem: 'The Mower' the hunt it down, and Twitter it: 'we should be careful//Of each other, we should be kind/While there is still time.'

Went to the open mike night at Aunt Daisy's Boathouse Cafe
This was a fun, informal evening, where anyone could get up and read a few poems. Excellently hosted by Mike Eager. I read some poems, listened to some other poems, hung out with some people I already knew, met some people I didn't know before. I'll be back. It's on the last Wednesday of every month, so this month it's next Wednesday, 25th May, from 7 pm. It's at 28 Bay Road, Titahi Bay - it's right next to the beach.

Helping out with the publication of Viet Nam by Jenny Powell
I've been just helping make some final changes to the design file for this new book of poetry by Jenny Powell (formerly Jenny Powell-Chalmers), which is going to be published by HeadworX soon. So I've been lucky enough to have a sneak preview of this collection, which is an imaginative journey to Viet Nam. A Vietnamese teacher came and stayed with Jenny in Dunedin, and she, in turn, wanted to go and visit him in Viet Nam. She was unable to, and so could only travel there in her mind. It's so vivid and specific in it's details and responses, that it's hard to believe she was never there.

Re-reading the manuscript of Ithaca Island Bay Leaves by Vana Manasiadis, which I'm excited I'm (as in Seraph Press) going to publish
This is a gorgeous collection, about Greece, and New Zealand, and her mother, her grandmother and, more subtly, about herself. It also has several playful peices that are reworkings/updatings of classic Greek myths. I'm sure I'll have much more to write about this as the project moves ahead.

That'll do for now. I'm planning to write a post about the book my new imprint Alley Cat Chapbooks published - which means me and the author (my friend Karen) handmade 25 copies of it. It will have photos, and perhaps instructions for hand binding little books.

Stuff to do: #1 See Richard Langston at Poetry Society

From my reminder email:

Hi all. Our monthly meeting is coming up again. On Monday 16th March our Guest Poet is Richard Langston, Wellington poet and TV3 journo. I heard Richard read at the White Album Winter Readings at the City Gallery last year, and immediately decided he deserved a whole reading to himself.

The meeting will run to its usual format: starting at 7.30 with the open mic, a short break to enable you to support our sponsor, Thistle Inn, and then Richard will read for 20-30 minutes. There'll be a Q&A session at the end, and if we're lucky, Richard will bring along some of his poetry books to sign and sell.

Monday 16 March, 7.30pm

The Thistle Inn

3 Mulgrave St

Wellington.