Twenty Contemporary New Zealand Poets Book Launch March 2009 Podcast 1, Series 1 Length: 10 mins 41 seconds File Size: 4.90 MB Narrator: Our new Carcanet volume, Twenty Contemporary New Zealand Poets: An Anthology was launched in March 2009 at the StAnza Poetry Festival in St Andrews, Manchester Central Library and the New Zealand House in London. Moments before the book launch at the New Zealand House, we managed to speak to editor Robyn Marsack and poets Bill Manhire and Jenny Bornholdt about the collection, and the sig-nificance of the publication being launched both in New Zealand and in the UK. As the title of the anthology emphasises contemporary poetry, we asked Robyn to discuss the reasons behind the book’s 1986 demarcation and how the poetry in New Zealand has developed since then. Robyn Marsack: Well I suppose we chose 1986 because that was the year that Allen Curnow’s very interesting collection was published and it seemed a good landmark. I would say that New Zealand poetry has loosed up a great deal. As we say in the introduction, often it [New Zealand poetry] is very conversational, in some ways it is almost anti-poetic. It has a great suspicion of romanticism, even of lyricism sometimes... I think that the di-rection it is taking is fascinating and also immediately accessible, even to an audience that knows nothing about New Zealand.

Bill Manhire: It will be very interesting to see how the reviews go over here. I mean, people might be very baffled by some of the work, I hope not. It’s great that the book is coming into being as there hasn’t been such an anthology getting outside of New Zealand for quite a long time. And... we’ve always had what the Australians call the ‘tyranny of distance’ as a bit of a problem. A New Zealand poet called Charles Bresh, maybe 60 years ago wrote the line, ‘distance looks our way’. There is always this sense your audience is limited to the people in the long skinny village called New Zealand. The internet changes all of that of course, but not quite enough. To have a solid book with several hundred pages of con-temporary New Zealand poetry tip toeing out into the world is a very good thing. I’ve just been to the StAnza Poetry Fes-tival and they had a whole panel one morning on the absence of young Scottish poets. Everyone on the panel agreed that there are no young Scottish poets. If you are New Zealander sitting there you think; how can this be! In New Zealand we can’t move for poets! I mean, there are really talented people around. The two of the biggest university presses have big poetry lists, the other university presses have smaller poetry lists and then there are all of the small publishers as well. So there is a very vibrant publishing scene. My sense is that there is a wider range of voices and a wider range of things being tried than perhaps there is in English poetry at the moment, but that is a dangerous thing to say. Jenny Bornholdt: I think the anthology is fantastic because it does show the huge range of work that is happening in New Zealand... Maybe people who are not from New Zealand assume that because we’re a small country, things are very simi-lar, which isn’t the case at all! It’s hugely various, especially the poems that come out of the country. It is also very inter-esting to have your work put alongside others. The various voices talk to each other quite well, even though they talk quite differently.

Narrator: That’s a nice way to put it.

Jenny Bornholdt: I think it’s a good natured conversation that’s happening. Narrator: You read two of Bill’s poems yesterday, I thought that was quite special. I suppose part of that is because all of the poets aren’t here. Is there a special feeling reading the work that’s shared in the collection? Jenny Bornholdt: Yes! It really is! For a start I feel very lucky to be here, and it does feel fantastic to be able to read other people’s work and promote their work to an audience. When we were in Manchester yesterday, Robyn and I decided to read mostly work by other people. Again, the whole idea of variety and voice, and to represent what is in the anthology give the other poems a voice in the room. I don’t often read poems by other people, but I loved doing it. It was fantastic! Narrator: That is quite nice, and it's perhaps a surprise of what happened because of this book! Here is an excerpt from the Manchester Central Library reading that took place the day before, Jenny Bornholdt reads: ‘Can I do it’ by Dinah Hawken. Jenny Bornholdt: The kereru is a native wood pigeon in New Zealand. They’re huge. When they land on a branch, it goes like this, the whole weight of it... ‘Can I do it’

By: Dinah Hawken

this balancing

act like the fat kereru hanging

exquisitely upside down on the thin

outermost branch of the kowhai tree

– confident, teetering – snatching at the whole

sweet flower? Or backed here

on my horse, against breakers at low tide,

before roads, waiting for a lull,

can I make the swift break

to wherever, on this long coast, I am going?

Narrator: The New Zealand house hosted the event at their penthouse suite, which has to be said, boasts of one of the most striking views across the city of London! The launch was opened by New Zealand High Commissioner Derek Leask. New Zealand High Commissioner Derek Leask: This anthology is called Twenty Contemporary New Zealand Poets and it is a marvellous treasure chest loaded with literary talent. We are delighted at the high commission to be able to host you here in the penthouse. Now, identity in the twenty-first century is not just a matter of knowing who you are, it is also knowing about where you fit in with the rest the world. You are the experts when it comes to poetry, but I hope I am right for assuming that New Zealand poetry is better for our engagement and our contribution to a wider world of literature. (Maori salutation) Thank You. Narrator: To get a sense of how the anthology would be received by an international readership, we asked Dr. Carrie Etter, an Associate Lecturer in Creative Studies at Bath Spa University about her familiarity with New Zealand poetry. Dr. Carrie Etter: I went on my honeymoon to Australia/ New Zealand in 2000 and I had known of Elizabeth Smither and Bill Manhire’s work when I went over. Afterwards, I started picking up magazines with work by Auckland Univer-sity Press, Victoria University Press and so on... I was so impressed! I felt for such a small country, there are such indi-vidual voices. I can’t explain it, but I’ve never stopped opening a magazine and seeing Elizabeth Smither, Bill Man-hire, Sam Sampson and a number of other poets without immediately turning to the poems feeling giddy.

Narrator: Bill Manhire read his poem ‘Erebus Voices’ dedicated to the Erebus tragedy of 1979. Bill Manhire ‘s Col-lected Poems was published in 2001, and his most recent collection Lifted, 2007 are both published by Carcanet. Bill Manhire: I think it is New Zealand’s greatest peacetime calamity, when the plane flew into the mountain on a tourist flight over Antarctica. Because New Zealand is a long skinny country, it is a long skinny village really. Every-one knows someone who was affected by that. In October 2004 the Dean of Christchurch Cathedral asked if I would write a poem for Sir Edmund Hillary to read at a commemorative event down in Antarctica... There have been twenty-five years of vituperative recrimination, there have been many voices arguing, challenging, damning and blaming. It seemed to me the two voices that perhaps hadn’t been heard during that time was the voice of the mountain, which somehow was associated with something it had nothing to do with and the voices of the dead. Twenty five years had gone by and as these things are, one can remember the dead as they were before they died (in this case) not as body parts making up the debris trail... So I wrote this poem that simply offered these two voices, I will read that now...

‘Erebus Voices’ By: Bill Manhire

The Mountain

I am here beside my brother, Terror.

I am the place of human error.

I am beauty and cloud, and I am sorrow;

I am tears which you will weep tomorrow.

I am the sky and the exhausting gale.

I am the place of ice. I am the debris trail

And I am still a hand, a fingertip, a ring.

I am what there is no forgetting.

I am the one with truly broken heart.

I watched them fall, and freeze, and break apart.

The Dead

We fell.

Yet we were loved and we are lifted.

We froze.

Yet we were loved and we are warm.

We broke apart.

Yet we are here and we are whole.

* Please note the podcast script is summarised Narrator/Producer: Eileen Pun

Carcanet Press, March 2009