every bravery coming

posted by Michele

Photo Credit: Tim Page

At the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival last weekend Chris Price and I spent an hour hauling up material words from my writing and trying to see where the visualist left off and the poet began. We had all kinds of litter onstage: stencil-stamp valentines, a heart box, a ribbon text, old school lettering exercises. Then there were the beautiful objects: Tara McLeod’s poster size printing of ‘thé dansant,’ Bronwyn Lloyd’s prototype pop-up for ‘hello & goodbye,’ the Holloway Press edition of Journey to Portugal (Tara Mcleod again, with Gretchen Albrecht’s collages). It was a lot of fun and I am grateful to Chris for sending me back into old folders and dusty boxes to find things. We did make the leap to digital space but it’s the ballast of those big letters and shaped poems that seems most interesting now.

• Journey to Portugal (text) (Holloway Press)
• oes & spangs (Andrew Forsberg)
• An Hour with Michele Leggott
  

may day is lei day

posted by Michele

photo credit: Godfrey Boehnke, University of Auckland photographer

There were Morris dancers in Queen Elizabeth Square Thursday morning, waving white hankies and jingling at the knees. People taking cover from the wild weather gathered around the circle of dancers. May Day celebrations are alive and well in the city. At the other end of Queen St, university graduation was getting under way. Tim Page and I packed ourselves into a taxi with a guitar, regalia, the matua tokotoko and my blue stick, and headed for the Town Hall. It was the matua’s first outing in Auckland: an appointment with 2000-odd people under cameras and lights.

Onstage I explained the tangible connection of the matua with Hone Tuwhare and how that connection has rubbed off on Te Kikorangi, the blue stick. We passed both sticks to kuia Merimeri Penfold to look after and then launched into ‘taking it seriously,’ a fairly unserious poem for the arts graduates of Te Whare Wananga o Tamaki Makaurau They seemed to like it, especially when Tim did his bluesy riff for the feast at the end. The biggest thrill was getting half a dozen lei from graduates afterwards. Thanks all!

University of Auckland News (23 May 2008)

taking it seriously

what shall I do I asked that stick
Te Kikorangi      write them a poem what else
said the stick and went back to cooking up
a feed of mussels from Kawhia      national treasures
can do that      take a weekday trip
down the coast and go fishing
while the rest of us work for the man
oh and make it funny said the stick
you don’t want them dozing off      and winked
too true Blue I said      the mussels went down
and the feet went up      the giver of advice
and good counsel settled in for a well-earned
nap      why keep a poet and bark yourself?

so I invite myself      into your had-it-up-to-here
lives      it’s rent day I’m working till midnight
three thousand words forty percent out of coffee
out of smokes out of time the computer ate it
and that one doesn’t give extensions
even for dead grandmothers      my tenth
this semester      heartless just heartless
how will my grandmothers cope
with the news of my expiry from Intellectual
Over-Utilisation Syndrome      IOUs
and youse and youse      I am the future
sitting here in academic drag      flat broke
about to get an arts degree
how do you come back from that?

all this fuss has disturbed the stick
who opens one eye and says      build a bridge
and get over it      easy enough for TK
reviewing the back of those famous eyelids
half the afternoon      thinking about
a cup of tea and maybe some of last night’s
whitebait fritters before a walk
to the beach where someone has written
the only land I own is that between
my toes too right says Kikorangi
adding a flourish in blue      hooray
it’s worth a fortune and the ragged artist
struggling to repay student debts
auctions the scrawl on Trade Me
and walks free upon the earth again
in the company of ten grandmothers

you think it can’t happen?
poets to come      orators singers musicians
to come      the stick is really getting going now
thinkers teachers philosophers      and you
the quiet ones who reach for the moon and stars
not today is to justify me and answer
what I am for      but you a new brood      digital
Pacific voyagers understanding more
than any before you about the blue planet
and her breathing multitudes      come forward
for you must justify me      one who saunters
turns a casual look upon you and steps
into the shadows      leaving it to you
to constellate and configure      expecting
the main things from you

Kikorangi I said      you’d better stop
channelling Walt Whitman or Turnitin
will get you      uh huh comes the reply
why don’t you help me get this hapuka
into the smoker      and tell Walt to bring
his grandma as well as a good red
and whatever poems he’s written lately
we’ll have a session      there’s always room
in the world for poems grandmothers
and arts degrees looking for a good time
la dolce vita      la vie en rose      fia ola
May Day is Lei Day in Tamaki Makaurau
don’t you see
the stick is looking for extra glasses
and fairy lights to string along the path
and as smoke curls between the banana palms
new potatoes dance with garden mint
and it’s clear the whole graduating class
has been invited over      here they are now
knocking with their elbows      because
their arms are full of bags bowls and bottles
crates of champagne      dolmadas drums
and diplomas      figs fire and frangipani
ginger garlic grapes and guitars
harps and honeydew      eel and icecream
lamb lutes lemons and limes      melons mangos
mandolins maraccas      okra olives
onions oysters      pork parsley passionfruit
persimmons pineapples pomegranates prawns
roast corn red peppers rhubarb rosemary and rice
scallops and sangria      snapper and squid
taro truffles tabouleh tortillas
venison vineleaves yoghurt zucchini
and crayfish in coconut cream
food of heaven says Te Kikorangi
bring on your poems dance with your grannies
we feast with the gods tonight!

photo credit: Godfrey Boehnke, University of Auckland photographer

laureate at work

posted by Michele

It’s term-time and Poetry off the Page is in full swing at the University of Auckland. Colleague Helen Sword and I co-convene the course, now in its fourth year and with a committed and enthusiastic 2008 enrolment. We started off in the rain, chalking poems on pavements around the university and documenting responses from passers-by. Then LOUNGE #1 debuted this year’s reading series at Old Government House with an enlivening mix of student readers and local poets. Also part of the line-up was Chris Price, the inaugural Michael King Centre/University of Auckland Literary Fellow.

Now the students are wrangling their webpage assignments and making digital transformations of a print poem of their choice. After the mid-semester break, we go into the University Library’s Special Collections to look at how poems move from manuscript to multimedia environments. The students will then assemble selections of archival material for presentation on the course website.

So we’ll be busy for a while yet. Here’s a webpage Helen and I made recently as the class was asked to consider ways of presenting digitally the famous variant lines in a poem by 19th century American Emily Dickinson. We started by getting the different versions down in chalk (sunny weather this time) before going on to talk about how they might appear in virtual space.

• Poetry off the Page at the University of Auckland
• LOUNGE readings and photos
• Chris Price, 2008 Michael King Cerntre/UoA Literary Fellow
• Emily Dickinson at Old Government House
  

Photo credits: Tim Page

photos from matahiwi and hastings

posted by Michele

Te Matau a Maui (The Hook of Maui), the wharenui at Matahiwi Marae with carved representations of Maui’s family on the paepae (forecourt)

Maui hooking Te Ika, the big fish of Aotearoa New Zealand

John Buck addresses manuhiri and tangata whenua at Matahiwi

Guests with Jacob Scott at Matahiwi

Penny Carnaby, National Librarian, and Hon Judith Tizard with the two tokotoko

Michele Leggott with matua tokotoko and Te Kikorangi, the blue stick


Jacob Scott and poets at the mouth of the Tukituki river

Pipi Café – poets and poetry-loving people

Same again, another table

Pipi Café – more poets

I Say Te Mata: Jack Ross at the Hawke’s Bay Opera House Assembly Room

I Say Te Mata: Selina Tusitala Marsh

I Say Te Mata: poets and tokotoko

matahiwi, hastings, te ahi tapu

posted by Michele

It was a big weekend, for everyone. Jack Ross has written about it here. Hawke’s Bay Today profiled the occasion and the local high school readers who were part of the 14-strong line-up for I Say Te Mata at the Hastings Opera House. Poets and librarians ate for free at Havelock’s Pipi Café (thanks guys). And Rowley Habib read his epic poem The Raw Men for video before we left on Sunday morning.

At the heart of it all were the two tokotoko made by Jacob Scott and presented by Ngati Kahungunu to the National Library. One of them, the matua tokotoko, is carved from black maire and lasered with designs that tell interrelated stories of sacred fire-making (te ahi tapu). It also contains literal means of making fire if you unscrew it and apply one part (hika) to a special groove (kaunoti) in the other. Jacob says he tested it there on the banks of the Tukituki; it works.

This stick, with its abalone and paua insets, has gone to Wellington and will be displayed in the National Library. Laureates will use it there, and everyone who picks it up should be able to feel its mana. It also commemorates the passing of Jacob Scott’s good friend Hone Tuwhare: deep in its interior is a Tuwhare poem.

The second tokotoko (and the seventh Jacob has made) is the one I will keep and treasure. It’s sky-blue, with laser-etched white-on-blue designs towards the top end surmounted by chased silver that references flames. Because it’s a converted pool cue, it also comes apart in four pieces which means I can take it travelling without setting off major security alerts in airports. There is plenty of tactile surface and it was fun watching people run their fingers over it, exploring and connecting up the design elements. Its stories have just begun.

It was a big weekend, for everyone. But perhaps the biggest thing of all was the gift of Jacob Scott’s deeply thought-out representations of creative process: serious, sparky, a challenge to make more fire. Thank you Jacob; it’s a lot to live up to.

• Hawke’s Bay photos coming soon

• More about the tokotoko

• Hawke’s Bay Today laureate event profile 23 Feb 2008

• Jack Ross, Hooning around in Hawke’s Bay, I Say Te Mata

• Pipi Café and Poesy Bread

• Tim Page audio The Long Lunch, Fast Talking PI (with Selina Tusitala Marsh), Wild Light (with Michele Leggott)

laureates, locals and out of town poets in Hawkes Bay

posted by Michele

Drums are beating, email is running hot and phonecalls are criss-crossing the land as the folk at the National Library coordinate the first Laureate event for 2008 in Hawkes Bay. NatLib, Te Mata Estate Wines, Matahiwi Marae, Scott Design, Creative Hastings and the Hawkes Bay Opera House are all working towards Saturday 23 February when the new matua tokotoko (carved speaking stick) will be presented at Matahiwi Marae in a ceremony that will also honour the achievements of Hone Tuwhare. Laureate Elizabeth Smither will be there, as will a host of readers and speakers with words, stories and songs for Hone. This is Poetry at the Pa, Matahiwi-style, 10 am to 2 pm.

In the evening the focus shifts to the Opera House in Hastings for I Say Te Mata: Poets at the Assembly Room. Keith Thorsen and I will co-host, starting at 8 pm with a glass of Te Mata and processing through the line-up of poets in town for the event. Some young Hawkes Bay talent should give laureates and others a taste of the poetic future and we’re expecting to have a very good time indeed. Anyone left standing will be directed to Dancing on the Green, running till midnight at nearby Kohupatiki Marae.

So we’re fine-tuning our offerings and packing toothbrushes and sleeping bags here in Auckland in anticipation of the Great Poetic Hikoi to the Bay. Some are flying, others driving; but we’ll all be there as the action gets underway. Look, isn’t that the National Library bus pulling in from Wellington with a bunch of poetry-loving librarians hanging out the windows?

Remembering Hone Tuwhare

posted by Michele
Tributes, thoughts and memories of Hone Tuwhare are in the links and posts below. I will be adding more links and posts to this post as I receive them.

• Raewyn Alexander
  
• John Buck
  
• Glenn Colquhoun
• Riemke Ensing
• Lauris Edmond
• Murray Edmond
• Jeffrey Paparoa Holman
  
• Michele Leggott
• Renee Liang
• Mary Paul
  
• Brian Poitiki
  
• Jack Ross
• Iain Sharp
• Penny Somervaille
• Brian Turner

Brian Poitiki

posted by Michele

i can feel you making holes in the silence, rain
i can feel you making holes in my brain, hone
in my brain
hemi & ani are gone -
jean, harry & ron -
but i won't wait until you're gone to say
you're my old man, hone
you're my old man

(brian potiki, written 1980)

Jeffrey Paparoa Holman

posted by Michele
Universal Hone

Well fuck it man
that’s the bucket well and truly
kicked (I was a lonely pisshead
on the rebound from Oz in the year
of 1970 I think it was when I bought
a copy of Come Rain Hail from
Peter Hooper that great West Coast
intellectual in his Albert Street Greymouth
shrine to Thoreau, Walden Books)! O

yes: you are the universal Hone
and you really are to blame
my kupu came from far away
no more

they came from here and there
Kaikohe, Karl Marx, old fishguts
Shakespeare and the Friday Flash, from
rhythms in your soul they flared
those karakia soused in jazz. Tekoteko
totem man, you handed me my tongue
and said ‘Let’s sing! Let’s put this hoha
country back in tune!’ My ticker thumps

to think of yours all done. Go have a feed
of mussels, man – you won. You won
the biggest raffle ever run: the Universal Hone.

16 January 2008
First published in the Press (Christchurch)

Jeffrey writes:
The day he died I found myself singing at the clothesline, ‘He's the Universal Hone and he really is to blame, my kupu come from far away no more...’ to the tune of Donovan's most-likely forgotten 60s ballad, ‘The Universal Soldier.’ What a brain.

That got me going – I'd been thinking how with Hone, a universe had just disappeared, the same thought I had when my mother died in 2005. The rest, the kick-off, was just me swearing my way into the house of death, I guess.

The reference, ‘my ticker thumps’ is from his poem to Baxter – ‘no more thump in the old ticker,’ which I quoted to Roger Steele on the day Mum died, when I rang to cancel a dinner in the Green Parrot.

I now have the dubious reputation as being the first person to get the word ‘fuck’ into the Press, and on the Obituary page at that. Hone would laugh at this distinction, I reckon. But as you will intuit, it's a splash of condensed emotion, not an attempt at obscenity – I knew kicking the bucket would follow right on.

Penny Somervaille

posted by Michele
Letter to a Dead Poet

Kia Ora Hone,

Do you remember the night we met?
In Grey Lynn? At Jan’s house in Cooper St?
You said to me that there was no point me keeping my poems in a box under the bed.
You come back here tomorrow, you said,
you bring your poems with you,
and you read them to me.

No-one disobeyed an order like that from you, Hone.

I brought my poems the next night, even though I wasn’t invited,
and I did read them to you.
You listened, you really listened, and
you said, read them again,
and you said, send them off to so-and-so, tell them I told you to,
tell them I said they must publish them.

Well, I didn’t do that, didn’t have that much courage.
But, Hone, you know, you started something for me,
it’s because of you that I’m doing all those papers at Uni,
it’s all your fault that I stand up and read places,
meet so many people I love.

For a few months I saw you around,
drove you down from Shirley’s place at Pakiri once,
discovered for myself the warmth and charm that drew us to you, made us laugh.
Made me feel I was more than I thought I could be.
Two or three years later,
after you moved to Kaka Pt,
I saw you again,
you didn’t remember me,
but
I will always remember you,
you are like the rain
I can feel you in the air.

Farewell Hone, Arohanui, Penny