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All Entries from the Poetry Category

For the young who want to by Marge PiercyAugust 26, 2010

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volumeMaya Stein. Poet and Kick-StarterJune 02, 2010

Maya Stein writes the most exquisite poetry ...

I interviewed her, way back when ... and discovered her to be as lovely as she seems on her blog.

I noticed she has a kickstarter project going on.  You might like to have a look and consider supporting her.

An extract from her latest poem, peculiar and exceptional
Here, she was saying, is the…

final note, by Kay McKenzie CookeApril 25, 2010

I think Kay has captured ANZAC Day perfectly here.

I missed the ANZAC commemorations on Flanders Fields this year.  Sometimes we just can’t get there but people never forget those kiwi and aussie boys lured out into a war for Queen and country ... dying in mud and blood, so far from home.  My grandfather said, Make sure I’m cremated, he never forgot the reality of climbing over dead bodies at Gallipoli or…

shopping second-hand, Kay McKenzie CookeApril 22, 2010

I love Kay’s poetry.  I interviewed her here ...

Time mocks me as it slides by

turning memories only five years old

into sentiment. Like how I miss

certain people, now gone from this place

with no chance any more

of bumping into them down town.


In the cleanest Public Toilets

I look at myself in the mirror, afraid

that what I see isn’t the real me,

or alternatively, is…

The Poet’s Obligation, Pablo NerudaApril 04, 2010


To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or harsh prison cell:
to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the…

20,000 kms from Home ...March 31, 2010

I have written of Sas before, and now she has the whole beautiful new blog thing going.  Another kiwi a long way from home, she posted this poem yesterday ... I had to borrow it because it’s beautiful.

I hear you calling me.
haere mai, haere mai
in my dreams
haere mai, haere mai
from the land you call to me
call to me
come home

my…

Maya Stein - news of her InterviewMarch 09, 2010

I have been following the poetry of Maya Stein for a very long time, receiving her poems via the RSS feed, so often loving what I find there. 

And so, I asked if I might interview her.

And she said yes.

You can read what we talked of over in my interviews section and below, a Maya poem:

immersion
Sometimes you have…

Tony Hoagland, PoetMarch 04, 2010

I found this exquisite poem over on Leslie Avon Miller’s blog and went searching for more about poet, Tony Hoagland

The Word.

Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between “green thread”
and “broccoli” you find
that you have penciled “sunlight.”

Resting on the page, the word
is as beautiful, it touches you
as if you…

Try To Praise the Mutilated WorldFebruary 16, 2010

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
You’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You…

Sam Hunt, PoetJanuary 13, 2010

Sam Hunt is probably my favourite poet, although the competition is strong ... Hone Tuwhare, Michael Ondaatje, Anne Michaels - the last two just happen to be superb prose writers as well.

I’ve been listening to a Radio New Zealand interview with Sam while working on an interview here in Berlin this morning.  I’m not ‘working’ until tonight and it’s snowy cold outside. …

The Guest-HouseJanuary 11, 2010

This being human is a guest-house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you
out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,David Whyte, PoetJanuary 06, 2010

The discipline of poetry is in overhearing yourself say difficult truths from which it is impossible to retreat. Poetry is a break for freedom.
David Whyte, Poet

How could I resist these words?  Or this idea, It is problematic to assume, poet David Whyte explains, that you can ask people to create and also to behave.

His books tempt me, most particularly Three Marriages but he has so…

Jessica Hilltout Interview - coming soonDecember 31, 2009

I recently spent some time talking with Belgian photographer, Jessica Hilltout ... an interview coming soon, the image just a small taste of her exquisite work.

Also coming, an interview with one of my favourite poets, Maya Stein.

All this in the new year, as I take a deep breath and slow down before flying out to Berlin again.

Meanwhile, happy new year and all the very best things in 2010!
A note to myself on Yannis Ritsos.November 22, 2009

A double smile had come to seal this story; I don’t know if the story will be continued, but I do know that life itself will continue its stories; and maybe some day, Ariostos the Observant will be able to cross the borders of each and every country, by showing a rose for his passport picked from his own humble garden or from the rose-garden of Lidice: the Rose Garden of Worldwide Friendship. And maybe some day, through myriads of…

Jelaluddin Rumi, The GuesthouseOctober 03, 2009

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame,…

In Flanders Fields, John McCraeSeptember 10, 2009

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
    In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we…

Rain ...September 01, 2009

I left New Zealand back in 2003, blissfully unaware that I might not live there again for years, or maybe forever ... no more favourite dog and I wandering the South Island’s beaches and lake shores, the ones we had come to know and love so well as we followed my first husband’s career over 16 years.

It started raining just now here in Belgium.  I was quietly resting after carrying umpteen loads of ‘stuff’ up…

Michael Schiller, Poet - a new interviewAugust 22, 2009

I recently ‘chatted’ with poet, Michael Schiller about his work and his life. If you enjoy poetry and interesting people, then you might enjoy reading our conversation.

But before clicking on over, here’s a poem both Michael and I list as our favourite work of his ...

World Music

An American sits at the base of a statue
In the light rain, pushing puffs of smoke
Over his drooping jaw. Others have gathered
In…

TRAM 11 by Herman de ConinckAugust 15, 2009

I love this poem by Herman de Coninck simply because it so completely captures what you might see any day on Tram 11 here in the city of Antwerpen, city of 165 different nationalities.

Back in May 2007, I was one of 8 people to step onto the stage to read the poem in our mother tongue but the celebrations were about so much more… it was about remembering this famous Flemish poet and about celebrating diversiteit.

You see, Tram…

Woman Enough, by Erica JongAugust 09, 2009

Favourite poem ...

Because my grandmother’s hours
were apple cakes baking,
& dust motes gathering,
& linens yellowing
& seams and hems
inevitably unraveling
I almost never keep house
though really I like houses
& wish I had a clean one.

Because my mother’s minutes
were sucked into the roar
of the vacuum cleaner,
because she waltzed with the washer-dryer
& tore her hair waiting for repairmen
…

Kay McKenzie Cooke, PoetJuly 23, 2009

I have published an interview by Kay Cooke McKenzie over in my Interviews section.

*walking through the Octagon
How can one not love
this drizzle?
Burns’ dark glower
as I rush by
under splattered cover.
Ah, there.  See.  That girl
in the fake-fur,
tiger-skin hat
smiling to herself
does too.
Kay McKenzie Cooke.

Maya Stein, PoetJuly 07, 2009

Maya Stein writes the most beautiful poetry over at one paragraph at a time.
I hope to publish an interview with her some time today.  Meanwhile, here is something beautiful from her world ...


freedom

The courts here said no to certain marriage, but maybe
love is always a matter of time and this isn’t the season just yet.
I’m imagining a day when pronouns won’t matter except…

Katherine Mansfield, WriterJuly 04, 2009

Would you not like to try all sorts of lives - one is so very small - but that is the satisfaction of writing - one can impersonate so many people.
Katherine Mansfield (one of my favourite New Zealand writers)

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