Month: December 2015

Yo! Christmas is upon us and you have to buy your loved ones a book. You simply have to – it’s Jesus’ birthday, after all. What would the king of the Jews choose? Perhaps he’d shop at one of our fine local second hand bookshops with a great selection of Kiwi writing. Jesus would recommend The Piggery on Walton St or perhaps Kamo’s two fine second hand book shops. Go on, support your Northland writers. Some ideas:

1915: Wounds of War by Diana Menefy, Millennium by Peri Hoskins, Trish Nicholson’s Inside Stories for Writers and Readers, or maybe Vaughan Gunson’s This Hill, all it’s about is lifting it to a higher level.

There are links to many North auth websites via this page, where you can find out more about our diverse local writers.

Go. Spend.

 

Check it out: little-known poems about Northland by NZ legend, Kendrick Smithyman

http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/authors/smithyman/northland.asp

 

DYING AMONG FRIENDS

He had no family there
just three good friends
staying in shifts
to ease his passing
and when he could no longer
eat, or drink
they smuggled in good whiskey
to wet his lips.

RANGI’S POINT

Only thirty minutes away
she said
you must visit Rangi’s Point
you’ll love it
she said
she didn’t mention
winding shingle roads
up steep slopes not wide enough for us
and the logging truck we met
on a tight bend
avoided
by driving off the road
she wouldn’t have known
about the two little Maori boys
free-wheeling on a bicycle
waving to a truck driver
suddenly wobbling
into the centre of the road
brakes, and a sharp intake of breath
as we just missed them
Rangi’s Point
was blue water and mangrove roots
further away than thirty minutes
unless your driving
is suicidal
If you meet that woman
don’t listen to what
she says

Maureen Sudlow’s collection Antipodes can be found and bought here

‘Maureen Sudlow’s work crackles with detail, her poems like crisp autumn leaves. She writes of human misunderstandings and displacements, but grounded in nature and a sense of what endures in our lives. It’s also great to see an accomplished writer of haibun including this form alongside contemporary poems.’ Owen Bullock, New Zealand poet. – See more at: http://www.academybooks.co.nz/product/isbn/9781927242698/#sthash.spt4ERH9.dpuf

 

I have no idea why I can’t find the book on publisher Steele Roberts’ website..

An Indium Morning

Between Te Whara and Paepae o Tū
Pohutukawa elbows knotted
With an asymptotic curve of fine holocene sands
Taonga islands drifting through a sifting, shifting lens
Where we landed,
Cloud caverns of frontal activity loom
A spring tide in spring pulls the dunes down
Ice plants melt in the white sun
In a season of fires
A red kete, red tee shirt
Ebony bikini, blushing cheeks
Red billed gull quartet
He korero , plays the ivory surf
The fertile ocean carved whakairo
Into literatures of foam and air
A pizzicato for children
Ngaruaroha, her cello, violins
Trembling like the toiling clouds
Haere mai te kara
Ka nuku nuku
Ka neke neke

Review via Fairfax calls the book ‘unforgettable’ –

“I reckon that if the papers told the truth about the war no-one would come and they would have to call the whole thing off” – one nurse’s opinion after seeing Gallipoli.

Harriet and Mel are farm girls who are  given minimal training except how to dress a wound and  sent to war. Mel attends to boat load after boat load of casualties off Anzac Cove onto the hospital ship Maheno and Harriet is in Egypt.

The nurses brought a degree of humanity to the horrors of war but they were as unprepared for war as the soldiers. Their job was  to hide any revulsion and present a calm confidence to the mangled bodies of soldiers they attended, without the use of antibiotics.

This is an unforgettable novel based on the diaries of two nurses who went through what Mel and Harriet did. BOB DOCHERTY

 

19 December 2015 at the Hukerenui Pub and Cafe. The café will put on lunch with tea and instant coffee for $15 pp. Counter food and barista coffee will also be available if you prefer. Unfortunately gluten free food is not available but you are welcome to bring your own. Please come and join us for our Christmas meeting.

Deets:

Meetings