The third and final part of what went down at the westie lit fest:

Stephanie Johnson (right, at Going West with Peter Wells, photo Gil Hanly) was a bit of a revelation for me. I must admit I’ve never read anything of hers – quite alarming really – a fact which I have already begun to remedy. Stephanie, as the worshipful Carole Beu, owner of the legendary Women's Book Shop in Ponsonby pointed out, is one of those writers for whom no genre is out of reach. She’s done it all, and with three kids on the side.

Novels, poetry, short stories, plays for radio and stage, and now she’s in the midst of both a new novel, and a TV series. Gulp. She seems outwardly poised – even reserved – but then out came ‘Very Serious Menstration Poem 1’. The Titirangi pensioner brigade blanched but I noted a couple of old geezers were delighted. No doubt some people get to a certain age and delight in being surprised… others perhaps not.

Dee and I both complimented (all right, fawned over) Stephanie after the interview and she responded by handing over the bit of paper upon which was written 'Very Serious Menstration Poem 2’ - previously unpublished mind you - and gave her permission for us to post it. So here it is, with the greatest of thanks to Ms Johnson. If you faint at the sight of blood, look away now:

Very Serious Menstration Poem 2

I only notice the dead flies
on the bathroom sill
when I’ve got my period.

How many more? Mournful pre-climactic
I count the remaining years of blood and blues
and sudden rage and the front door slams –
the boy, sixteen, leaving the house with explosive
packed pockets, fearless inventor
of the loudest, highest rocket

passing his sister on the way home from the dairy
who bangs down the hall with
bags of lollies, dog and battered scooter

to find her father debating at the open fridge
eschewing, finally, wine for soda water

while in front of her mirror the teenage daughter
irons her hair and applies eye-liner.

Me, I peel the adhesive, fold down wings, pad my gusset:
The last day is coming, scarlet and russet.

Like house-flies, old women don’t menstruate
But all over the world, in mid-life, we grieve for it.

29 November 2004

Fantastic ... who hasn't been there? Even if you haven't been sitting on the loo looking at dead flies, even if you're a bloke, it's a perfect domestic snapshot, with a comic ear for complex family dynamics that made me think of Don DeLillo in White Noise. Stephanie, it became obvious to us, is a powerhouse of deceptively lazy, steel-trap feminine energy, who is not afraid, not at all, to say either ‘period’ or ‘fuck’ on a stage, or to take the piss generally it seems, out of both her characters and NZ from PC pakeha to rugby. Those eyes: what was that quote from Martin Amis about Salman Rushdie? Something about looking like an eagle peering through venetian blinds …? Uh-huh.

Stephanie is passionate in her determination to write of (and therefore, for) NZ, flying in the face of her US and UK publishers who told her she’d never go anywhere until she went offshore. And the saturation of the NZ market with international authors 'REALLY fucks her off'. (See what a liberating effect she has?). This passion has another outlet in her role of one of the founding members and Creative Director of the Auckland Readers and Writers Festival. How she fits it all in, etc ...

The Shag Incident (Vintage) was published in 2002 and was awarded the Deutz Medal for Fiction in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2003. The judging panel then said, ‘she is fully deserving of the recognition of excellence that this award bestows.’ Carole Beu said it was outrageously stroppy (not in so many words) and heaped praise because of it.

Since then she’s put out Moody Bitch (Godwit) in 2003, a selection of her poems from the last 20 years; Music in a Distant Room (2004, Vintage), a novel, and Drowned Sprat and Other Stories (Random House, this year) is Johnson's latest collection, comprised of 23 short stories written over 16 years. Her latest book, she says, is going to get her in even more trouble than The Shag Incident. Fantastic.

After lunch was Rosemary McLeod – an institution in this country, for reasons many and varied. She gave us a fantastic showing, by slide, of some of her extraordinary collection of womens’ handcrafts from the 1930s to 50s. It was interesting to see how much the women still thought of themselves as English: there was never a native bird to be seen and Rosemary said that most of her childhood was spent wondering where all the robins were.

Embroidery showing ‘native scenes’ invariably also had exotic additions such as palm trees, and the irony of an embroidered whare complete with happy maori being used as a tray cloth under tea and scones was not lost on Rosemary. This was also the era of the Black and White Minstrels and Golliwogs, so there were some classics in that section. Douglas Lloyd-Jenkins had a great write-up in the Listener on the book back in April but it’s still current: Objectspace Gallery on Ponsonby Rd has a collection of Rosemary’s tea cosies on at the moment and the director of the gallery, and the aimiable Philip Clarke is always willing to have a cosy chat.

Next for me, having missed Delia Falconer talking about her new novel, The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers about the battle of Little Bighorn, was Paul Reynolds talking of the effect on the world of the internet in general, and blogs in particular. He kindly dropped a mention of LeafSalon among others (the wonderful Public Address of course, being the standout), but what really got him going was the numbers of people using broadband internet in NZ, compared to other developed countries.

We are 23rd out of 30 OECD countries in our internet use apparently – and only about 20-something percent of whatever that pathetic figure is have broadband (hope those figures are right). It’s not even real, proper broadband, only libraries, hospitals and universities get that – AND we’re paying way too much for it. North Korea has 80% of the population on it – at a dollar a day. Mr Reynolds must have been gratified to read his comments almost word for word in a Herald article the following morning. Not his words, but David Cunliffe’s, Labour MP and Minister of Communications and Information Techology. Most impressed I was.

Moving swiftly on, lest this become, horror of horrors, political (I’ll leave that to the big blogs) at last we came to the finale for the weekend: with a nod to the festival of words given by a poem read by actor extraordinaire Madeleine Sami, the gospel choir Jubilation swept us up in ‘a hollering a capella finish’. And it was. A hair-raising and soulful finish to a weekend of treats that have just got to be good for you.

But wait, there’s more … it ain’t over yet. I’ll put up something in the morning that will give you the best of the rest of Going West, starting with something for the teenangsters tomorrow night, and for the whole family on Saturday …