Poets In Context | Book Events

Tomorrow is the next In Context session, and it its anything like the last, it’ll be a goodie. We’ll be talking about hip literary history with Mark Young and Barry Lett at 1pm at the Auckland Art Gallery, so be there or be square.

Last week went down a storm – there was a great turnout to see CK Stead and Murray Edmond. Karl, (pictured in action right) the consummate professional, kept to the brief and spoke about his sixties, which for him (and many others) revolved around two main factors: the sexual revolution and the Vietnam war, which political farce he was, and is passionate about. Examples of his poetry followed this theme, and he also spoke about the huge differences in his students, especially the girls, within a few years into the decade. The pill that changed the world etc.

Interestingly, he and Murray were teacher and student at Auckland University during the period, and Karl remembered (although Murray didn’t, say no more) that Murray had approached him – they would have been about 35 and 20 – and said something along the lines of ‘We’re going to be the first NZ poets to have the courage of our emotions.’

This struck Karl as a good point to make about the decade in literature. He pointed out that the 50s revolved around TS Eliot and others for whom ‘the measure of excellence was ambiguity and irony’. There was a shift after that which went through finally to Alan Ginsberg’s Howl. Then to the sixties and the emotional rollercoasters of Plath, Baxter et al, and the delicious extravagances of Ian Wedde’s Beautiful Golden Girl of the Sixities. (If anyone has this, please send it in or send me a url… save me doing the library trawl, as it keeps cropping up and I'm desperate to read it; will read it out at one of these sessions in all probability).

He finished with a couple of poems about various artists and writers who influenced him in the sixties – one about James K Baxter, Colin McCahon and Pat Hanly, and one about the various Maurices in NZ literature that began ‘To Maurice and to Maurice and to Maurice…’. CK Stead’s rather fearsome reputation is definitely mellowing – he’s still inclined to be blunt, but that’s OK with me, and his fine dry wit is a treat. And in fact, a couple of comments went down about this session working through some kind of 'cross-generational thing', which I have no idea about, but if 'tis so, why then, that's well and good.

Murray Edmond was the antithesis of the measured treatment Karl gave to the show, but no less entertaining. I thought ‘dragonfly’ as he flitted from subject to subject, writer to writer, and I gave up trying to take notes. Bob Dylan and Bertholdt Brecht featured highly, as did Francois Vion, a writer who influenced both of the above (hope I’ve got the name right, it's not googling). He spoke of the early years as when 'men grew their hair and flowers, and women cut theirs and wore army fatigues'.

He also drew on quite a few poets from the anthology that he and Michele Leggot edited Big Smoke, NZ poetry from the 60s and 70s. I’m afraid I was distracted as well by various duties while Murray was speaking, so anyone else who was there, please tell us more.

All in all, a great session, and another one tomorrow. I’ll be introducing Messrs Lett & Young. Hope to see you there.

12 May 06 | Filed by Kathy | Add your comment (2 so far)

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Comment by David Howard ~ May 13, 2006 12:02 PM

Murray Edmond was probably referring to either Boris Vian (James Baldwin wondered over the 'nearly unbearable ecstasy' experienced by the protagonists in Vian's carnal novels) or the model for Jean Genet, grand thief Francois Villon (1431-c.1463): 'Magpies and crows have hollowed out our eyes...."

Comment by Kori Mitchell ~ June 1, 2006 11:29 PM

"The words are very hesitant,
"The click clack of keys are thunderous intrusions,
"Frightening the continuity of my thoughts, and
"Throwing me back into silence".

As a self-procalimed poet of unknown and dubious quality, I began my poetic endeavours by trying to express my emotions during my formative years. I was a teenager, in other words. Thankfully, most of those scribblings became lost. The ones that survived are still viewed with horror.

At high school, english was the subject in which I mostly shined; I have no idea why that was, because, as with most teenagers, the total sum of my knowledge within the arts of literature and poetry were gleaned from reading fantasy novels and listening to lyrics from music my parents hated.

And, the teenage rebel within dictated that I listen to the music my paerents hated the most! The only poets I knew at that time were the poets who were forced into my mind through an unbending curriculum, so, being a rebellious teenager, I grew to loathe them (and avoid them).

Time marches on, and I marched from teen to tween, then to thirty-something. Life experiences accumulated to the point where I realised those early scribblings were naive, to say the least... downright awful, to say the most.

I'm forty-something now, and my writing endeavours have taken on a new urgency, like I'm making up for all the past times when the necessities of youth were more important. But, I've been doing it alone.

I stumbled across this website by accident. I was actually surfing through sites offered up after "googling" the key words - poetry, societies, ezine, flogmorph. Flogmorph was something I threw into the mix in hopes of confounding the Google database. Instead, it gave me the name of a poetry newsletter called "Speakeasy". I visited this site, joined as a contributor, and contributed. Because of my affiliation to New Zealand, my frequent "logging in" had an effect on their "suggested similar sites", and, lo and behold... here I am.

The point to this, and the reason for commenting to "Poets in Context", is that I find that I am still naive... Naive to the existence of New Zealand people and societies and poets I would like to learn more of, and about. Reading this column has gone a little way to aiding that. My next step is uncertain.