In the spirit of world poetry day, here is one of Bill's poems .... it's on the Montant NZ Awards poetry sampler so I thought he wouldn't mind. Wonderful news of Bill's win and to see the calibre of all the finalists.

The Ladder
Bill Manhire

Too short to reach the roof,
too short to threaten important windows,

the ladder lies on its side
behind the house, out of sight.

The ladder lies in the grass,
a different grain in each of its rungs

(and wings on each rung
so where can you place your feet?).

And, as you can see, it is rotten.
Nevertheless, it longs to be lifted.

The judges were spot on. Really pleasing. And I don't want to rain on the parade but it does seem a bit weird to know the poetry winner and not the other winners. I know it's to do with getting maximum publicity for poetry but it still seems kind of dopey. Plus, Bill Manhire now gets to enjoy his Montana dinner while the other writers pretend to have appetites. Or maybe everyone knows beforehand? Another question: does anyone know whether these awards sell books? The Booker does. But can anyone remember what won the Deutz Medal in 2004? Quick, without thinking or googling!

Was it Jagose's Slow Water? I seriously haven't checked and might be wrong. In the bookshop I work in, Slow Water was a limp seller because it didn't appeal due to its arcane language and there was also the ambivalence of our staff (I personally thought it was a tour de force). Although, having said that, the Montana ensured Slow Water sold more than it otherwise would have -- and if I remember rightly, VUP had to rush and do another print run. Fergus will have the figures. Certainly my experience is the Montana does cause a bit of a buying spree immediately after the announcement much as the Booker does(we sold two copies of Lifted on Friday and are lucky to sell a single NZ poetry book in a week) and there is always another flurry again at Christmas. Generally, I'd say the gold sticker helps (like buying wine). Patricia Grace's Tu (2005 winner) was a brilliant seller but the it had a wide and easy appeal and the staff loved it. Kennedy's SIng Song barely sold at all (a travesty.) On that note, I am reading Kennedy's The Time of the Giants and it is a delight. It made me get down my now faded copy of Musica Ficta and remind myself how odd and wonderful it was.

2004 fiction Deutz-Stephanie Johnson's thing? I really loathed that book, and as literary advisor for fiction that year, swore (mean it), after the cabal judged -it as best, I'd never judge - or prejudge - any other NZ award. The book that should have won, the book I advised as best, was "The Hopeful Traveller."

Mary - congrats, you win the chocolate fish. Thanks for the info. Bit worried about 'the ambivalence of our staff' though - you mean they were so ho-hum on Slow Water, they put buyers off? Doesn't your bookshop want to sell books? (Also worried that your own books are fading too fast - watch out for sunlight.) Sadly, Islander, you are wrong with your year - I googled it and The Shag Incident won in 2003. You now receive a complete set of Stephanie Johnson's books bearing rude inscriptions.

Absolutely right e darryl! My, how memory consigns the awful into the darker past-the deeper-past-memory past!
-thankyou for the booby prize of Stephanie's books - I will feed them into an appropriate container wherein they will be cherished - or, at least, appreciated.

Yes, Darryl -- they actively disliked Slow Water so didn't attempt to sell it which means it languished and other books were recommended in its stead. If someone had walked in and desperately wanted Slow Water, it would have been found (I hope). I liked it, as I said, but I had to be careful in recommending it, knowing how many people found it a difficult read. At the same time I knew the customers that would embrace it. What do you mean by my books fading? Metaphor or reality? If the latter, how the heck....

I'm not surprised they actively did not sell Slow Water in the bookshop. I attempted to read it and found the experience gruesome. If a bookshop had recommended that book to me without a very stern warning attached, the bookshop would probably have lost my patronage for good!

As the NZ publishers of Slow Water (Random House did it in Australia), we at VUP knew that, excellent as it was in its own terms, it was not a book for every reader. We were proud to publish it, and we were delighted that its quality was recognised, not only by the Deutz Medal, but also by a shortlisting in the very prestigious Miles Franklin Award in Australia. Sales had been very modest, 605 to be precise (am I allowed to say that?) but the Deutz Medal had an immediate impact, and 3650 were sold over the next year. I'm sure some of those new readers didn't like it and didn't get through, but I also know from personal communications that some of them loved it and were very glad to have had their attention drawn to it.

That's what happens when literary awards are judged solely on quality. A book doesn't have to be a crowd-pleaser to be good. And conversely, popularity is not incompatible with quality.

The strange hybrid that is the Montana New Zealand Book Awards used to have it that fiction and poetry were judged solely on literary excellence, but that "community impact" was a factor in other categories. Recently -- and possibly as a result of Slow Water's win? -- to the fiction category was added a set of detailed judges' guidelines which (a) attempted to narrow down the types of fiction which might come through and win, and (b) would have been laughed out of an undergraduate tutorial. And now we find that "community impact" has been smuggled back into the literary categories as a factor in the fiction vs. poetry play-off which determines the Deutz Medal.

Thanks for the sales figures Fergus - fascinating reading! (Who needs BookScan when publishers are so forthcoming.)

I wonder if this 'community impact' clause is also an invitation to judges to look in the work itelf for worthy social agendas. Blindsight is easier to figure out in these terms than a book of poetry perhaps.

Fair point, Robert. But is an editor of anthology like 121 NZ Poems obliged to be culturally representative? Can't he just put in the poems that he thinks are exciting and distinctive? If you've got different idea for an anthology, then you should do that book. That's the way culture gets made - through competing versions not attempts an an all-inclusive book. The Manhire anthology has no pretensions to such stature, which is why I found your review off-the-mark.