Poetry roundup

A new book of poems from Janet Charman is always a delight. The Pistils is her ninth.

Charman pens personal poems which look at the severing of a 40-year relationship following the illness and death of her partner during Covid-19 restrictions.

She knows how to show sentiment without sentimentality as she uses brief phrases to capture big moments. “war memorial at Kohukohu” concludes:

… when the soldiers left
she would have drowned
if from the bank they hadn’t begged
the river runs into the harbour
the tide
brings her back

These are taut and manicured poems from one of our strongest voices. Charman offers a thoughtful response to James K Baxter’s behaviour in The House of the Talking Cat.

If you like your poetry classical, primal and immediate The Pistils truly works.

Robert Sullivan has lived in Oamaru for the last three years and this is his first collection in more than a decade.

This is a little book, only 35 poems, but this hikoi through Aotearoa is mighty.

Sullivan writes stanzas that are alternately yearning and joyous

There is lots of understated intensity to these brief thoughts. His sequence Te Whitianga a Kupe runs for 13 pages. Maui’s Mission is stunning.

Sullivan’s moving tribute to Alistair Campbell begins:

My soul will take
the Interislander
because it can carry
my bags, a van
and a furniture trailer
with fifty years’ worth
of boxes …

Waitaki Boys’ High School is blessed to have someone like Sullivan on its staff.

Tunui | Comet finds a connection between the young man and older self.

This is Erik Kennedy’s second foray into wide-ranging satire. These poems are funny, witty and tough.

Kennedy laments leaving junk on the moon and microplastics invading Antarctica.

His Plot of the Nativity Play is a delight. Kennedy looks at big topics like life, love, struggle and death.

The penultimate poem of the collection reflects on how people felt after the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019:

… We wish we couldn’t see it disappearing
into routine, because we were desolately happy because
we were nice to each other after the trauma.

Kennedy recently co-edited No Other Place to Stand, an anthology of climate change poetry.

Another Beautiful Day Indoors finds a man throwing himself mind, body and soul into his work.

Echidna is Essa May Ranapiri’s second collection of poems. It contains three strands of tradition:  Greek mythology, Christianity, and Maori purakau.

This is modern, entertaining story-telling that creates its own magical chemistry.

Milton, R S Thomas, Hinemoana Baker and Keri Hulme are acknowledged.

From Maui & Prometheus Have a Meet-cute:

… it’s a small text in the late hours
Prometheus asking are you attracted to me
and Maui responding
yes
you took long enough to catch on

The whole thing is slanderous and colourful. There is something inventive and ambitious here. Echidna is, above all, brave.

If you want a one-stop shop of recent New Zealand poetry it is tough to go past Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2022.

This showcases 130 new poems including the work of this year’s featured poet Wes Lee and her distinctive, hard-hitting voice.

This is New Zealand’s longest running poetry magazine, now up to issue #56. David Eggleton, Janet Newman, Majella Cullinane, Sue Wootton and Mary Cresswell all make contributions.

Special mention goes to Ocean Jade from Otago Girls’ High School who is a winner in the annual student poetry competition. From her Route Back Home:

… i long to stay on this road for miles until your truck is worn down
to its last huffs. because the lines between us are tattered through
to the tail-end, mimicking half-split wood,
fraying with a guilty conscience
and i can’t tell if it will be our exit or our opening.
inhale or exhale? …

Hamesh Wyatt lives in Bluff. He reads and writes poetry