Poet Kaveh Akbar is no sheep in wolf’s clothing – WORD Christchurch

Kaveh Akbar is more of a shepherd than a wolf. The internationally acclaimed Iranian-American poet not only produces amazing thought-provoking poetry, but nurtures other poets to achieve their full potential too. So it was a perfect date for us to be hosting him at Tūranga, the flagship of the future. We are all about helping our citizens to access all they need to reach for the top.

Hosted by local poet Erik Kennedy, this event was held in the brand spanking new Tautoru / TSB Space, and brought to us by WORD Christchurch in association with LitCrawl Wellington. View photos of Kaveh Akbar and Erik Kennedy event.

Mr Akbar is a really nice guy. Humble and quietly spoken (though this changes when he reads) Kaveh kept thanking us for coming. When reading, Kaveh is animated, moving with the lilting rhythm of his words, his voice rising with the swell of emotion and experience.

An Iranian-American, he sees his poetry as:

“the membrane between myself and the divine…a new idiom for ancient binaries.”

Binaries such as solitude and community, decay and rebirth, literature and culture.

Kaveh has been posting interviews with poets making waves on DiveDapper; a website he created as a platform for exposure, promotion and connection. It has become a community, bringing poets and enthusiasts together worldwide. The list of poets on this website is impressive! Akbar sees this as a way to “push (his gratitude) outwards.” He further demonstrated this by reading two poems by New Zealand poet Helen Heath.

Kaveh’s book of poetry Calling a Wolf a Wolf was released to much acclaim this year. In it, Kaveh addresses difficult themes from addiction to desire; his poetry refreshing in a way that feels uplifting rather than downbeat.

Akbar’s work shares a sense of lessons learned and experience shared, as opposed to a self-indulgent train wreck. In all, there is a theme of hunger: for the physical sensation of being alive. Akbar’s poems grabbed me at first taste. Alliteration, onomatopoeia and themes of life, death and longing fill his poems. Addiction is portrayed as a kind of death; “a void to fill in wellness”. The poetry came from a need to fill the gap left after he became sober: “my entire life up to that point was predicated on the pursuit of this or that narcotic experience.” All this brings to mind a Persian poet who celebrated the wine and song of life, yet without the cautionary tale: Omar Khayyam.

In the light of current politics, Kaveh asserts that the ‘utility’ of poetry ‘forces us to slow down our metabolism of language’. A useful antidote to doublespeak, perhaps. He makes it sound like a science. And in fact it is.

Kaveh Akbar in conversation with Erik Kennedy. WORD Christchurch event. Tautoru / TSB Space, Hapori | Community, Level 1, Tūranga, Tuesday 6 November 2018. Flickr 2018-November-6-IMG_1984

Although he now only speaks a few words of Farsi these days, Akbar sees feeling as a ‘universal language,’ one that we all understand. The purpose of poetry, he says, is as Homer put it – to ‘delight and instruct.’  So often, we leave out the delight, loving to lecture others on the way of things. Pre-sobriety, Akbar the poet painted himself as the hero of his works; a ‘gloriously misunderstood scumbag.’ A way of being, he says, that’s insufferable (I’ve dated guys like that).

‘So you’re the sobriquet of the School of Delight?’ quips Eric Kennedy. Sobriquet. Oh clever. Thus begins a new Golden Age in Poetry. The interview website DiveDapper came from Kaveh’s hunger for dialogue with other poets while going through recovery. It’s a way to share experience with others – ‘a vast expanse of empathetic resources.’

The internet has meant that ‘the age of coy diminishment of one’s passions is over’…it is now an age of ‘unabashed zeal.’ Eric:  Zeal Land!”

Kaveh read a number of wonderful poems from Calling a Wolf a Wolf. I love the titles – so real but imaginative. He really does have a way with words:

• Portrait the an alcoholic floating in space wtih severed umbilicus
• Vines, a wow! of a poem, with very visual images opposing decay and rebirth,
• Do you speak Persian, in which he asserts that every drunk wants to die sober.

The last word goes to Mr Akbar:

“Poetry is the best thing that exists in the universe.”

More about Kaveh Akbar

Kaveh has been published by the New Yorker, The New York Times, Best American Poetry 2018 and The Guardian:

• Portrait of the artist floating in space with severed umbilicus
• Visit Kaveh Akbar’s website
• Read about Kaveh Akbar on the Poetry Foundation website
• Read Kaveh Akbar is Poetry’s Biggest Cheerleader, National Poetry Review, 14 January 2018

Poems

• Ways to harm a thing
• What seems like joy
• Against dying
• Persian Poets

Celebrating National Poetry Day at New Brighton Library – Saturday 25 August, 2pm to 3pm

New Brighton Library is excited to be hosting four distinguished Christchurch poets who will present a reading to celebrate National Poetry Day.

Although officially National Poetry Day is Friday 24 August, we decided that we would capture a bigger audience for the reading by holding it on the day after, Saturday 25 August. The weekend market brings people into New Brighton in great numbers and hopefully some of the shoppers are also poetry lovers or, at least, poetry curious. Many Mums and Dads are also free from the constraints of work and may want to introduce their children to the power of poetry when it leaps off the page and springs from the mouths of the poets themselves. Many people believe that poetry is at its most effective when delivered orally and consumed aurally. And the poets promise to be family-friendly.

So New Brighton Library invites you to cast aside your preconceptions and any prejudices against poetry that your high school English teacher may have unwittingly cultivated and let these four wonderful poets show you that poetry can be exciting, funny, moving and thought-provoking.

The reading takes place at 2pm on Saturday 25 August and the poets are:

Jeni Curtis. Image supplied.

Jeni Curtis is a Christchurch writer who has had short stories and poetry published in various publications including takahē, NZPS anthologies 2014 to 2017, JAAM, Atlanta Review, The London Grip, and the Poetry NZ Yearbook. In 2016 she received a mentorship from the New Zealand Society of Authors. She is secretary of the Canterbury Poets Collective, and chair of the takahē trust. She is also co-editor of poetry for takahē, and editor of the Christchurch Dickens Fellowship magazine Dickens Down Under.

David Gregory. Image supplied.

David Gregory has had three books published in New Zealand, Always Arriving and Frame of Mind, both by Sudden Valley Press and Push by Black Doris Press. His poetry has appeared in a goodly number of publications and anthologies and he has performed his work here and in the UK. He has been involved with the promotion of poetry with for over 20 years. He is also an editor for Sudden Valley Press which has produced over 32 high quality poetry books.

Heather McQuillan. Image supplied.

Heather McQuillan is Director at The School for Young Writers. She loves writing in many forms from poetry to short fiction to novels and plays. She has a Master of Creative Writing. Some of her work will appear in the upcoming Bonsai: Best small stories from Aotearoa New Zealand which will be launched at the WORD Christchurch Festival.

Jeffery Paparoa Holman. Image supplied.

Jeffrey Paparoa Holman writes poetry, memoir and history. His most recent works are Blood Ties: New and Selected Poems 1963-2016 (Canterbury University Press, 2017) and Dylan Junkie, his Bob Dylan fanboy poems (Makaro Press, 2017).

If you fancy a foretaste of the treats to come, some of their books can be found in the Christchurch City Libraries:

Find works in our collection by:

• David Gregory
• Heather McQuillan
• Jeffrey Paparoa Holman

Read Ray’s post on National Poetry Day, including NZ poets at WORD Christchurch Festival – Wednesday 29 August to Sunday 2 September.

National Poetry Day – Friday 24 August 2018

Aotearoa has been celebrating National Poetry Day on the last Friday in August for over 20 years now! This year it’s on Friday 24 August, and across the country, you can engage in all kinds of events, workshops and competitions. There’s even people marking the occasion with poetry readings in as far flung places as Edinburgh and Berlin.

Closer to home, Ōtautahi has some really cool events you can check out, whether you’re into attending a writing workshop, seeing poetry performed, or entering a competition. If you’re into the competition side of things, make sure you map out submission dates in your calendar now – there’s lots going on with lots of different due dates, but if you leave it till the week of Poetry Day, you might be too late!

Late in the evening, there’s a fiery and feisty evening of poetry planned at the Space Academy, on St Asaph Street – ‘We Are The Persistence’ features Tusiata Avia, Ray Shipley, Alice Andersen, Rebecca Nash and Isla Martin.

If you’re looking for events that are a little more interactive, you could check out the Great Wall of Poetry – a giant display of a diverse range of local poetry – at University Bookshop, Ilam Campus. You can go along and read the work on the wall, and you can also submit your own poems.

UBS is also hosting a poetry workshop with local legend Kerrin P. Sharpe (whose new book, ‘Louder’, is being released at the end of the month). The hour-long workshop, from 12.30-1.30pm, will be full of writing exercises and feedback, with an opportunity for the work you create to be published in UBS’s inaugural National Poetry Day online collection!

Warm-up and wrap-up events happening before and after National Poetry Day

If you’re school age (year 5 to 13) you might like to check out the Young Writers Poetry Pentathlon on Thursday 23 August – a game show crossed with a writing class! Sounds wild.

And the day after National Poetry Day, the fine folk at Hagley Writers Institute are hosting two Saturday daytime workshops so you can take all the inspiration from the previous day and turn it into a poetic masterpiece.

Christchurch City Libraries are of course getting in on the poetry action with a daytime, all-ages, free event on Saturday 25 August at lovely New Brighton Library from 2pm-3pm, featuring readings from four local poets: Jeni Curtis, Heather McQuillan, David Gregory, and Jeffrey Paparoa Holman.

Explore the full list of events across New Zealand.

COMPETITIONS

Nationally, there are some great and creative poetry competitions to get your teeth sunk into.

My favourite ones include:

• The Great New Zealand Prose Deletion – a creative exercise in eliminating words on a page to create something entirely new;
• 24-hour Poetry Competition – which, as the name suggests, is a competition with a strict time limit (think 48 hour film fest, but for poetry!).
• Given Words – where the poem you write must include 5 words chosen by the organizer;

• View all the poetry competitions for National Poetry Day
• Browse the full list of events across New Zealand

National Poetry Day is an opportunity for lovers of poetry to spend the day writing, listening, and getting inspired; but it’s also a day of discovery and new ideas for folks who may have found poetry a bit hard to engage with previously. New Zealand has so many wonderful poets from diverse and wonderful backgrounds, and if you take the time this National Poetry Day to encounter something new, you won’t regret it!

• Find New Zealand poetry in our collection.
• Visit our page on New Zealand poetry.

New Zealand poetry at WORD Christchurch Festival 2018

Find works in our collection by these New Zealand poets appearing at the WORD Christchurch Festival from Wednesday 28 August to Sunday 2 September:

• Tusiata Avia
  Browse WORD Christchurch events featuring Tusiata Avia
• Hera Lindsay Bird
  WORD Christchurch events featuring Hera Lindsay Bird
• Helen Heath
  WORD Christchurch events featuring Helen Heath
• Dominic Hoey
  WORD Christchurch events featuring Dominic Hoey
• Erik Kennedy
  WORD Christchurch events featuring Erik Kennedy
• Selina Tusitala Marsh
  WORD Christchurch events featuring Selina Tusitala Marsh
• Frankie McMillan
  WORD Christchurch events featuring Frankie McMillan
• Heather McQuillan
  WORD Christchurch events featuring Heather McQuillan
• James Norcliffe
  WORD Christchurch events featuring James Norcliffe
• Tayi Tibble
  WORD Christchurch events featuring Tayi Tibble
• Chris Tse
  WORD Christchurch events featuring Chris Tse

See more poetry events at WORD Christchurch.

Ray
Upper Riccarton

Celebrating World Poetry Day – Wednesday 21 March 2018

It’s World Poetry Day today! As an occasional poet myself, I’m a bit embarrassed to say I didn’t know there was a World Poetry Day until earlier this week. Turns out the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization are behind it, declaring in 1999 that March 21^st would be a day to celebrate poetry globally each year.

What’s so good about poetry though? For lots of people, poetry doesn’t really play a part in their lives – at the most, perhaps when people think of poetry they think of a stuffy 3^rd form classroom, being lectured about World War One rhyming couplets and Shakespearean sonnets.

Poetry in the Aotearoa New Zealand Centre. Central Library Manchester, Christchurch. Friday 22 August 2014. Flickr 2014-08-22-IMG_1608

But, as the UN says: “Poetry reaffirms our common humanity by revealing to us that individuals, everywhere in the world, share the same questions and feelings…” which is a pretty comforting idea. At its most simple, I guess they’re saying that whatever background and culture and language you come from, poetry provides a way of explaining thoughts and feelings and ideas that maybe just don’t make as much sense in other formats. What would the Hogwarts Sorting Hat be without its introductory poem? The Oompa Loompas without their songs? And on a more serious note, those soldiers writing in the trenches certainly thought they could express their experiences more powerfully through poems; and the poems that come out of revolutions and wars and times of upheaval can give us insight into the humanity of a situation that a simple news report cannot. For most cultures around the world, storytelling, poetry, and spoken word are the key ways histories have been recorded and traditions have survived.

Phantom Poetry on High Street. Flickr CCL-2012-07-IMG_5335

There’s plenty of opportunity to explore some poetry this World Poetry Day – a short walk around the city will get you face to face with a poem on a bollard or a wall with thanks to Phantom Billstickers poetry posters; a quick YouTube search and you’ll find plenty of slam and performance poetry (Button Poetry is a great place to start); and of course the library has plenty of poetry to get your hands on – why not start with Kate Tempest (UK); Rupi Kaur (Canada); or Selina Tusitala Marsh?

Or you could check out some live poetry! It’s happening all year round in Ōtautahi, with Catalyst, Faultline Poetry Collective, and Mad Poets Society all hosting regular events. There’s also a New Zealand National Poetry Day, celebrated this year on Friday 24^th August where events and competitions are run all over the country.

It’s pretty clear that poetry is still strong, still living and breathing in communities all around the world – including right here!

Ray

Tusiata Avia – From poetry to prose

I recently went to a From Poetry to Prose book talk featuring Tusiata Avia at the WEA here in Christchurch, as part of their October Writing Workshops.

She talked about how she has gone about making the transition from poet to novelist. Ashamed to admit I wasn’t familiar with her work, I was inspired by her forceful writing combined with a very relaxed attitude to life.

She read from her upcoming first novel and from a poem in Wild Dogs Under My Skirt which have the same characters and the same domestic abusive dynamic. Wonderfully engaging, she performs the characters voices so well that I found myself lost in the story.

Tusiata Avia is Christchurch born, of Samoan descent. An acclaimed performance poet and children’s author, her work has also been published in various literary journals. Her first collection of poetry, Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, was published in 2004 then taken to the world as a one-woman poetry show between 2002 and 2008.

Pacific female authors are so lacking in long fiction which makes the wait for her novel that much more anticipated!

Find out more

• Check our catalogue for Tusiata Avia’s books
• WORD Christchurch’s biography on Tusiata Avia
• More posts about Tusiata Avia
• New Zealand Book Council’s author page about Tusiata Avia
• Interview with Tusiata Avia on Radio New Zealand

Happy Birthday James K. Baxter!

Hokitika Bill, Hokitika Bill. I remember chanting this poem aloud at Primary School.

Poet James K. Baxter was born in Dunedin on 29 June 1926. His parents were thinkers – his father Archibald was a conscientious objector and Millicent, his mother had been to College in Sydney.

The dichotomy of social order was represented by his family – his maternal grandfather was Māori, his paternal grandfather was Scots. This fed his mind with the differences and similarities between Clans and Tribes.

Baxter began writing poetry from age seven. His work is said to have become technically accomplished by the time he was a teenager.

Beyond the Palisade was published in 1944 – Baxter’s first year of University at Otago, to great acclaim. Influenced by Dylan Thomas, as was Janet Frame at the time, Baxter was part of the Wellington Group of writers. Fellows included W.H. Oliver and Alistair Te Ariki Campbell.

In 1968 Baxter was told in a dream to go to Jerusalem (Hiruharama), a settlement on the Whanganui River. He worked with the poor, and spoke out against a social order that sanctions poverty.

Baxter’s canon of works is astronomical, and well worth a read. We also have his novel – Horse.

Check out our James K. Baxter display in the reference room at Central Library Manchester.

Further reading

• Titles by James K. Baxter
• Titles about James K. Baxter
• Articles on James K. Baxter (access with your library card & password / PIN)

The passing of a major poet

As reported in The New York Times recently, “Yevgeny Yevtushenko, an internationally acclaimed poet with the charisma of an actor and the instincts of a politician whose defiant verse inspired a generation of young Russians in their fight against Stalinism during the Cold War, died on Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he had been teaching for many years. He was 83.”

Yevtushenko is survived by his wife, Maria Novikova, and their two sons, Dmitry and Yevgeny. His family were reportedly at the poet’s bedside when he died.

Yevtushenko’s poems of protest did much to encapsulate the mixed feelings of the young people of the Soviet Union after the death of the totalitarian Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, on 5 March 1953.

Such was his popularity in Russia that Yevtushenko gave 250 poetry readings in 1961.

President Nixon meets with Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 1972. Public domain image via Wikipedia

After 2007, Yevtushenko spent an increasing amount of his time in America, teaching and giving readings of his work. One American writer described him as “a graying lion of Russian letters”. He taught and lectured for years at several American universities, including the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma.

Yevtushenko was very much admired by generations of his fellow Soviet citizens, both before and after the collapse of the USSR.

One of his most famous poems was Babi Yar which bore witness to the Nazi atrocities against the Jews in Kiev in the Soviet Union during World War Two.

Find out more

• Read Babi Yar online
• Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s work in the library collection (sound recordings and books)

 

Ashleigh Young and Hera Lindsay Bird at the WORD Christchurch and Christchurch Art Gallery

BIRD + YOUNG sounds like a firm purveying fancy jewellery.  But for Hera Lindsay Bird (poet) and Ashleigh Young (poet, writer, editor), it is words and ideas that are the things they are making and selling. This WORD Christchurch event at the Christchurch Art Gallery auditorium was introduced by WORD’s programme director Rachael King and chaired by Amy Marr, the Visitor Programmes Coordinator of the Art Gallery.

Hera Lindsay Bird is a poet whose works have pretty much gone viral – you might have read the one about Monica from Friends, and that Keats one – everywhere, BAM! Ashleigh Young  is a poet and writer who recently became the first New Zealander to win Yale University’s Windham-Campbell Prize, worth US$165,000 (NZ$230,000), for her collection of raw, real, beautifully honest essays, Can you tolerate this? Their books are both on the shortlist for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

It was a soggy evening, but that didn’t deter the crowd. It was full to the gunnels.

Crowd for Ashleigh Young and Hera Lindsay Bird. Flickr 2017-03-22-IMG_9004

Hera and Ashleigh kicked off with some readings:

• Hera: Children are the orgasm of the world and “Wild geese by Mary Oliver by Hera Lindsay Bird”
• Ashleigh read part of her essay Big Red from Can you tolerate this?

How do they get time to write when they work full time (Hera at Unity Books, Ashleigh at Victoria University Press)? It ain’t easy, but great employers help. Hera gets a paid day off each week. Ashleigh’s boss has offered time off for writing, while keeping her job open.

What followed was a discussion that ranged widely – from influences, to the IIML, sexy stuff, humour, and processes – with a good amount of Q&A time (surprise fact: lots of questions asked by men). Here’s some of the things we learned:

• Ashleigh edited Hera Lindsay Bird’s book which she said required barely a single change. She read the manuscript on the floor, weeping and cackling.
• Hera enjoys reading crime fiction, humour, and heaps of poetry. She’s currently reading the Adrian Mole books by Sue Townsend.
• Ashleigh has lots of self help books concealed on her Kindle.
• Ashleigh said she can’t remember not wanting to write (but always knew she’s need a day job to pay the bills)
• Hera’s parents had star charts – not for good behaviour but for writing, and she would get paid to write poems. She wondered if her Coromandel hippy parents fancied her as the next Laura Ranger (remember Laura’s Poems?)
• Hera feels the support of her family and knows that even if she writes something explicit, her Dad will be chill with it.

Photos

See our pics from the event.

Quotable Quotes

I don’t think either of us leave the house very much. (Hera)

I really love New Zealand actually. (Ashleigh)

This whole thing is terrible for my process. (Ashleigh, on this talk and writer events when you are an introvert writer)

I love her blurriness. (Ashleigh, on Lydia Davis)

People know both Renoir and Taylor Swift. (Hera, on art and pop culture)

George Saunders is my favourite living writer. (Hera)

All the sex in it is kind of a joke. (Hera, on her book)

Even Bill Manhire can be really funny. (Ashleigh)

I don’t find anything moving that I didn’t find funny first. (Hera)

Book signing – Ashleigh Young and Hera Lindsay Bird. Flickr 2017-03-22-IMG_9027

An Ashleigh and Hera playlist

Here are some of the many writers, poets, and musicians namechecked by Ashleigh and Hera:

• Lydia Davis – Ashleigh loves her writing: “Something about her voice makes me want to write myself”.
• Both name checked Frank O’Hara.
• NZ poet James Brown
• Hera is inspired by Mark Leidner, Chelsey Minnis, PG Wodehouse
• Anne Carson – intense beauty, no humour. (Hera)
• Ashleigh: Mark Greif – Against Everything
  “The opinions he expresses have a finality to them whereas Lydia Davis’ work seems like everything is still forming in front of her”
• Hera recommended Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders. He is coming to the Auckland Writers Festival this year.
• Ashleigh currently listening to Grandaddy the band – for a nostalgic ‘so bad it’s good’ hit.
• Hera was asked about her use of a text generator in writing a poem in the book. She said she liked to play and experiment with language and referenced This Paper Boat  by Gregory Kan.

Amy – who was a great and enthusiastic facilitator for this session –  heartily recommended The TOAST website.

What’s next

Hera is heading off to a couple of overseas festivals.

Ashleigh is writing poems, and is off to New Haven, Connecticut to collect the Windham-Campbell Prize (and go to New York with the other recipients).

Both are working on new books. Slowly, surely.

Donna R and Kim M

For Later: Stephen Burt, visiting poet

Permissible and not mad to add two poetry books by Stephen Burt, The Poem is You and Belmont, to the For Later Shelf this week because I’m giddying up to see them at a WORD event at Scorpio Books on Thursday 26th January at 6pm.

Good poet (at least I think so after attending a reading last year – perhaps I’ll know how to tell for sure after this event), Harvard Professor of Poetry and an engaging speaker, Burt will be in conversation with Fergus Barrowman from Victoria University Press.

I love poetry events – people are passionate about it so the questions tend to be on the intense side, and even better can spin out into wildly inappropriate statements of opinion. Somehow opinions on poetry are so much more interesting than opinions on non-fiction, which mostly centre on how much more the ‘questioner’ knows than the author.

“A lively discussion” is promised, but I’m hoping for a bit more than that.

Quick questions with Frankie McMillan – WORD Christchurch

We are asking quick questions of writers and thinkers coming to the WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival on from 24 to 28 August.

Frankie McMillan is an award-winning short story writer and poet and teacher, the author of The Bag Lady’s Picnic and other stories and two poetry collections, including There are no horses in heaven. Her latest book, My Mother and the Hungarians and other small fictions, is being launched during the festival.

Frankie McMillan (photo credit: Andy Lukey)

What are you looking forward to doing in Christchurch?

I like the proximity of the Port Hills, the various walking and biking tracks, the new art galleries popping up, watching the rebuild take place but most of all having my family members live nearby.

What do you think about libraries?

I’m interested in the changing role of libraries. I’m heartened to hear how Auckland Central library caters for the homeless with a regular book club and movie club. Libraries are fantastic places.

What would be your “desert island book”?

I’d take ‘The Collected Stories of Flannery O’Connor’

Share a surprising fact about yourself.

In my thirties I trained in physical/improvisational theatre including skills such as fire breathing. Once I stood on the shoulders of my friend and blew out such a massive ball of flame it scorched the theatre ceiling.

Frankie McMillan appears in:

• The Perfect Short Story, Fri 26 Aug, 3.45pm
• Book Launch; Frankie McMillan & James Norcliffe, Fri 26 Aug, 6pm

More

• Find works by Frankie McMillan in our collection
• Our page on WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival 2016
• More WORD Christchurch Quick Questions