The New Zealand Poetry Society International Competition

The New Zealand Poetry Society 2007
International Competition.

Closes 30th May 2007

The New Zealand Poetry Society's annual International Verse and Haiku Competition, with adult and junior sections, is currently under way. The Open Junior and Haiku Junior sections are open to students who are 17 years of age or under on 30th May 2007. Please visit www.poetrysociety.org.nz for full competition details and to download the entry forms. Last year's competition results and judges' reports are also on the website.

There are cash prizes, and selected entries will appear in the New Zealand Poetry Society's annual anthology later in the year.

This year's judges are:
Open: James Norcliffe
Open Junior: Bernard Gadd
Haiku: Ernest Berry
Haiku Junior: Patricia Prime

The judges' details are available on www.poetrysociety.org.nz and entry forms are available for downloading.
Alternatively, for a hard copy, send a self-addressed envelope and IRC to:
The Competition Secretary,
PO Box 5283,
Lambton Quay,
Wellington, New Zealand

For further information, please email: competition@poetrysociety.org.nz

Tour of Kunming's Minority Villages

I went out shooting with a new camera yesterday, so I don't wish to bore you with 'my trip' - but we did see contrived villages representing the culture and lifestyles of Dai, Yi, Miao, Naxi and Tibetan peoples. There was an elephant show where clever elephants did their bag of tricks - including standing on volunteers from the audience, and playfully whacking them with their trunk as they finished. One man won't forget it in a hurry: he needed a cricket batsman's protection to safeguard himself! Jen is standing next to her birth sign, the snake. There was a park-sized circle of similar statues, surrounding a tall totem pole. Not much else there but the wooden Hinayana temple and the White Pagoda, rebuilt and placed here by local people in 1983.

A collection of villages as example of the minority groups isn't such a bad idea, but it would be infinitely more satisfying to see them in their natural setting.

More to come!

Terra Cotta Warriors

On our travels, the internet is not always avaialble and when it is it is not always cooperative. So now, days after the event, I can maybe show you some photos of our day with the warriors. We also say a wonderful hot springs site where emperors bathed with their favourite concubines, and - later - the famous Xi'an 1936 Incident (their word) happened between the Nationalist Paerty and the Communists.

Xi'an Terra Cotta warriors

Wednesday, we spent a wonderful day sightseeing a 6000 village site, Huanqing Hot Springs, and the Xi'an Terra Cotta Warriors World Heritage site. Unfortunately my internet connection here, 'on the road', is insufficient to post photos. This is very frustrating, but this evening we are travelling to Kunming where hopefully the weather, the quality of air and the internet connections will be greatly improved.

Stay tuned.

Snippets of Linfen life

My wife Jeanette with a street vendor near Milky Way supermarket; two views of an obelisk embossed with Chinese characters, possibly Confucius analects; and the interior of a noodleshop just off campus, in a laneway.

We are off on holiday from Monday for six weeks or so, so entries on this blog may be sporadic, but they may also be interesting with snaps of Xian, Kunming and Liang ... But it is all up to the availability of internet access in hotels along the way. Check in from day to day ... Something will happen some time :-)

Repairing a Poem

When I wrote a ‘Snap beginning with a line by Fanny Howe’ days ago, I used the phonetic spelling of a phrase in Mandarin, spoken by a young American student, Tom, who is learning the language here. I wrote ‘doswa’ for him coming to get some water, and apparently it should be ‘da shui’ – to get water. I am grateful to my student and friend Wong Li for the knowledge. Here is the corrected poem:


'I'd speak if I wasn't afraid of inhaling'
the air here is thick with shibboleth
he comes down for da shui not just
to drink but to feel the temperature
expatriot ghettoes breed insecurity
it is shortly after the reason to be jolly
now in the season of promise I pause
with a China Post pen in the air
she points at the page to indicate
press harder to be read push down
to give it all birth to give it all berth

(Snap beginning with a line by Fanny Howe)

The Doctor is in Session

Ron Silliman at http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/ has announced the complete recordings of William Carlos Williams are now available on the Internet at http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Williams-WC.html

Snap beginning with a line by Fanny Howe

'I'd speak if I wasn't afraid of inhaling'
the air here is thick with shibboleth
he comes down for doswa not just
to drink but to feel the temperature
expatriot ghettoes breed insecurity
it is shortly after the reason to be jolly
now in the season of promise I pause
with a China Post pen in the air
she points at the page to indicate
press harder to be read push down
to give it all birth to give it all berth

My first sight of Snow

Haiku competition details - from HaikuOz

Kaji Aso Studio International Poetry Contest
Deadline March 15, 2007 postmarked.

Languages : English, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, Hebrew.

Entry fee $2 (or two International Reply Coupons if from abroad)
per each original poem typed or printed nicely on three identical
3``x 5`` cards or sheets of paper. One card or 8 ½`` X 11``
sheet should have your name and address on its back.
No limit on the number of poems, tanka, haiku, senryu, haiga
or short haibun. All rights will revert back to the authors after May 2007.
Send a SASE or one IRC, please, for the results and the printed images of the
studio art and ephemerae.

Prizes $250, $150, $50.


Top 3 poems or artwork and 10 honorable mentions will be published in DASOKU and the magazine will be mailed to the 13 winners! We will also bestow "Elizabeth Searle Lamb Memorial Prize" $50 cash, publication in our magazine and a public reading.

Special prizes from the Japanese Consulate in Boston.

Additional prizes for "overlooked" poems from HAIKAI BOSTON Underwriters, SUSEKI PUBLISHING and HAIKU VILLAGES, Inc.

You may also send your poems by text message to 617 216 0230
and pay by credit card or by check. See the website www.kajiasostudio.com

Kaji Aso Studio
40 St Stephen St
Boston, MA 02115
USA
kajiasostudio@rcn.com

Happy New Year - wherever you are!

To follow a tradition of writing a haiku on new year's day, I rose early and started writing ... MSN chatline started, then Skype twice, breakfast and the washing up ... It is now after Noon, and I have these paltry attempts written, but not in a contemplative frame of mind at all!


snow fills

the satellite dish –

dove shakes its wings



*



fresh sneaker tracks

by the snow-capped

barbecue

Poetry Book of the Year

Teahouse of the Almighty
Poems by Patricia Smith

National Poetry Series winner

"Smith appears to be that rarest of creatures, a charismatic slam and performance poet whose artistry truly survives on the printed page. . . . This National Poetry Series-winning volume marks [her] triumphal return."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Teahouse of the Almighty is searing, honest, well-crafted, and full of the real world transformed by Patricia Smith's fine ear for nuance and the shaking of the soul's duties. I was weeping for the beauty of poetry when I reached the end of the final poem."
—Edward Sanders, National Poetry Series judge

Revelling in the rhythms, stories, fallibilities and triumphs of everyone she encounters, renowned spoken word artist Patricia Smith is back with her first book of poetry in over a decade, creating passionate, bluesy narratives in this empowering, finely tuned collection. Unflinching, undeniably intimate, and full of the hush and scream of the stage, Smith's voice sings from every page.

Famous Reporter 34

Here, in Linfen smoggy city, forever deafened by the sound of very loud fireworks to keep away the 'bad spirits', I miss the literary media back home in Australia. So I was very pleased to receive the latest issue of Famous Reporter, that great literary survivor from Tasmania. This is number 34 and it owes its existence and success to Ralph Wessman, editor, and his team of support editors who hold portfolios in haiku, poetry, reviews, etc. I sent Ralph some poems from here some weeks ago, and as it happened he had a page to spare up the back, so in my poem went: Epistle to Andrew Taylor. This issue has a lot of names I'm proud to know and call friends: Shane McCauley, Helen Hagemann, Roland Leach, Rachael Petridis, Philip Hammial, John Bird, Flora Smith - and well-known names like Les Wicks, Jeff Guess, Janice Bostock (also friend) ... It's a lively read (as they say nowadays) and has a great cover, with a very effective photograph by John Dawson.

Two issues in Australia will cost you just $15. Great value. Send subscriptions to Walleah Press, PO Box 368, North Hobart, Tasmania 7002.

Light-hearted drafts of 2 poems

The first poem was here a couple of days ago - I've just tweaked it a bit. Second poem is a little clumsy (!) but is about an occasion worth recording. Maybe I'll work on it ...

Linfen bricolage

The buildings outside our door which
create our courtyard and badminton court
are being gutted
windows partitions old chairs
brick walls floor tiles
everything up and out
demolished each day
from dawn to dusk with
hand hammers and chisels
sledge-hammers and drills
walls now gape like skulls

In the dust and rubble
a workman with his Mao cap on
back of his head
hammers old nails into
demolition wood to
create his own ladder -
a ragged ‘z’ pattern between
two pieces of wood nailed in
at an angle as each new step -
nothing ‘true’ but
his spirit was on the level:
waste not, want not

As I pass I smile
and tap a step -
‘Solid!’ I say. ‘Ni hao’
he grins and replies
in a Linfen dialect
of dust and stoicism




Duet

As I walked out late yesterday
along the campus road to the gate
among pedestrians going
both ways hither and thither
I heard a trained cultured voice –
male, operatic –
singing quietly to itself,
‘Maria, Maria’ then Mandarin lyrics.
I couldn’t understand
so I asked him ‘You sing “Maria”?’
He shook his head wildly.
I said, ‘You know, “Maria” from
West Side Story ...’ he shook
his head some more – so I sang on
and he joined me and we sang
down the road to the gate,
my English ‘Maria’ and his Chinese song.
At the gate, between smiling sentries,
I tapped him on the shoulder and said,
‘Same melody has got me thinking
it’s the same bloody song, pal!’

Andrew Symonds maiden century

Today I had no access to the cricket! You call this livin'? So I must quote from our own trusty local rag, The West Australian (whom I gratefully thank for the photo also):


Andrew Symonds demolished any doubts over his ability at the highest level as he and Matthew Hayden batted England into oblivion during the fourth Ashes Test at the MCG.

For the second day running Australian players turned cricket's grandest stage into their own dreamworld, as Symonds (154 not out) struck his maiden Test century to fulfil his rich talent before celebrating with gusto.

His jubilant leap into the arms of Hayden when he hit a six down the ground to reach three figures easily bettered the celebration Shane Warne produced when he claimed his 700th Test wicket on day one.

Hayden (153) also renewed his fondness for the ground with a fifth hundred in six Tests in Melbourne, which capped an otherwise lean year with a landmark century.

Sleep on it

Beautiful examples of Chinglish surround me everyday, but it was only this evening whilst making the bed that I found another puzzling example. If you have trouble reading it, enlarge it. This is the mattress supplied to us by the university - firm and comfortable.

Linfen bricolage

The buildings outside our door
creating our courtyard and badminton court
are being gutted
windows partitions old chairs
brick walls floor tiles
everything up and out
demolished each day
from dawn to dusk with
hand hammers and chisels
sledge-hammers and drills
walls now gape like skulls

In the dust and rubble
a workman with his Mao cap on
back of his head
hammers old nails into
old demolition wood
to make his own ladder -
a ragged ‘z’ pattern between
two pieces of wood nailed in
at an angle as each new step -
nothing ‘true’ but
his spirit was on the level:
waste not, want not

As I pass I smile
and tap a step -
‘solid!’ I say ‘Ni hao’
he grins and replies
in a Linfen dialect
of dust and stoicism

What poetic form are you?

This link won't open for me, maybe it will for you: http://quiz.ravenblack.net/poeticform.pl

Bob Dylan - 'After 40 years on the job ...'

'Look on his works, ye mighty, and despair. After 40 years on the job, Bob Dylan still makes all other songwriters sound like scared kittens, and in terms of sheer volume, he's built the largest body of work worth listening to in rock & roll. He's the American song-and-dance man, the sleight-of-hand man, mixing up folk roots, beat poetry, Chuck Berry, Baudelaire, Texas medicine, railroad gin, and his own psychedelic mutations of the blues, singing it all in that intense Book-of-Deuteronomy howl of his. By now, Dylan's failures are as mythic as his successes, but even though he has journeyed through the Valley of Suckdom (and has even rested there for years at a time) he also remains rock's longest-running font of vitality, a mystery tramp with his boot heels wandering all over the map of American music. His career is one rock archetype after another: the arrogant young protest singer in the Huck Finn cap; the mod Chelsea-booted hipster of the mid-'60s, singing the third verse of "I Want You" with all the deadly hip-twitching swing of Chuck Berry's guitar; the grizzled old con man of Love and Theft, croaking biblical blues and Tin Pan Alley valentines out of the side of his mouth while keeping one eye on the exit.'

This wonderful intro to a Biography piece by BOB SHEFFIELD is from http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/bobdylan/biography

I was walking through Adelaide on my hitch-hiking trip across Oz as a very young man, or elderly teenager, when I heard a strange style of singing coming from a shopping mall (the first of those I'd ever seen). I tracked it down to a small very hip little record store where the owner and a couple of raggedy looking people were listening to a record on the turntable in front of them. I joined them and we all nodded in silence as we listened. The times certainly were a-changin' for me. I added Bob Dylan to my list of heroes - Kerouac, Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Alan Watts, Philip Whalen and all. When I reached Sydney I met a whole rack of Dylan would-bes, which taught me another lesson: listen to the man but be true to yourself. Here endeth the lesson ...

Chinese steel rods waiting to be made into ... The quantity I can believe, but the quality worries me. The bikes look old and rusty very quickly, and we are into our second kettle in four months. They leak at the joins - so this one has higher joins so we can fill it two-thirds full and still stop water leaking. 'Made in China' for overseas consumption seems to have more quality control than 'Made in China' for local consumption.
By contrast, the Maids in China are of the highest quality, and in the most tantalising quantities.