Reviews:

Southern Ocean Review

Reviewed by Trevor Reeves.
Derelict Dreams, High Street, Dunedin, NZ

Resistance, poems by Meg Campbell. E.S.A.W. Press, Paekakariki, Wellington NZ. $15.00
This is really a lovely book. The poem that caught my eye was 'Because', which is about order and disorder and who is well organised to write about that sensibly. Meg Campbell is, and it concludes, “…once more I am muddled / and sleepy amongst my poems at dawn”. Such a 'human face' of poetry is a bit rare. Most men don't like woman poets who write poems with meaning, but there's more of it every day, thank goodness. The visual arts are still suffering. A (too) short book, this one is unabashedly feminine and expressing very strong messages of birth, life, and death so that gender simply doesn't matter. The detailed observations in these striking poems was summed up for me, in 'Poem for the Blairs' “…had I been waiting - for years, in fact - for my / kowhai to flower and, finally, it produced one perfect bloom / and promptly died”. Shades of that Dutchman who tried to grow the perfect black tulip! This book is thoroughly recommended.
Red Leaves, poems by Diane Bridge. Auckland University Press, Private Bag 92-019, Auckland.
A senior scholar, Diana Bridge throws the book at us here. Starting later in life as a poet, she writes authoritative poems of an academic bent. Whereas prime referential poet of Chinese other oriental poetics, Ezra Pound fouled his copybook by cuddling up the fascists in Italy, during WW2, Bridge does everything just so safely. This is not to say her poetry has no impact. However, to refer to other cultures and their creative works involves some risk. It may not come off! Where is the creative writer then, as stating something genuine, heartfelt? Pound's work had lots of humour; this work struggles for it. Making poems might well be the stuff of life for serious academics these days. Has it ever been any different? But this is a good read for the initiated.

London Notebook, poems by Mark Pirie. E.S.A.W. Press, Paekakariki, Wellington. $24.95.
Another little book of some worth, from Mark Pirie. The energy here is to be admired and mostly, it pays off. While some trivia is present, some really good pieces remain. People in a rush are explained on p.31 (untitled) “in the tunnels / the dark waters flash past / covered / un cannily / tagged with paint / & names”. There are lots of photographs that decorate the albums of any decent person's memory of their overseas trip. 'Lunch with Shanta' feels like a memoir poised for oblivion though. I liked 'At Lords' although “…the sparrow killed… / …preserved like a mummified cat” seems a bit muddled! His picture of 'An English Fella' is unusual, but perceptive. We don't get to learn a lot about the man, Mark Pirie, here. But these are entertaining pieces that most people will identify with. We should be grateful that Pirie doesn't let much go by without him noticing. A good collection, this.

Glottis; with the help of Creative New Zealand, and after 18 months… No.10., Box 6263, Wellington New Zealand.
This issue is nicely presented, and edited by Richard Reeve. His editorial on page 9 is short, and follows a tribute to poet Ruth Dallas, presumably written by him also. And what does it contain? Well, there's a hugely introspectively serpentine review of David Karena-Holmes' 'From the Antipodes'. The reviewer, Lawrence Jones, works so hard at this… revealing some convoluted poetics based on references to historical works. What are we to make of this? “…the careful use throughout of a contiguous system of semi-atonal counter-pointing to the underlying base rhythm…” The issue may have benefited with some notes on contributors, but no matter, I suppose. James Brown's poem 'No Rest' is mature but strangely archaic. Some good fiction, by Kate Duigan, makes up for this. Some of the work is rather twee, but David Eggleton's 'fast talker' is impressive, as most of his work is. There's much more here. It would pay a discerning reader to secure a copy, or even take out a subscription, to find out how much this worthy, enthusiastic magazine will reward you.

Fire Penny. Poems by Cilla McQueen, University of Otago Press. No price given. Available most bookshops.
This is Cilla McQueen's tenth book of poems; handsomely done in hardback; nice to handle and wonderful to own. McQueen is somewhat unique in the spectrum of women poets through the fact that she is very 'reader friendly' and touches a lot of our sensibilities, whatever gender. Some historical references, are in 'Locks and Mirrors' but is brought back to earth with some quirky lines that make us feel better, if not completely satisfied. “What will become of us in time? / Bones, stars, brittle remnants”, she says, concluding her poem 'In the Cleft of the Blankets'. A pretty good expression of fatalism, and humility, that. The things said and unsaid are important in McQueen's work. She achieves an impressive balance. This is a book I'll go back to, time and time again. There is so much here.

Love Poems. Jan Fitzgerald, No publisher given.
Just a few pages here, but nice. I liked 'On a Day like This', where… “You could reach in / rip out my heart with one hand”. And, oh, I just love: “behind the dream / beyond the doubt / seismic miniscule / fine tuned to delight”. There are some poets who can make your day! These poems are a selection from her book, 'Flying Against the Arrow'.

Takahe 55. published by the Takahe Collective Trust. Christchurch, NZ.
This magazine carried on as usual showing the breadth of New Zealand literature, with 24 poets and 10 short stories. Also, a host of reviews which are, maybe the magazine's best feature. Sarah Stewart, the guest artist presents some meaningful, if rather raw, work. Some of the poetry is pretty pedestrian (Jonathan Fisher?) and the short stories show just how much straight out story telling has gone out of the window of fashion in favour of a thing called “show”. I think NZ fiction has always striven to be 'something more' than the traditional story-telling which is the chief milieu overseas. For this magazine, the short story editor sticks with the 'known' but that's just the way it is. This magazine, anyway, has just got to be good for you.


Footprints on a Gravel Road, Barry Southam. Square One Press, Dunedin, price $24.95. Reviewed by Mark Pirie.
 Don't be deceived by Southam's conservative shirt and jersey look in the back cover photo to his latest and well-produced collection of stories and poems, Footprints on a Gravel Road. This man has lived a varied and full (somewhat radical) life, working in dozens of occupations and living in a number of cities throughout Australasia as well as being party to the local counter-culture movement of the late '60s and early '70s. As proof of his past this new book notably includes a memoir on Baxter's commune days in Auckland. But more importantly it is this varied living that has leant him a gift for observing people of many persuasions and their eccentric relationships. In fact if Playboy had become a poetry magazine instead, Southam's first book might have worked as a single issue. Titled Lovers and Other People, it focused on the liberated sex-life of various characters from shy nerds to boisterous partygoers. Published in the early '70s, this book was important to the development of a new and frank urban poetic in New Zealand. Like Louis Johnson before him, Southam did more than any other poet to open up new possibilities for the poem as urban short story or character portrait. With American Beat influences, his subjects ranged from social outcasts, and drugged up hippies, to failing husbands, boozed-up blokes and derailed marriages. His second collection of poetry, The People Dance (1982), enlarged this collection of New Zealand characters to include American-based sketches of people as diverse as nurses and pornographers as well as some Kiwi oddballs who must've escaped to Australia judging by the postal addresses of their letters. It is fitting then in this new collection that Southam returns by presenting poems alongside stories. In doing so he can be compared to the American writer Charles Bukowski who often presented poetry and prose together in one volume and whose prose and poetry often read as frank exposes of American city-life. While not with the same sense of daring and freshness as his earlier work, Southam still gets stuck into relationships and their absurdities. Many of the stories and poems here focus on the love relationships between men and women and this it seems is apt, as this has been Southam's strength. Southam's weaknesses, however, do occasionally show in the short story form: a desire to make too strong a social comment - and there is a sense of underdeveloped narratives, something he seems able to avoid in the shorter form of the poem. Another change of note is the showing of his passing years: 'I lay wondering in the dark / whether my own blood / was past its use-by-date / when the thought occurs / to test the market again./ But my first impulse / is not to check out / the local watering hole / but instead reach / for pen and paper, / again defy the dust / that creeps over the dust.' But, in poems like 'Moondance' and 'Second Time Around' he still shows his early fire. Many of the stories in this volume too are vintage Southam: stories with a twist near the end and an unhappy 'such is life' ending, often leaving his characters' behaviour open to ridicule, such is the role of the satirist. Overall this book is good value and will reward those who are already familiar with Southam's early work as well as new readers who haven't encountered Southam before. Perhaps the real achievement of Southam's work is summed up in the poem, 'Carnival', which can be seen as a good metaphor for the role of his own work as a writer. It certainly gives us the function of his art, studying as he does 'the people garden', and it is the knowledge gleaned from watching this garden grow that has been, for me, his contribution to our literature:

In the people garden / growth and decay. / Colours compete. / Some strangle / as they reach / the sun's / short warmth. / Others / accept space / sufficient to bloom / in their fashion. / Some gardeners / dig and weed / some neglect / some pass through / accept the profusion / try to smell the scent / avoid the thorns.

Book Launch Report


Alistair Te Ariki Campbell. The Dark Lord of Savaiki: Collected Poems. Hazard Press, Christchurch, 2005.

An important event in New Zealand poetry took place on the 22 September 2005 in Wellington at Fishers Art Dealers, Featherston Street. It was the book launch for Alistair Te Ariki Campbell's new Collected Poems. A strong turn out of both whanau and literary personalities was seen: Harry Ricketts, Vincent O'Sullivan, Chris Orsman, Harvey McQueen, Chris Else, Roger Steele, Michael O'Leary and Bill Manhire just some of those turning out in support of Campbell's lifetime achievement as one of New Zealand's most admired poets. Nelson Wattie MC'd the evening with the book being launched by publisher Quentin Wilson of Hazard Press and poet and academic Vincent O'Sullivan (preceded by song by Mary Campbell) in turn. Vincent made the point in his launch speech that this was not just a new book of poems but someone's life collected for us to admire and appreciate.
Alistair then read a strong selection of poems from his new book, including a number of love poems for his wife Meg Campbell, also a poet. He finished with a new poem, a poem that used cricket as its metaphor. This poem was written for Stuart Campbell, Alistair's brother, killed by 'friendly-fire' during the Second World War:

…As an admiring
younger brother, I celebrate
this image of what you promised
and never lived to fulfill.
'Nature', wrote William Blake,
'has no Outline, but Imagination has.'
I see you turn and run up
to the crease. I see your
arm swing over. I see the
ball in flight - and that is all.

The publication of this book is a major event.

Report by Mark Pirie

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