take physic pomp
(no fault of mine)

tak fizzik pompous
(the earth is thinking)

fizzing cracking smashing Pompeii
(underneath a train is rumbling)

tak a tak smack a smack pom pom pom
(the world the world the world’s a beast)

take my hand it’s terror in paradise
(hold me see my heart’s a chattering)

tak phyzhik pomp thou art exposed
(the moor is heaving all’s at sea)

tak fizzik thou poor fork-ed beast
(the moon and sun at war with me)

fizzik Pompey’s good for thee
(I know I know the wretch I am)

poor bare broken thing
(my Lear my Fool my kingdom down)

after the horror the ruins
after the ruins the kindness
after the kindness the sirens
after the sirens the silence
after the silence the weeping
after the weeping the comfort

after the toppling the creaking
after the shaking the shaking
after the shaking the questions
after the questions the questions
after the rage and courage
after profound desolation

after the nurse and the undertaker
treasure contained in a glass of water

it’s not just another human
disaster to him

in the compound world
view of a fly’s eye

it’s a business
opportunity

Wow, that was one Almighty Economic Bender.
That was some Rogernomic Nine Day Wonder:
That was Trickle Down Theory blown asunder.
Kissing Ruth Richardson, boy you gotta be joking!
Down here in Helengrad the Fat Accountant’s choking.
Wow, looks like the boys from Treasury caught a chill
And the oil is burnin’ (at a price) all night long on Beehive Hill.

Days like this I begin to wonder is Roger Kerr the hair of the dog
That bit me, or just a random truck that couldn’t keep to the Left,
Crossed the white line and hit me? Lunatics ain’t just runnin’
The old asylum, they even look the part: they pay me zilch, they pay no tax,
They weigh me down with debt and break my back, then when I cut and run
To greener fields, they grind the poor for flour, and blame the wheels.

Yeah, woke up this morning with the brain drain flu, it’s one mother
Of a deadly virus, and the worst thing is, you just can’t believe
A word it says is true.

to catch a sight of the rare
Minnesotan Minstrel Jew. But din
from hell don’t scare him none: he flits

into the white hot maelstrom
of light and sound. I focus
on his tangled crest, note

the unusual adult plumage: long
black preacher’s coat, white
shirt at sleeve and throat, akimbo

stance on Kabuki mask. Listen:
from earth to high heaven, that
harsh hillbilly snarl and wail

of the Dylan crow
at the height of his powers
showers my sense

with harmonica bars. Neck
hair prickles. I blink
and he’s gone.

you don’t know these friends of mine
in this fishing photograph so I won’t
bore you with my stuff

except to say the way these six kids stand
together with an eel on a pole under willows
on rocks is possibly like some old forgotten

black and white snap
of you and yours when you were
five seven or twelve you know

the kind of memory zap we get
when the boxes are cleared and sorted
after one of us kids dies

and there beneath the dust
of years we are back again all alive
and kicking with at least one

fishing story in common or maybe
two the hungry thousands up in the hills
the men on the beach

on that first unbelievable Sunday dusty
rooms you can’t forget our parents
singing in the church next door

this world
is a dewdrop world
yes… but…

You broke your back to get here and now
you want to stop? You think this is the top?

You think this is home, and friends, and dog
tail going thump thump thump? It’s not. It’s a trap.

Relax. The road is a flood where you, borne
up, are carried off your feet. Relax. Death

for you is sweet: the torrent is taking you way
out over the bar, to no return and who you are.

I never met Harvey, but talked to him once on the phone, when he was looking – typically – for permission to publish another poet’s work in a new anthology of poems on gardens and gardening. He knew that I was close to Peter Hooper, and had contacted me to see if I knew who had the rights to a poem of his that he wanted to include. I happened to have the address of a next-of-kin, so was able to help. The Earth’s Deep Breathing: Garden Poems by New Zealand Poets duly appeared in 2007.

My first encounter with his work as an anthologist came when I was given a copy of the seminal 1985 Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse, co-edited with Ian Wedde, and Margaret Orbell. She provided the Maori poetry with her own translations, plus a brilliant concise introduction to the Maori tradition that opened this unique collection. The fat 575 page paperback still looks striking today, with its red New Zealand Railways guards van parked up on a siding at Kaikoura (I think) gracing the cover – and the insert photo of an ancient railways’ points switch on the back.

Two working poets and the country’s leading scholar and translator of traditional Maori waiata had broken some completely new ground. Not only had they shifted the foundations from Allen Curnow’s pre-war generation of white males (with a smattering of women), to a include new voices such as Keri Hulme and Apirana Taylor, they had begun the conversation where it needed to begin – with Maori voices, hearking back to the early 1800s.

There were more women than ever, and a good number of babyboomer poets who would go on to justify their inclusion, some writing into the new millennium. But it was the decision to include Maori poetry that got up some people’s noses – including, famously, the contrarian critic C. K. Stead, who attacked with gusto in a Landfall review the whole idea of Maori poetry in translation belonging in an anthology of English poetry.

The editors were right: these poems belonged to the New Zealand English verse tradition as much as Maori and Pakeha now belonged to each other, and it was here, post-Baxter, that I got my first real exposure to the Maori tradition. I never got the chance to thank Harvey, or Margaret Orbell, for what they achieved; I have managed to tell Ian Wedde how grateful I am – so I think they are thanked in him.

Certainly, Margaret Orbell’s work in the Maori Department at the University of Canterbury paid rich dividends for me, when I was fortunate to be taught by two of her former pupils, Lyndsay Head and Jeanette King. Doctor Head supervised my thesis on Elsdon Best, which has led to book on his work appearing in the marketplace. We are all in debt to such profound ancestors who whose love for poetry, history, for scholarship itself – and the Maori language and its speakers – have helped to hold back the tide of linguistic oblivion that has been the fate of so many indigenous languages in the post-colonial era.

Harvey read and enjoyed my recent book of poems, Fly Boy, and said so in an entirely gratuitous and gracious review on his blog, Stoat Spring. I am delighted the book gave him pleasure; his whole approach to poetry, his enjoyment of it and his generosity in appreciation of the medium shine through in what he has to say:

http://stoatspring.blogspot.com/2010/11/fly-boy.html

Anthologists – good editors – are a generous and necessary bunch. Harvey has done us all proud. Even though I never met you, sir, I am going to miss you.

E te rangatira, e te kaituhituhi, kua wheturangitia i te rangi, haere ki to atua, moe mai, moe mai, moe mai ra! Chief, writer, a star shining in the heavens, go to your god, sleep, rest, sleep!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2010. That’s about 4 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 33 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 9 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3mb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was May 25th with 45 views. The most popular post that day was Tuesday Poem: Bach Life..

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com, healthfitnesstherapy.com, obama-scandal-exposed.co.cc, mary-mccallum.blogspot.com, and hitztvshows.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for wordpress paparoa, poem on teeth, poem about teeth, paparoa wordpress, and the car by raymond carver.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Tuesday Poem: Bach Life. May 2010
7 comments

Tuesday Poem: teeth June 2010
3 comments

Tuesday Poem: Car troubles – for Raymond Carver. September 2010
2 comments

Tuesday Poem: How to recognise a psychopath in the catfood aisle August 2010
6 comments

New Zealand Poetry Day: He ruru mokemoke au. July 2010
10 comments