#Poetry Selina Tusitala Marsh Poet Laureate NZ

• Author: Selina Tusitala Marsh
• Title: Fast  Talking PI  (32 poems)
  
• Publshed: 2009
• Triva: 2010  New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA)
  
• Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry Winner
• Trivia: Selina Tusitala Marsh (1971) is a poet and academic
• …and is the New Zealand Poet Laureate for 2017–2019
• List of Challenges 2019
• Monthly plan
• #AWW2019
• @AusWomenWriters
• #TBR  challenge update  

Selina Tusitala Marsh:

1. Selina Tusitala Marsh is of Samoan, Tuvalu, English and French descent.
2. She was the first Pacific Islander to graduate
3. with a PhD in English from the University of Auckland and
4. is now a lecturer in the English Department, specialising in Pacific literature.

1. Oh, reading these poems with many
2. Samoan words/references
3. is going to be a challenge.
4. Thank goodness….
5. Ms Marsh has added a glossary for words the reader
6. probably won’t understand.
7. Thank you, poet laureate!

My notes on a few poems….

Googling Tusitala – Very good…and clever!
Marsh has listed the choices Google returns
when she googles ‘Tusitala’.
Last line is the clincher that brings a laugh:
‘The tusitala bookshelf in barcelona@bookcrossing.com
— there’s no wrong way to eat a rhesus.”
(BookCrossing is the act of releasing your books
“into the wild” for a stranger to find via the website)

Not Another Nafanua Poem – good
First I have to look up nafanua!
— Nafanua is the Samoan goddess of war

Afaksai (half-caste) – very good, rich with Samoan words!

Calabash Breakers – good

Hone Said – so-so..too cryptic…see glossary!

Things on Thursdays
Very good… should sound familiar to all struggling
female writers balancing family, work and writing!

Song for Terry – good…intriguing because I cannot discover who “Anne” is!

Langston’s Mother (very short poem…)

absolutely stunning because this poem led me to Langston Hughes’ poem
Mother To Son….breathtaking.

Mother to Son   (Langston Hughes)

Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

(…if you don’t get ‘skin shivers after reading this..you don’t have a pulse!)

Cardboard Crowns – very good
Sum of Mum – good, very clever!
Wild Horses – …need help understanding this one
Three to Four – intense…memories of a car accident
Le Amataga – not able to find something in this poem by myself…need the glossary!
Spare the Rod – This poem brings to mind ancient rock engravings…. not easy to grasp
A Samoan Star-chant for Matariki – too cryptic

…need more knowledge of Samoan words/myth
(In the Māori language Matariki is both the name of the Pleiades star cluster
and also of the season of its first rising
in late May or early June.
This is a marker of the beginning of the new year.)

Circle of Stones – Poems don’t have to be just understood…they can lead you to other things. This poem put in in touch with the Fale Pasifika at University of Aukland. Fale is the name a a Samoan building, the center of the community. On You Tube you can watch History of the Fale Pasifika….just filled with spiritual meaning for this University to let all Pacific people know they belong.

Guys Like Gaughin – very good…clever!
Nails for Sex – very good! This is based on history and is worth reading about before you start this poem…then it all will make sense!

Wikipedia HMS Dolphin 

Mutiny on Pitcairn – average

Two Nudes of a Tahitian Beach, 1894 – good…based on this painting by Gauguin

Venus in Transit – poem mentions many well known connections to Venus in Transit…..but who is Rowan? The poet refers to NZ author Rowan Metcalfe’s book Venus in Transit (2004). This novel tells the story from a new and unexpected perspective, that of the Tahitian women who joined the Bounty mutineers and sailed away with them to make new lives.

Realpolitik (expansionist national policy) -…reflecting on Capt. Cook/crew,  who brought disease to Tahitian women.

Contact 101 – how different people (philosopher, scientist, anthropologist) see South Pacific women

Has the whole tribe come out from England? – Wellington has been overrun by the British

What’s Sarong With This – pun…”What’s Wrong with This?” – very good, very intense!

The Curator – …description of a poem reading (Ms Marsh?) in a museum, sharp-edged.

Hawai’i: Prelude to a Journey – very good, glimpse of all sides of Hawaii and visitors….also a reference to a Hawaiian deity Pele, goddess of volcanos “…Pele’s pen, her black ink lava ever pricking the night.” There is so much in this poem you could spend some time investigating many aspects of this poem!

Touring Hawaii and Its People – very good….looking for ?? with a flowering crown in a museum. (..one of the Hawaiian monarchy?)

Alice’s Billboard – strange….can’t make head or tails of this one, sorry!

Fast Talkin’n PI – (title poem) – Oh, I think I finally found who “ANNE” is if the poem….”Song for Terry”!

Fast Talking PI (pronounced pee-eye) = pacific islander
reflects the poet’s focus on issues affecting
Pacific communities in New Zealand, and
indigenous peoples around the world
… including the challenges and
…triumphs of being afakasi (mixed race).

LISTEN TO THE POET HERSELF!

#Poetry Blakwork (title poem)

• Author: Alison Whittaker
• Title: Blakwork
• Published: 2018
• Publisher: @MagabalaBooks
• Trivia: 2019 shortlist Victorian Premier’s Award Indigenous Writing
• Trivia: 2019 WINNER Mascara Lit Review Avant-garde Award for literature
• Trivia: 2019 shortlist ABIA Small Publishers’ Adult Book of the Year
• List of Challenges 2019
• Monthly plan
• #AWW2019
• @AusWomenWriters
• Trivia: Review:  poem  Cotton On   (pg 15)

Cover:

1. I was staring at the book  turning it front to back.
2. Why the choice of a bird on the cover?
3. Perhaps if you live in Australia  you know what it means.
4. I had to find out more about the metaphor of a blackbird.
5. Difficult to read….
6. Origin of the term ‘blackbirding’:
7. The term may have been formed
8. …directly as a contraction of ‘blackbird catching’.
9. ‘Blackbird’ was a slang term for the local South Pacific indigenous people.
10. It might also have derived from an earlier phrase,
11. ‘blackbird shooting’, which referred to
12. …recreational hunting of Aboriginal people by early European settlers

Title poem:      Blakwork  (pg 3)

1. The sun rises 0530 am on this side of the world.
2. No matter how hard I try…I’m wide awake at 0600 am.
3. My eyes are not yet focused so I use a magnifying glass to
4. …read the first poem in the chapter Whitework.
5. Blakwork: 41 words that pack a punch.
6. I didn’t realize that today (26 May) is #SorryDay in Australia
7. This poem sums up the sentiment of
8. …reconciliation from an other perspective.

1. Type of Poem:  poet-in-conversation (present tense)
2. Who is speaking?  Alison Whittaker the poet
3. Who is ‘you’  in the poem?    White Australia
4. Title:   Blakwork
5. Australia’s slavery started because other countries abolished it.
6. Aboriginal people were used in
7. the pearling, sugar cane and cattle industries.
8. They suffered terrible abuse and were denied their wages.

Conclusion:

1. There is an energy…tension  in this poem.
2. I tried to discover the  starting subject and
3. …then the discovered subject in a poem.
4. There is always a door to be opened the
5. will lead you down another path
6. …in this poem a ” cynical path”.

1. Starting subject:
2. blakfella works –> payment callous hands –> profit to white Australia
3. Door: words   “white guilt”
4. Discovered subject:
5. Blakfella works –> payment now bound by contract (indentured)
6. profit –> white Australia can have “soothing” feeling of reconciliation
7. “nine to five forgiving you.”
8. #powerful

BLAKWORK

• Fresh blakwork; industrial complexes
• hands with
• smooth and flat palm callouses.
•      Soothing re —
•                         –conciliation
• That dawdling off-trend meme
• white guilt. To survive it; well,
•      it’s naff to say, but compul–
•                       –sory to do. Indentured blakwork, something like
• nine to five, forgiv–
•                      –ing you.

1. Words I had to look up for a clear meaning of the poem:
   
2. industrial complexes – (self-interest ahead of the well being of the Aboriginal people)
3. dawdling – wasting time, idle, trifle
4. meme –  behavoir
5. naff – clichéd, unstylish
6. indentured – bound by contract

#Poetry Alison Whittaker “Blakwork”

• Author: Alison Whittaker
• Title: Blakwork
• Published: 2018
• Publisher: @MagabalaBooks
• Trivia: 2019 shortlist Victorian Premier’s Award Indigenous Writing
• Trivia: 2019 winner Mascara Lit Review Avant-garde Award for literature
• Trivia: 2019 shortlist ABIA Small Publishers’ Adult Book of the Year
• List of Challenges 2019
• Monthly plan
• #AWW2019
• @AusWomenWriters
• Trivia: Review:  poem Blakwork  (pg 3) (title poem)
  

Conclusion:

1. This book consists of 15 chapters and 94 poems.
2. I still am trying to learn how to read a poem.
3. I am going to read a poem …then really try to figure
4. …out what the message is…or what do I see in the poem.
5. More of my reviews about these poems
6. …will appear during the summer..in drips and drabs.
7. These poems will take time to read.
8. The author has put so much thought into her words
9. …I don’t want to rush my reading

1. Poetry does not need a story…that is not its function.
2. That is why poems sometimes make people cringe!
3. The reader speaks English, the poem is in English
4. and still the  reader (me)  has no idea what it means.
5. This will be my biggest poetry reading challenge.
6. Just look at the way the poems sit on the page!
7. I glanced through the book and see images, emojis,
8. poems with unique shapes, punctuation and lists.

1. I am not going to review them in lofty poetic terms
2. …but just by asking myself some basic questions.
3. What is the shape of the poem? Who is speaking?
4. What images does the poet use? Allusions?
5. How do they make me feel? Stumped or enlightened?
   
6. I’m even going to read the poems to the cat
7. …I need to hear the sound!

1. Poems tells us the history of the human heart.
2. All poets are struggling with the different things:
3. loneliness, racism, gender roles, sexuality
4. colonialism, family, class, history,
5. …violence, culture, pleasure, joy.
6. I’m eager to learn what Alison Whittaker….
7. …is struggling with.

Poem:      Cotton On            (pg 15)

let’s compare hands              s t r e t c h

tendons wrists across            o c e a n s

here: a common                     wound.

Cotton On:

1. My FIRST reading:  12 words  placed on the page leaving a 10×10 cm blank center page.  words describe hands ready for planting and harvesting. The key word is ‘oceans‘ referring to the overseas labor force that is used in this industry. The blank page could indicate a field that is planted with cotton seeds. Title:  Cotton On is perhaps a reference to seeds…starting.
2. I then contacted the poet via Twitter:
3. “I’m just starting to read poetry and I admit I don’t understand it after a first reading…so I re-read alot. Reading: Cotton on (pg 15) in Blakwork. May I ask…why the big open space in the poem? What am I missing! Thank you for your time #justasking”
4. Reply  from  Alison Whittaker:
5. “I try to not be too prescriptive with the poetry, but in Cotton on, the spaces denote the physical space across the pacific between communities wounded by cotton, and the act of stretching out to touch. it’s whatever you make of it!”
6. My SECOND reading: Then I put my thinking cap on.
7. Who was wounded by cotton?
8. USA the slaves on the plantations.
9. AUS the aboriginals who see their sacred rivers drying up.
10. The aboriginals say:  “If there’s no river, where’s our culture?”
11. The landholders (cotton farms) are pumping all the water out
12. for irragation and water management.
13. Now I see the connection in the poem.
14. The slaves and aboriginals are stretching their hands
15. across the Pacific Ocean.
16. Both wounded by cotton.
17. “The last line “here: a common wound.

#AWW2019 Maxine Beneba Clarke

Introduction:

1. I needed to share
2. Maxine Beneba Clarke’s poem on my blog.
3. There is something so rewarding in this poem
4. if you are willing to
5. …let go of what you already know.

Ritual

We’ll go cardboard-boothed

  to the primary schools

community centres

  and the churches to boot

and friendly neighbours

  ideologically opposed

will avert their eyes

  as they fold up their votes

Last thoughts:

You want a poem to unsettle something…

1. Maxine Beneba Clarke has done it
2. ..about Australian elections 2019
3. There’s not a word wasted in these clean, spare lines.
4. We could use this poem for elections all over Europe!
5. You can read THE ENTIRE POEM  HERE
6. Thank you @slamup