The Archive began in February 2010 with around 3,000 titles and has grown substantially in the past few years. PANZA would particularly like to thank Auckland poet, editor and novelist Alistair Paterson, Wellington poet/publisher Mark Pirie, Wellington publisher Roger Steele, Cecilia Johnson and the late New Zealand anthologist, poet and memoirist Harvey McQueen for their sizeable contributions to the fast-growing collection.
A full list of donations is listed in each issue of Poetry Notes, the PANZA newsletter.
For National Poetry Day we feature a poem by Otago poet and historian Bill Dacker. Dacker recently published a new collection of poems with Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, From the Rongahere Road (The Camp), based on his past experiences of living in Beaumont in an old miners’ hut/camp.
TE WAIATATANGA MAI O TE PUTUTARA
Death emptied the spiral chambers of a shell shaped like a trumpet. Out of ancestral streams, a wave came, picked it up, placed it on a beach. Ancestors found it, shaped a mouth where its living began. Their breath entered to make a statement. They carried it to a view across the river, to call we are here, cross, it is a safe, or stay there, safe, on the other side. They left it in a clifftop cave, for a return, it fell from that shelter.
Te waiatatanga mai o te pututara, he torino tonu, he hohonu
Sheep crossing a path between the edge of the river and the cliff’s height, turned it over. The shepherd saw its curves flash where no light should have been, got off his horse and saved it from all that coming and going. In the day of the river’s need, at this bend where it turns towards its sea end and beginning, he passed its chorus to criss crossing lifetimes to me. Not the return intended.
Te waiatatanga mai o te pututara, he torino tonu, he hohonu
For those alive and those not yet born, for those remembered who do not remember, its empty chambers given life, an intense rearrangement, a new definition of the river of we, a call from the lull and lift of the river wall of sound, held, returned, echo upon echo, a song in the too late to stop now of the river winding the living from the network of the dead, releasing the heart from distress, claiming a future.
Te waiatatanga mai o te pututara, he torino tonu, he hohonu
The 45th issue of the newsletter from Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa is available now for download as a pdf.
Inside Winter 2022, volume 12, issue 1: obituary: Frances Cherry by Michael O’Leary; poetry by Bill Dacker; recent deaths: Penny Somervaille and Ernest J. Berry; new publications: The Verse Novel and No Other Place to Stand; book launch: Covers by Michael O’Leary ;note on the ESAW mini series; new publications by PANZA members; donate to PANZA through PayPal; recently received donations; about the Poetry Archive.
The 44th issue of the newsletter from Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa is available now for download as a pdf.
Inside Autumn 2022, volume 11, issue 4: Oswald Kraus remembered; Brick Row: A Checklist by Michael O’Leary; poetry by Bernard Brown; obituary: Michael Attaway 1941-2021; comment on Fane Flaws; update on Niel Wright’s machine poetry project; new publications by PANZA members; donate to PANZA through PayPal; recently received donations; about the Poetry Archive.
The 43rd issue of the newsletter from Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa is available now for download as a pdf.
Inside Summer 2022, volume 11, issue 3:Tim Saunders’ This Farming Life; poetry by Tim Saunders; comment by Bill Sutton; ESAW Mini Series: A checklist by Mark Pirie; obituaries: Keri Hulme and Stephen Stratford; update on Christina Fulton; new publication by PANZA member; donate to PANZA through PayPal; recently received donations; about the Poetry Archive.
The 42nd issue of the newsletter from Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa is available now for download as a pdf.
Inside Spring 2021, volume 11, issue 2: Comment on B.E. Baughan and Ruth France; poetry by Vivien van Rij; tribute to Michael Lipschutz; new books: More than a roof: Housing, in poems and prose and Crete, 1941; Mark Young’s new selected poems; report: Slapping Culture in the Face: Writers Against the National Library Disposals; new publications by PANZA members; donate to PANZA through PayPal; recently received donations; about the Poetry Archive.
The Archive began in February 2010 with around 3,000 titles and has grown substantially in the past few years. PANZA would particularly like to thank Auckland poet, editor and novelist Alistair Paterson, Wellington poet/publisher Mark Pirie, Wellington publisher Roger Steele, Cecilia Johnson and the late New Zealand anthologist, poet and memoirist Harvey McQueen for their sizeable contributions to the fast-growing collection.
A full list of donations is listed in each issue of Poetry Notes, the PANZA newsletter.
The 41st issue of the newsletter from Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa is available now for download as a pdf.
Inside Winter 2021, Volume 11, issue 1: Obituary: Ted Jenner (1946-2021) by Richard Taylor; poetry by Wilsonville Collective; music review: Move Along Love Among by Bilders; comment on John Gallas; obituary: Robin Fry (1932-2021) by Mark Pirie; National Poetry Day poem: Mesopotamia by Basim Furat; new publications by PANZA members; donate to PANZA through PayPal; recently received donations; about the Poetry Archive.
This year’s national poetry day poem (27 August 2021) is a translation from the Arabic by Basim Furat. Furat is one of the Arab writers making a new home in New Zealand. Furat left New Zealand in 2005 after becoming a New Zealand citizen with his Kiwi wife and has lived in Japan, Laos, Ecuador and Sudan. He has become an award-winning travel writer, receiving a major prize in Oman recently.
Furat returned to New Zealand during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. There have been Arab writers here in New Zealand since the turn of the 20th century (see Niel Wright’s Winter 2014, Poetry Notes article on the Arabic diary of Lebanese writer George Bouzaid translated into English and published in Wellington in 1992) and from the late 1990s there were refugees from Iraq and other places. This year an Egyptian writer Mohamed Hassan has been shortlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
Furat’s poetry has been published all over the world, and has been translated into French, German, Italian, Farsi, Romanian, Chinese, Spanish and English. He has published poetry books in Arabic, one in Spanish, and two collections of translations in English with Wellington publisher HeadworX.
Born in Karbalaa, Iraq, in 1967, he started writing poetry when he was in primary school. His first poem was published when he was in high school. In early 1993 he crossed the border and became a refugee in Jordan. Four years later he arrived in New Zealand. Furat states: “The death of his father when he was two years old, the fact his mother was left a young widow and his compulsory military service for the Iraqi army in the second Gulf War have had a large influence on his poetry.”
Furat’s poem Mesopotamia acknowledges his ancestral roots that “herald the beginning of history”. It’s a strong poem on culture and diversity that relates to the times we live in with ever increasing diversity and cultural inclusiveness in Aotearoa / New Zealand as shown by Mohamed Hassan’s book award shortlisted National Anthem. Furat, like Hassan’s, is an important voice in New Zealand poetry and in the modern Arab world of writers, an ever-widening diaspora dispersed around the globe.
Basim Furat
MESOPOTAMIA
Translated by Dr Salih J. Altoma
There… where my ancestors planted wisdom and harvested pain They built thrones for the gods and decorated them with their hopes. They baptized water with their desires and turned clay into tablets and shelters. And from the river’s rage they made a calendar for their days to herald the beginning of history.
Wellington, New Zealand
(from Visions: Poems 2007-2016, Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, 2021)
Translation copyright Basim Furat 2021
The poem Mesopotamia and other fine poems by Furat recently translated by Arab translators (edited by me in English) are made available for readers in Aotearoa / New Zealand by Dr Michael O’Leary’s energetic small publishing house Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop in their Mini Series, No. 43.
Bill Direen, writer/musician, is a Kiwi legend of low-fi. At the launch of his doco film, A Memory of Others, directed by Simon Ogston, I was lucky to pick up his 2017 vinyl rerelease Chrysanthemum Storm, which shows why he is so renowned in this genre. At times part of the Flying Nun stable, Direen/Bilders have woven consistently rewarding sounds over a long career and toured extensively.
A seasoned performer Direen can cross over genres with ease, and then enter into a moment of poetry/drama on stage similar to the great Jim Morrison. His latest release for me is more in the category of Spoken Word, or poems set to music rather than being a rockin’ low-fi recording.
Move Along Love Among is a downloadable album (or cassette release in Germany) complete with booklet containing photos and lyrics. There are 11 tracks recorded on 11 December 2020 at Strath, Taieri, Otago. Mastered by Johannes Contag of Cloudboy.
I was impressed at the simple sound constructions on offer. Tracks like Valve convey the sense of the heart beating and pounding away with Direen’s incessant words delivered over the top: Valve once open valve must close, / heart quickens heart slows. In a time when recording artists like Halsey and Lana Del Rey have entered into publishing poetry books, Direen’s album is not far off what Del Rey has achieved with her poetry album CD: Cinema of love never more true, / in campervan road without end.
My favourite track is probably the mystical and passionately delivered lyric World of the Winds. A Persian feel to it. Tales of the winds / & valleys and thieves / The rat makes no move / it escapes by instinct / Silence its harmony/ darkness its dress. This track hits your senses like you’re inside a passing desert sand storm, a jellaba covering your face.
A couple of lyrics are very short. Rain on the Strath has echoes of Andrew Fagan’s short Spoken Word sound pieces. The Calmest Story shows Direen’s evocative storytelling ability. The folk musician meets Dylan Thomas: When I hear the beauty / of her voice falling from her window / into the bright blue empty sky. / Not straight down but like a ribbon / in the old paintings, / lines that a scarecrow might scribble. Another good release from Bilders. All proceeds to “Book Guardians Aotearoa to the fight to save the National Library International Research Collections”.
Reviewed by Mark Pirie for Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa website
Mark Pirie is a Wellington poet, publisher, PANZA member, and a former dee-jay on Active 89FM (1993-1996). He has followed Bill Direen’s music and writings for many years. He has published Direen’s writings in his journals JAAM and broadsheet, and stayed with Direen in Paris in 2005. PANZA owns and holds a number of Direen’s poetry volumes.
Mark Pirie, with Bill Direen at his Wellington concert, October 2016 Photo: David Moore
Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa 