… and Helen is celebrating this auspicious day with a great range of giveaways! Head over to Helen’s blog to find out more and enter – but make sure to do it today.
Another aspect of the celebration is Helen’s Aus/NZ F&SF Author Guest Series. I’m honoured to be asked to take part in this lineup of guest bloggers!
A couple of weeks ago, I received an email that I wasn’t sure how to answer. It came from an American called Scott Baxter, and he asked:
“I came across your blog while looking for information on Ithaca Island Bay Leaves … I am interested in New Zealand poetry and a big fan of James K Baxter; is he still widely read in NZ amongst younger poets?”
Scott went on to say:
“I first came across him as we shared the same last name and upon reading his poetry I became a huge fan. I like his use of classical/Christian and later Maori imagery. I wonder how he’s read today; as a Catholic poet, an advocate for the Maori or something else entirely.
I see there is a symposium in November in Dunedin exploring the relationship between Robert Burns (another favorite poet of mine) and Baxter.”
I think that Scott has asked some excellent questions there. Is James K. Baxter still widely read by New Zealand poets? If so, how is he read, and what if any influence do his poetry and his example still have?
What do you think? Has James K. Baxter influenced your poetry, or how you read poetry? Is he still an influence? How about other poets famous in the 1960s and 1970s?
My short story collection Transported is now available as an ebook for the Kindle from Amazon US and from Amazon UK.
If you need more Kindle-y goodness, then you can also buy Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand for the Kindle from Amazon US.
Transported should also become available in other ebook formats soon: in particular, it should soon be available for Sony’s Kobo reader, which is sold by Whitcoulls in New Zealand.
More about Transported
There are 27 stories in Transported, including stories which were selected for Best New Zealand Fiction and for the Penguin Book Of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories. Here’s a couple of extracts from reviews of the book:
(1) From Isa Moynihan’s review in New Zealand Books:
There are satire and surrealism; dystopias and parables; 19th century pastiches and contemporary vernacular – sometimes juxtaposed, as in “The Visit of M. Foucault to His Brother Wayne”. And all spangled with literary references and other, sometimes arcane, allusions ….
Other targets for Jones’s skewering wit are politics, corporations, advertising, xenophobia, pretentious lit crit and (my favourite) the invasion of the local arts scene by bureaucracy and commercial jargon. In “Said Sheree”, poets are ranked in tiers “for funding purposes” and are reassessed and reclassified every autumn. Both “Win a Day with Mikhail Gorbachev” and “Best Practice” give us caricatures of the worst excesses of corporate values in the best traditions of brilliant cartoonists.
(2) From Rosemarie Smith’s review in the Southland Times:
The originality, gentle humour and sheer variety in this collection makes it clear why former Southlander Tim Jones was long-listed for the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award alongside established New Zealand writers Elizabeth Smither and Witi Ihimaera and Sue Orr.
The easy blending of genres and assured writing means stories like The New Neighbour[s], with its satirical take on an insular kiwi community’s reaction to new immigrants, has appeal beyond its science fiction origins.
There is an amused and kindly glow to the telling, making the commentary all the more pointed.
In other news…
I was honoured that “Books In The Trees” was nominated for a Versatile Blogger Award by Helen Lowe – thank you, Helen! I’m not taking part in this myself, at least not right away, because of how excessively busy I am – but it is still very nice to be recognised in this way.