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This lanky child runs along the shore
cooling her feet in tidal pools.

Wherever she treads in spring
grasses are more tender.

On sultry days, she rides a pony
inland
then with quick hand-slaps
divides its mane in two.

Sometimes she perches in forest
trees among pellucid ferns.

Their fronds are shining whorls
she tunes with her little finger
to any wayward wind.

Far down, the stream shimmers,
and the child sings a promise
to the weeks to come.

water   water
stars are winter’s flowers.

Credit Note: “The Happiness of Rain” is the title poem of Jan Hutchison’s new collection, published by Steele Roberts. Watch out for my interview with Jan, which I’ll be publishing here later this week.

The Tuesday Poem: You can check out the other Tuesday Poems for this week on the Tuesday Poem blog:- the hub poem at the centre of the page, and all the other poems to the left.

Touchdown

The engine ceased and silence fell.
We had made it. Nine months,
nine months in a metal womb
drinking recycled urine
eating recycled crap
watching our dosimeters glow.

I earned my place as captain. Sure,
there was the PR angle: Venus flies to Mars!
Great for the ratings, all that sort of thing.
But a dream born in girlhood
honed through years of preparation
had fitted me to take command.

“We’re down,” I said, “we’re clear and down.”
Fifteen minutes later
they would be cheering the news in Houston
but for now we had the planet to ourselves.
I looked at my companions. Dazed, exhausted,
but a spring of joy flowed in every one.

A human was about to step on Mars.  The moment
I had dreamt about had come. I crawled into the airlock.
I waited till it cycled. I stepped outside
and felt the Martian sun.
The cold air chilled me. The red light was eerie.
The great deed of my life was done.

Credit note: “Touchdown” was first published in my second poetry collection, All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens (HeadworX, 2007 – contact me if you’d like a copy), and republished in Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, ed Mark Pirie and Tim Jones (2009). In All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens, it forms part of the “Red Stone” sequence about the colonisation of Mars.

The Cool News: I’ve just heard from IP, the publishers of Voyagers, that the Frankfurt Book Fair has requested Voyagers for its upcoming Books on New Zealand exhibition at the Fair. After all the hoops that other authors have had to jump through to get their books on display at the Fair, I feel just the tiniest smidgeon of guilt about this – but mainly, I feel very pleased!

A little bird tells me that, since the Voyagers concept worked so well in New Zealand, it might be repeated in a neighbouring country … watch this space!

The Tuesday Poem: You can check out the other Tuesday Poems for this week on the Tuesday Poem blog:- the hub poem at the centre of the page, and all the other poems to the left.

Just before I get onto the news of forthcoming readings, I have had another book review published in Landfall Review Online:

Tim Jones reviews Hilary and David by Laura Solomon.

(I have a lot of trouble with links to Landfall Review Online, so if this link does not work, look for the review entitled “Friends on Facebook”.)

Forthcoming Poetry Readings

August: Palmerston North

Keith Westwater and I read at the Ballroom Cafe in Wellington in June – our first joint reading since last year’s book launch tour for Men Briefly Explained and Tongues of Ash – and next month we’re heading to Palmerston North to read: Here are the details:

When: Wednesday 15 August, 6:00pm
Where: Palmerston North Central Library, Palmerston North

Here’s the writeup from the Eventfinder site:

Wellington poets Tim Jones and Keith Westwater read from their new collections.

Keith Westwater’s new book ‘Tongues of Ash’ won Interactive Publishing’s Best First Book Award. “There is a no-nonsense specificity about Keith’s poems, a refusal to privilege the smooth over the roughnesses of human experience….the book begins with an annotated map of Wellington as a special insert – which has room for romantic and family love, weather, landscapes, rocks and history.” – Jack Ross, poet and academic

Tim Jones’s new book ‘Men Briefly Explained’ was described by writer Mary McCallum as: “Tim Jones’ new collection holds men up to the light with poems that are intimate and playful, smart and satirical. He focuses on the rituals and carapaces of men and the relevance of that gender in the future. Men Briefly Explained is an engaging and provocative read.”

I’ve read once before in Palmerston North, and enjoyed it very much – I’m looking forward to reading there again.

September: Takaka and Nelson

It’s been many years since I have been to Nelson, and I have never been to Golden Bay, but I am planning to remedy both oversights in September. Though details are still to be confirmed, this is how things look at the moment:

Thurs 20 Sept, 7.30pm: Bay Lit Awards presentation ceremony, The Mussel Inn

Fri 21 Sept, 1pm: Reading at Takaka Memorial Library

Mon 24 Sept, 6 for 6.30pm: Reading at Nelson Live Poets, The Free House, 95 Collingwood Street

Watch this space for further details, Facebook and other events, etc. If you live in Palmerston North or the Top of the South, I hope we’ll get the chance to meet at one of these events.

News from Dr David Reiter of IP that he will be available for Inside Track Consultations for New Zealand authors during IP’s next book tour of New Zealand from 27 August to 6 September. Here are the details:

Dr David Reiter, Publisher, IP (Interactive Publications) will be offering Inside Track Consultations (ITCs) to aspiring authors interested in publishing with IP. Regarded as Australia’s most innovative independent publisher, IP has an expanding list of New Zealand authors, and publishes titles for adults and children in most genres in physical and digital editions. Your ITC can be for 30 minutes ($70) or an hour ($130), and he encourages you to send a sample of your work, plus a synopsis, in advance of the meeting. ITCs will be scheduled in concert with his tour of New Zealand from 27 Aug – 6 Sept, which will include stops in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland and Tauranga, to promote new work by Karen Zelas and Sugu Pillay, as well as his own. For further info, please send an Expression of Interest to him ASAP at reiter@ipoz.biz

I’m the editor for the hub Tuesday Poem this week – check out what I’ve chosen as this week’s Tuesday Poem on the Tuesday Poem blog, and remember to check out all the other Tuesday Poems in the sidebar on the left, too.

Then the giant spaceship hit the giant space iceberg. The passengers all rushed to the poop deck with their smart phones and their digital cameras. “Look,” they said, “a giant space iceberg!”

“It’s called a comet, dummy,” said the other passengers.

The giant spaceship began to list dangerously. People ran around in the foreground, while other people ran around in the background. The lifeboats, suspended on giant space davits, listed dangerously too.

The well-drilled robot crew put the emergency plan into action. “Everyone to the lifeboats,” they cried. “Robots and little robots first!”

After the robots were seated in the lifeboats, there was still room for some passengers. “I am not sharing my lifeboat with a crew of mechanicals,” protested one dowager. “They stink of machine oil.”

So she didn’t.

The lifeboats were launched. The remaining passengers aboard the giant spaceship looked a little anxiously at one another. Then they jumped.

The captain was the last to jump. He waited until the flash-frozen corpses were out of sight, then he got his spacesuit out of his locker, put it on, and jumped himself.

As luck would have it, he landed on the comet, the outer layers of which were now ablating severely. A chunk of ice the size of a fist broke off the comet and smashed through his faceplate. As the air poured out of his suit, the bacteria who had been inhabiting his body leapt onto the comet’s surface and began to burrow inward.

“I wondered when you guys would turn up,” said the comet, and set a course for the third planet from the sun.

Tim says: Friday is National Flash Fiction day, so in honour of that, I have posted one of the flash fictions I’ve written recently, some of which have been published in the excellent Flash Fiction. (Not this one, though – this one is new.)

The Tuesday Poem: You can check out this week’s flash fictions and poems at the Tuesday Poem blog.

Come 8pm we’re locked away

Credit note: First published in Men Briefly Explained (IP, 2011).

Tim says: My first two collections, Boat People and All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens, both have a section of speculative poems – some specifically science fiction, and others that pose (and even attempt to answer) various “what-if” questions. This is a what-if poem from Men Briefly Explained: what if men were locked inside at night?

The Tuesday Poem: You can check out all the Tuesday Poems at the Tuesday Poem blog – the hub poem in the centre, and the other Tuesday Poets’ work linked from the left.

Join poets Tim Jones and Keith Westwater and viola player and singer Emma Kaloay for an afternoon of music and poetry from 4-6pm on Sunday 17 June at the Ballroom Cafe, cnr Riddford St and Adelaide Rd, Newtown, Wellington.

The session starts with an open mike, then Emma will play, then Tim and Keith will read. We’ll have copies of our poetry collections available for sale.

If you are on Facebook, you can join the Facebook event. We hope to see you there!