Tuesday Poem: Landlines (a re-post from February 2011)

 
Note: This is a poem I wrote in response to the Christchurch earthquake of February 22, 2011. I thought it was appropriate to re-post it today.

Landlines

It began with a tremor in the wires,
a voiceless howl of anguish.
Within minutes, the waiting world
has heard the worst — but there’s no news of you.
Amanda Palmer, an Olympic rower, former neighbours
are online. But you depend on landlines,
and the lines are down.

Were you at home when it struck? Were you
trapped on a fatal cross-town bus,
walking a hill track bombarded by boulders? Were you
unlucky under verandahs? I strategise
with relatives I barely know, plead on Twitter
for tiny clues, ask Google for your name.
I lift, and set down, and lift the phone.

At last we hear you’re safe at home,
barely touched, offering neighbours shelter.
My voice explodes with joy and messages.
I’m gabbling. I slow down. The bigger picture
presses in: so terrible, a city centre
crumbled into bone. I lift the phone.
It rings. You speak. I know, at last, I’m not alone.

Credit note: “Landlines” was first published as the Thursday Poem in the Dominion Post newspaper in Wellington on 3 March 2011.

Tim says: When the Dominion Post asked me to write a poem about the Christchurch earthquake of 22 February, I was on the verge of saying “no”, because as a non-Christchurch person, I didn’t think that I could do justice to the subject. Then I decided I could write a poem about my reaction in the aftermath of the earthquake, and the search for information on what had happened to my father and stepmother, who were living in a Christchurch retirement village at the time of the quake.

You can read all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog – the hub poem is in the centre of the page, and the week’s other poems are linked from the right of the page. Several other Tuesday poems this week, some by Christchurch poets, address the quake and its aftermath.

Five Questions With Anna Caro, Co-Editor Of “Tales For Canterbury”

 

Since the Christchurch earthquake of 22 February, editors Cassie Hart and Anna Caro have done an amazing job of pulling together Tales For Canterbury, a fundraising anthology to benefit the victims of the earthquake, with all proceeds going to the New Zealand Red Cross Earthquake Appeal. All the stories have been donated by their authors, and so far, just over half the fundraising target of $5000 has been raised – something you can help with by buying the book as an ebook or paperback.

I asked Anna Caro five questions about Tales for Canterbury, and here are her answers:

1. How soon after the February 22 earthquake did you have the idea for the anthology?

My original answer for this was “pretty quickly – within a few days”. Then I went back and checked my emails and found that Cassie emailed me with the idea only a few hours after the quake. Before I’d left work for the day the idea was already taking shape and we were contacting friends and people we’d worked with on other projects.

2. The list of contributors is impressive to say the least – a great range of New Zealand authors, and also such overseas luminaries as Neil Gaiman, Gwyneth Jones, Jay Lake, and someone whose story I’m especially keen to read, Jeff Vandermeer. How did you manage to get so many prominent speculative fiction authors involved in the project?

One of the things putting together Tales for Canterbury made me realise was how far our networks reached. Over the past few years both of us have been building up contacts through editing, events including conventions, involvement in SpecFicNZ and membership of critique groups, and we had a lot of people to call on when we needed them.

Our individual networks didn’t quite reach the name’s you’ve mentioned – but we knew people who knew them and were happy to get in touch with them for us. The exception is Neil Gaiman who Cassie (with a bit of encouragement) emailed directly after seeing he made a blog post mentioning the earthquake – his wife was in Christchurch at the time.

3. Tales for Canterbury isn’t all speculative fiction, though. Can you tell me about some of the literary and general fiction authors who have work included in this anthology?

Around two thirds of Tales for Canterbury is speculative fiction of some description, but we have some excellent examples of literary or general fiction. Amongst the authors are Kate Mahony, who I first met in an undergraduate class at the IIML, Janis Freegard who lives in Wellington and I knew primarily as a poet and of course yourself (Tim Jones), and subjects range from being a New Zealander overseas, through misfit and eccentric characters to an imagining of life after the earthquake.

I think the fact we imposed only quite broad restrictions on what we were looking for encouraged writers to submit work outside of their usual genre, and several – including Mary Victoria, Philippa Ballantine, and my co-editor, Cassie Hart – who are primarily known for speculative fiction contributed more realistic pieces of work, though the influence of the genre is often apparent. The technology in Mary Victoria’s ‘Daughter of the Khan’, though historically accurate, is perhaps even more frightening and magical to the characters as an alien ship might be to us – and she makes us believe it.

Also worth mentioning here is A.J. Fitzwater’s ‘My Father, the Tuatara’, which I would describe as magical realism, a genre frequently claimed as both speculative and literary fiction. Throughout the story, you’re never quite sure whether this is an elaborate metaphor, or a fantastical event, which handled with less skill could be jarring, but here is poignant and thoughtful.

We also have a couple of stories from other genres; I hope there is something everyone will appreciate included.

4. The anthology is divided into three sections – “Survival”, “Hope” and “Future”. Did you have that division in mind from the start, or did the stories you received naturally fall under those headings?

It came quite early on. We wanted to give the anthology some form of structure, but nothing that excessively limited the stories we included. We played with a few ideas and ended up with this one which mirrored, if in a simplistic way, the stages of a recovery. There were a number of stories that fitted quite naturally under more than one of the headings, and a couple we had to think about a bit before placing them anywhere but I hope the categorisation we ended up with adds something to how readers think about the stories.

5. I know from my own experience how much work goes into co-editing an anthology, let alone publishing it. You’ve taken an anthology from nothing to completed and published in three months. How on earth did you manage it; have you been able to keep your own writing going during the process; and what lessons have you learned from the experience?

To put it succinctly: with lot of help. I admit we struggled at times but we had so many people helping out behind the scenes, be they our team of volunteer proofreaders, who got through a section each on a very short timeframe, or those who brought us caffeine when we’d been up far too late. There were some circumstances in our favour; in particular, the fact a number of the stories were reprints meant many needed close editing. We also decided early on that the anthology needed to be invitation only; in the past I loved reading work by authors new to me, but in this instance we just weren’t able to handle a large slush pile.

I think at times our own writing did suffer for both of us, but within a week of Tales for Canterbury being sent to the printers, both Cassie and myself independently sat down and just wrote, so the damage was definitely temporary – and in any case, I think editing, closely reading other people’s work, really does help in the long run.

Lessons? After the previous anthology I edited I had all these bright ideas for improving things, and then when Tales for Canterbury came up I implemented some, but many just got lost in the tight timeframes. So I guess the fact that every project is different would be a lesson. On a personal level, though, I think the biggest lesson I learned was about sharing responsibility. I’m hopeless at delegating, but working with Cassie, who is superbly committed and reliable, and the effects of both having otherwise busy schedules, helped to change that. We passed things back and forth, one picking up when the other was busy, and swapping tasks when things just weren’t happening, and having that very positive experience has, I’m sure, taught me a lot about taking a step back and trusting other people to get it right.

Tales For Canterbury: Why You Should Buy A Copy

 

In just three months since the Christchurch earthquake of 22 February, editors Cassie Hart and Anna Caro have done an amazing job of pulling together Tales For Canterbury, a fundraising anthology to benefit the victims of the earthquake, with all proceeds going to the New Zealand Red Cross Earthquake Appeal. All the stories have been donated by their authors.

Tales For Canterbury is now published as an ebook (in pdf, mobi, and epub format) and as a paperback.

You can find out lots more info on the Tales For Canterbury Blog, but if you are wondering whether to buy or pre-order one, I suggest you ask yourself the following questions:

  • Do I want to support Christchurch residents in the wake of the February earthquake?
  • Do I like reading work by any of these writers? (I won’t reproduce the full list here, but it includes names such as Neil Gaiman, Janis Freegard, Gwyneth Jones, Jay Lake, Helen Lowe, Tina Makereti, Juliet Marillier, Jeff Vandermeer, Mary Victoria, and Sean Williams, and there are 34 stories in all. One is by me.)
  • Can I afford NZ $12 for the ebook edition or NZ $24.95 for the paperback edition?

If the answer to the third question, and at least one of the first two questions, is “yes”, then I think you are building a strong case for buying a copy!

And if you’re fired up with enthusiasm, Anna and Cassie also have some ideas for how you can help promote Tales For Canterbury.

Here ends the sales pitch. If it hasn’t convinced you, go ahead and buy the book anyway. The quality of the fiction is the ultimate argument.

A Mainland Double: Tales For Canterbury and the Readers And Writers Alive! Festival

 
Tales For Canterbury

In just over a month since the Christchurch earthquake of 22 February, editors Cassie Hart and Anna Caro have done an amazing job of pulling together Tales for Canterbury, a fundraising anthology to benefit the victims of the earthquake, with all proceeds going to the New Zealand Red Cross Earthquake Appeal.

Tales for Canterbury is now available for pre-order as an ebook (in pdf, mobi, and epub format) and as a paperback – I’ve just ordered my paperback copy. It should be published in April, so you won’t have long to wait for it.

There’s a blog detailing the progress of the anthology, and if you’re not sure whether you’d like one, you might want to check out the list of contributors. There are a few names there you might know – Neil Gaiman, for example; not to mention Janis Freegard, Gwyneth Jones, Jay Lake, Helen Lowe, Tina Makereti, Juliet Marillier, Jeff Vandermeer, Sean Williams, and many, many more fine writers. I am honoured to have a story in such company.

Readers And Writers Alive! Festival (Invercargill)

I lived in Southland between the ages of four and sixteen, and though that’s, well, several years ago now, I have written a lot of poetry about and set in Southland, and have even set a science fiction story in Gore.

So it has always been a private ambition of mine to take part in a Southland literary event, and I’m delighted to say that this ambition is about to be realised. I’m going to be a participant in the Readers and Writers Alive! programme of the Southland Arts Festival 2011, organised by the Dan Davin Literary Foundation, for whom Helen Lowe is currently running writing workshops.

I’m taking part in two events: a poetry reading featuring Joanna Preston, Kay McKenzie Cooke and Lynley Dear on Friday 29 April; and a writing workshop the following day. For that, I’ll remove my poet’s beret and put on my SF writer’s battered propellor beanie to run a workshop on “Writing Different Worlds”. I have to return to Wellington that night, so I’m unfortunately going to miss Joanna’s poetry workshop the following day, which should be excellent.

Reading with friends, and with poets I admire; getting an extended time to run a spec fic writing workshop; and returning to the scene of my youthful (mis)deeds. It’s all good.

Tuesday Poem: Landlines – my poem in response to the Christchurch earthquake

 
Landlines

It began with a tremor in the wires,
a voiceless howl of anguish.
Within minutes, the waiting world
has heard the worst — but there’s no news of you.
Amanda Palmer, an Olympic rower, former neighbours
are online. But you depend on landlines,
and the lines are down.

Were you at home when it struck? Were you
trapped on a fatal cross-town bus,
walking a hill track bombarded by boulders? Were you
unlucky under verandahs? I strategise
with relatives I barely know, plead on Twitter
for tiny clues, ask Google for your name.
I lift, and set down, and lift the phone.

At last we hear you’re safe at home,
barely touched, offering neighbours shelter.
My voice explodes with joy and messages.
I’m gabbling. I slow down. The bigger picture
presses in: so terrible, a city centre
crumbled into bone. I lift the phone.
It rings. You speak. I know, at last, I’m not alone.

Credit note: “Landlines” was first published as the Thursday Poem in the Dominion Post newspaper in Wellington on 3 March 2011.

Tim says: When the Dominion Post asked me to write a poem about the Christchurch earthquake of 22 February, I was on the verge of saying “no”, because I didn’t think that I could do justice to the subject. Then I decided to write a poem about my reaction in the aftermath of the earthquake, rather than the earthquake itself.

I was concerned about plenty of people in addition to my Dad and stepmother, including the Christchurch-based Tuesday poets, but including those concerns would have made for a rather unfocused poem.

You can read all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog.