Tag: poetry from Aotearoa

“Boy”, a poem by Mary McCallum

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I recently read, and very much enjoyed, Mary McCallum’s new poetry collection Tackling The Hens. Mary has kindly given me permission to republish “Boy”, one of my favourite poems from the collection, on my blog.

Mary says: “Paul Heyes, whom I wrote about in the poem as inspiration for naming my son Paul,
died not long after my poetry book was published – but before he did I was able to share the poem with him and his family and, later, to read it at his funeral. We’d lost touch but the poem helped bring us back together, something I didn’t expect but am hugely grateful for.”

Cover of poetry collection"Tackling the hens" by Mary McCallum. Cover shows the title, author name, and a hen in the foreground standing on a lawn, with a shed or dwelling, washing line, and trees in the background, against a blue sky.

Boy

A fierce courage brewed in him. He lofted balls
in astonishing arcs and tried to show me how,
gently, ball after ball at Ben Burn Park, an extra
chromosome making him miraculous. He genuinely
wanted me to throw well, felt I had it in me, just
couldn’t understand why I didn’t get the hang of it. Hah!
The laughter busted out of him and he tried again,
gently. ‘Like this. Here, watch me.’ And the arc of the ball
was magical, the way it fought gravity, rose and curved,
as the earth curves, as we curve with it—fell. His throws
not mine. I didn’t have it in me on the impossible grass
my memory conjures up—an endless sward under
a picture-book sun—the impossible ball, a bunch of us
hanging out and Paul. It’s no accident we have a son
who carries the same name, for surely a name is a blessing,
something to grow into, as a plant does, or a rare species
of bat. With time—oh the luxury of that—our boy
becomes a lofty being with curious and humorous mind,
a mighty mane of hair, no aptitude for throwing (shame
on the mother who didn’t think to show him how) but
with a wild passion for cricket. And—there he is!—
gentleness and kindness in all his dealings and the same
way of meeting life on his own terms. In the next room,
his fingers coax song from the throat of a broken, now
mended, Les Paul. Each phrase he plays, a fierce
and miraculous arc of sound.

Book review: Halfway to Everywhere, by Vivienne Ullrich

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Cover of poetry collection "Halfway to Everywhere", by Vivienne Ullrich

Halfway to Everywhere, by Vivienne Ullrich (The Cuba Press, 2024), 70 pp. Available from https://thecubapress.nz/shop/halfway-to-everywhere/

Halfway to Everywhere is Vivienne Ullrich’s second poetry collection, and I’m impressed. The poems in Halfway to Everywhere show a lot of formal ability as a poet, and as the collection goes on, that formal elegance was increasingly matched with subject matter that engaged me emotionally.

Many of these poems take as their subject matter art, historical figures and fairy tales. Mary Queen of Scots, Little Red Riding Hood, Scheherazade, Jack of “Jack and the Beanstalk” fame and the artist Max Gimblett all put in an appearance, as the poet invites us to see the world from their points of view.

“Mary Queen of Scots” (p. 24) is a good example of these poems. It begins:

I die tomorrow. It is a simple thing
and yet it clamps my belly.
I pray for a clean stroke
and dignity.

From “Rutu” (p. 18), a poem inspired by Rita Angus’ painting of the same name:

… how is it we gift
this month with myths of rebirth, when an eye
towards our cross of stars would signal time
for harvest, time for tuning in to self.

I was very impressed by the quality of both the poetry, and the thought that had gone into the poetry, in Halfway to Everywhere. I did find that – perhaps because of the number of poems about artworks and historical figures – it took about half the collection before I started to engage with the poems emotionally – in other words, to connect with them as well as be impressed by them. But as I continued reading, I found poems that spoke to me more directly, like “Footprint” (p. 62):

I hear you. No doubt
it is different in my skin.
I am my peculiar set of molecules
after all, and I have the benefit of
context and the words I left out.

This skill in addressing multiply points of view comes to fruition on my favourite poem in the collection, “Little Red Riding Hood” (p. 48), a retelling in which the dramatis personae all get a turn as protagonist: the wolf, the huntsman, the grandmother, and the girl herself. This poem combines formal ability and sly wit in a way that works extremely well. An excerpt won’t do it justice – check out the whole poem!

Vivienne Ullrich is a talented, clever, thoughtful poet, and as I read through this collection, I found her poems and her poetry sneaking up on me. Halfway to Everywhere is a good place to be.