“Sing to Me of Home encompasses stories from all avenues of my life, not just from the last 25 years that I have been writing poetry. Those familiar with my work will find poems they know, as well as some poems not previously published. If you are new to my poems and are interested in social issues, the environment, and the politics that surround us, you may discover welcome perspectives and sometimes satirical takes on life matters.”
It’s been a month of book events, and this is a great way to finish it! If you’re in or around Wellington, I hope you’ll join me at Keith’s launch.
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.”
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.
From 10-12 March, I’m doing three poetry readings in three South Island cities in three days! Below are all the details – it would be great if you could come along, and if you can’t, please encourage your friends in Te Waipounamu to do so. Thanks to the Octagon Poets’ Collective and Canterbury Poets Collective for inviting me to read, and to Arts Murihiku for kindly agreeing to host my Invercargill event.
The Schedule
Tuesday 10 March: Waihōpai / Invercargill: Southland Roots, Southern Journeys: Hear poet Tim Jones read poems of Southland and talk about the southern roots of his poetry
Poet Tim Jones grew up in Southland. He now lives in Wellington, but he started writing poetry in Southland, and the life and land of Murihiku continue to be a central thread in his poetry. Join Tim Jones for a poetry reading and Q&A session. Tim will read from his latest poetry collection, Dracula in the Colonies, and also read poems about Southland from his earlier collections. Tim’s books will be available for sale and signing at the event, and there will be time for a chat over a cuppa afterwards
Programme:
Doors open 5pm Tim’s reading, followed by a Q&A session, starts at 5.30pm At about 6.30pm, there will be time for a cuppa and a chat Event finishes 7pm
Wednesday 11 March: Ōtepoti / Dunedin: Octagon Poets’ Collective, 7pm, New Athenaeum Theatre – with Kay McKenzie Cooke as guest MC, an Open Mike (see Kay on the night to sign up for that) and guest poets Tim Jones and Richard Reeve. All welcome; entry is free, but there is a range of food and drink available to purchase at the Theatre.
Thursday 12 March: Ōtautahi / Christchurch: Canterbury Poets Collective, Ara Imagitech Theatre, 130 Madras Street, Christchurch. The event kicks off at 6.30pm with an open mike, then there’s a break for mingling and book-buying, then the guest readers start around 7.30pm. I’m reading with Megan Clayton and Dietrich Soakai.
Dracula in the Colonies is heading north, and I’m coming along as minder and general Renfield. Then he’s returning home for a reading on Sunday 15 February in Wellington.
Auckland, 10 and 12 February
I’m off to the big city to read at Poetry Live and take part in the Aotea Square Poetry Takeover!
Poetry is coming for Aotea Square! On Thursday 12 Feb, the Aotea Square Poetry Takeover is happening, with performances and stalls, and I’ll be there as part of the contingent from The Cuba Press. Come and find The Cuba Press stall – I’ll be on duty with poets Bryan Walpert and Elena de Roo. There are lots of poets and plenty going on in the Square for these three hours!
Wellington, 15 February
I’m reading poems from my new collection “Dracula in the Colonies” at the Office Bar, 124 Riddiford St, Newtown on Sunday 15 February – you’re very welcome to come along, and entry is free.
This is part of the Poetry and Music at Newtown’s Office Bar series. The event starts at 4pm with an Open Mike (make sure you arrive on time if you want to sign up to read), then there’s a break for food & drink from the bar downstairs, then I’ll be reading around 5.30. See you there!
The March mini-tour: Invercargill, Dunedin, and Christchurch
In March, I’ll be doing three poetry readings in three days! I’ll post full details in a couple of weeks’ time, including news about all the readers at the Ōtepoti and Ōtautahi events, but here is the summary:
Dracula in the Colonies, my new poetry collection, has been stepping out into the spring light with pleasingly positive results and surprisingly few scorch marks:
If you’d like to help Dracula in the Colonies meet more readers, here are three things you can do:
Ask for it in bookshops: If your local bookshop doesn’t stock Dracula in the Colonies, please ask them to! All the details they’ll need are on The Cuba Press order page for the book.
Ask your local library to order it: Many libraries have pages where you can ask for books to be added to the collection. If your local library doesn’t stock the book, please request it.
Goodreads: If you use Goodreads and have read Dracula in the Colonies, please add a rating, or even better a review, to the book’s Goodreads page.
It was a dark and stormy night – no, really, it was! – when my new poetry collection Dracula in the Colonies, together with Mandy Hager’s new “Chasing Ghosts” mystery Revenge and Rabbit Holes, were launched at Unity Books Wellington earlier this month.
Photo credit: James Fraser
Happily, that didn’t prevent a good crowd gathering to attend the launch, enjoy the lovely food put on by Unity Books, listen to the speeches, and buy some books.
Colin Marshall of the Whitireia Publishing Programme, who helped to put together the launch, also doubled as videographer – here are his videos of publisher Mary McCallum, my “launcher”, poet Harvey Molloy who said some lovely things about my work and my writing career, and myself speaking at the launch.
My new poetry collection Dracula in the Colonies is launching at Unity Books Wellington on Wednesday 1 October from 6-7.30pm. It’s a double book launch: my Dracula in the Colonies and Mandy Hager’s new novel Revenge and Rabbit Holes.
All are welcome – no need to RSVP. And if you invite your friend, friends, partner, partners, or large and lavishly remunerated workplace* along, even better!
*Possibly fictional.
Dracula in the Colonies has received a couple of very nice endorsements from poets whose work I admire:
Janis Freegard:“Tim Jones’ powerful new collection takes us from Grimsby to Antarctica, traversing family life, migration, politics, climate change and loss. This is honest, tender, funny and intelligent writing from a story-teller poet.”
Erik Kennedy: “Eminently readable but never comfortable … Dracula in the Colonies is full of characters you’ll love to hate from a poet whose work we know to love.”
Thank you, Erik and Janis!
All the details
The launch will be at Unity Books, 57 Willis St, Wellington, from 6-7.30pm on Wednesday 1 October 2025. There will be drinks, nibbles, and books for sale and signing.
You and your friends are warmly invited to a double book launch at Unity Books on Wednesday 1 October: my new poetry collection Dracula in the Colonies and Mandy Hager’s new novel Revenge and Rabbit Holes.
All are welcome – no need to RSVP!
The launch will be at Unity Books, 57 Willis St, Wellington, from 6-7.30pm on Wednesday 1 October 2025. There will be drinks, nibbles, and books for sale and signing.
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.
Tuesday 12 December 2023 dawned a fine summer’s day in Wellington. But in mid-afternoon, the weather changed. A southerly front raced up the country, bringing very strong winds, heavy rain and hail to Wellington and the Hutt.
I was sitting at my desk, and I felt and saw the change: the temperature dropped abruptly, and sunshine was abruptly replaced by cascading rain. It was all over within 90 minutes, and despite over 20 mm of rain falling at our place within a few minutes, we got off fairly lightly.
But friends I’ve talked to since weren’t so lucky. One was inside a mall that rapidly flooded; another had part of their roof torn off their house – one of a number of buildings in the Hutt that suffered serious damage.
“A day after finishing this book, a sudden and savage storm struck Wellington. At 2.50pm the sun was shining on what seemed to be a pleasant summer day. Ten minutes later the sky turned black, violent winds blew out windows, hail was smashing into the deck and sheets of water poured from the gutters. And that was in a less extreme part of the storm’s path. Elsewhere it was much, much worse.”
My novel Emergency Weather begins and ends with storms – the first causes death and damage from north to south, while the second and stronger storm zeroes in on Wellington. Wellington has always been prone to storms, but climate change is loading the dice, making it more likely that when storms come, they will be damaging and destructive.
My novel is set against the context of a government in which (some) Ministers are at least trying to do the right thing. But the recent election, which Labour lost by a combination of its own timidity and many voters’ desire for something different, has brought to power a government including climate deniers, environmental vandals, and worshippers at the altar of the car. If climate change is on their agenda at all, it’s well below culture wars.
But physical reality doesn’t care about ideology. So long as we keep loading the climate dice by burning fossil fuels and forcing cows to produce milk, piss nitrates and burp methane, the storms and the fires and the flooding will get worse. If we stop, the climate will have a chance to recover. No amount of denialism changes that.
(Excuse me, Tim! It’s just before Christmas and you’re supposed to be encouraging people to buy your book!)
Err … buy my book if you’re looking for a good summer read – it’s not all, or even mostly, doom and gloom! – and have a great holiday! Here’s to lots of good reading, and good organising for change, in 2024.
