Zoetropes
A starting. Words which begin
with Z alarm the heart:
the eye cuts down at once
then drifts across the page
to other disappointments.
*
Zenana: the women’s
apartments
in Indian or Persian houses.
Zero is nought, nothing,
nil – the quiet starting point
of any scale of measurement.
*
The land itself is only
smoke at anchor, drifting above
Antarctica’s white flower,
tied by a thin red line
(5000 miles) to Valparaiso.
London 29.4.81
Reproduced by kind permission of the author, Bill Manhire.
Tim says: This poem captures better than any other I know both the sense of isolation which so many New Zealanders feel, and the sudden, irrational pride in reading any mention of our little country, no matter how trivial or fleeting, in the world’s media. Here we are, floating somewhere between Chile and Antarctica, hoping someone will notice us…
Bill Manhire is one of New Zealand’s best-known poets. “Zoetropes” was published as the title poem of Zoetropes: Poems 1972-82, and republished in Collected Poems (2001), available in New Zealand and internationally from Victoria University Press, and in the UK from Carcanet.
