Ghost Stories (2019)

Cover image: Graham Fletcher (by courtesy of the artist) /
Cover design: Daniela Gast (2019)

Ghost Stories. ISBN 978-0-9951165-5-9. 99% Press. Auckland: Lasavia Publishing, 2019. 140 pp.

Contents:

Introduction

The Classic New Zealand Ghost Story

Stories

Eketahuna

The Scam

Featherston

Leaves from a Diary of the End of the World

Is it Infrareal or is it Memorex?

Company

General Grant in Paeroa

Brothers

Catfish

The Cross-Correspondences

Paragraphs

Kipling and the Cross-Correspondences

Blurb:

David Foster Wallace once wrote that 'every love story is a ghost story.' Not all of the stories in Jack Ross’s new collection are about love, but certainly all of them concern ghosts – imaginary, real, or entirely absent. As it turns out, there are even stranger things in the world: from haunted hotel rooms in Beijing to drunken poetry readings on Auckland’s North Shore. Or perhaps, as the Mayan prophets foresaw, the world really did end on the 21st December, 2012, and 'all bets are off, all the rules have changed, and – new Adams, new Eves – we have to find the courage somehow to start naming the strange new things we see.'

'There’s no one in New Zealand literature exploring the dark ways of narrative with the alchemical touch of Jack Ross, and his gift of spinning tales which jump "from track to track on the time-space continuum" never fails to leave me exhilarated, in outright awe'.

- Tracey Slaughter

Jack Ross works as a senior lecturer in creative writing at Massey University. He is the author of five poetry collections, four novels and three books of short fiction. His novel The Annotated Tree Worship was highly commended in the 2018 NZ Heritage Book Awards. He has also edited numerous books, anthologies, and literary journals, including brief, Landfall, and Poetry New Zealand. He blogs at http://mairangibay.blogspot.com/.

Abstract:

This is a set of ten short stories, with two essays: 'The Classic New Zealand Ghost Story,' an introduction to the collection as a whole; and 'Kipling and the Cross-Correspondences,' an account of the alleged attempts at communication from the other side by various dead members of the Society for Psychical Research in the early years of last century.

The stories, too, are grouped around the common theme of ghosts and ghost stories, but in some rather unexpected ways. Two ('The Scam' and 'The Cross-Correspondences') are set in China, but most are explorations of the haunted landscapes of the New Zealand's North Island, from Featherston and Eketahuna to Raglan and Northcote. All of them (with the exception of 'Paragraphs') have been previously published in periodicals or online.

This is my third collection of short stories, after Monkey Miss Her Now (13 stories - 2004) and Kingdom of Alt (7 stories and a novella - 2010).

99% Press

Available:

Amazon.com
RRP: $US 15.00 (+ postage)

Amazon.co.uk
RRP: £UK 12.28 (+ postage)

Book Depository
RRP: $NZ 29.44 (free postage)

Wheelers Books
RRP: $NZ 49.50

Lasavia Publishing
37 Crescent Rd West
Ostend
Waiheke Island
Auckland 1081
https://www.lasaviapublishing.com/
Lasavia Publishing: Editorial

RRP: $NZ 20.00 (+ postage)

Lasavia Publishing

Reviews & Comments:

1. Brooke Georgia, Aubade (March 17, 2022):
   
   

   As the New Zealand writer and academic Jack Ross stated in his latest collection Ghost Stories “We’re most haunted by that which we’ve worked hardest to deny and eradicate from our lives.”
   
   Brooke Georgia’s use of found objects, both in her garments and visual art, speaks to this gothic complex due to the way she works with and repurposes abandoned materials. Not only running against the tendencies of fast fashion and its associated wastefulness, this praxis speaks to the mysterious histories of objects, raising the questions of where they come from and what they have seen. The objects already have their own stories and their own weight of being, aside from their material reality, although this can never be directly accessed.
   
   Rather than turning to the new, Brooke Georgia looks to these pre-existing objects and carefully reworks them, sensitive to their unique individual agency. The mystique associated with these objects emphasises critical aspects of the unknown, because in the gothic imagination the non-human exists within the human and vice versa.



2. Shana Chandra, Haunted by Home. Landfall Review Online (March 1, 2023):
   
   

   ... Shayne P. Carter’s memoir Dead People I Have Known offered me a paraphrase from a James K. Baxter poem. In the poem, Baxter philosophises that, due to the vast and unrelenting nature of Aotearoa’s landscape, which continually confronts each person who inhabits it, we are constantly reminded of our mortality.
   
   It was a quote that I was reminded of when reading the introduction to Jack Ross’s most recent collection of short stories, Ghost Stories (2019). The collection begins with an essay entitled ‘The Classic New Zealand Ghost Story’, which investigates the history of ghost stories in Aotearoa. It features Ross’s collected bibliography of books on the subject and the characteristics and narrative arc that define our Kiwi version of these universal stories. One of the most notable characteristics is that our ‘local product’ strongly emphasises haunted space rather than haunted people.
   
   As colonised land, it makes sense that our islands would be threatening, with death coating its soil and its sacredness to Māori consistently desecrated. It makes sense that the land, the whenua, would transpire to avenge this desecration, encoded as it is with the tikanga of Māori tapu. But so, too, does Baxter’s quote come into play here: the enormity of Aotearoa’s landscape, eerie in its isolation, is the perfect setting for our ghost stories. This ‘dark, threatening land’ — a trope Ross quotes from Sam Neil’s seminal documentary Cinema of Unease — haunts its inhabitants instead of vice versa.



3. Douglas A. Andersen, Wormwoodiana (August 8, 2024):
   
   

   ... topics run from numerology to L. Frank Baum, old movies to Mayan eschatology, General Grant of the US Civil War on to sites to see in modern China, as well as covering aspects of Kipling - some of his stories, as well as his "mad" sister, Alice Fleming.



4. The Story Graph:
   
   

   Across hotel rooms in Beijing and bars on Auckland’s North Shore, these quietly unsettling tales drift between love and absence, suggesting that every journey is haunted by the ghosts we carry and the world that may have ended while we weren’t looking.
   
   For the literary wanderer who welcomes ghosts.

The Story Graph (2025)

•


Massey University: The Gothic Imagination (2022)

Email Interview:

Jenny Lawn. 'Teaching "Eketahuna" for "The Gothic Imagination" - some questions from students.' Private Email (14-15 March, 2022):

Kia ora Jack

I hope you're in fine fettle and managing to keep omicron at bay.

Thank you for being willing to entertain some questions from The Gothic Imagination class about “Eketāhuna.” Students have expressed that they enjoy the story. In the syllabus, it sits alongside M.R. James’ “Lost Hearts” and Saki’s “The Open Window.”

Here are some questions, which you are welcome to address however you prefer, and in whatever format you prefer e.g. writing, audio or video response, interview with me.

Here we go:

1. Students were curious about the series of empty places: starting with Eketāhuna itself, a town that some say doesn’t exist; the abandoned town; the empty campground-paddock; and the non-existent (?) motel itself. Here are some student questions on this point:
   • Is the point of the story that we see what we want to see or believe what we want to believe in life? Or is life more complicated then what we see as reality and time and there are more dimensions that exist?
   • I felt a false sense of security after the campsite. I however thought it was just the old man who was going to be the ghost, and not his daughter as well. Not sure if anyone else got tricked by this as well?
   • Did anyone else think the climax of the story was in Eketāhuna, begin to relax because the “climax” was just no one being around and a sub-standard campsite, and then get more of a shock from the actual climax because of that false sense of security?
   • Why do you think the daughter believes her father to be a ghost? What do you think separates her death from her father's? How come the two ghosts don’t know each other exists?
2. On the narrative voice:
   • I’m really curious about the quote, “It’s tempting to call it ‘13’ and make the whole thing sound spookier than it was.” The story to date had given me an eerie feeling, why downplay it?
   • Was the narrator's voice a conscious choice, or if there was at one point a draft written where the narrator is more insistent that the events were a truly supernatural experience?
   • The fact that Ross’ narrator seemed to be conscious of the fact that his experiences as they unfolded were fodder for good dinner party conversation really resounded with me. His use of certain words, phrases and gothic tropes indicated to me that the narrator was aware of the potential ridiculousness of comparing his experience to some gothic ghostly tale - but that this comparison would provide a certain amount of intrigue, and reflected the unshakeable fear of things actually going wrong.
3. The tone of the story comes off as recognisably Kiwi. How would you say your story sits within larger tradition(s) of ghost stories in Aotearoa New Zealand? A related question: Are you appealing to Kiwis, and how might non-Kiwis feel about the writing?
4. Did you grow up (and now live) in the city or more rurally and has this affected your writing? More generally, do you have any thoughts on how rural areas figure in the New Zealand Pākehā imaginary? Is there a specific local legend around Eketāhuna?
5. What advice do you have for students who are writing their own ghost stories, in terms of how to create atmosphere and suspense?
6. Which ghost story writers have most influenced your writing and why? More specifically: did you have any other “motel horror stories” in mind?
7. Anything else you'd like to add …

Looking forward to hearing your always canny observations and ghosts and all the rest.

Ngā mihi nui

Jenny

•

Kia ora Jenny,

Your letter has forced me to reread 'Eketahuna', which was quite an interesting experience. It all seems such a long time ago, really.

I'll do my best to answer the questions below, but in some cases I have to admit that your guess is probably as good as mine. Your queries are very acute, though - going straight to the heart of the matter:

• Is the point of the story that we see what we want to see or believe what we want to believe in life? Or is life more complicated then what we see as reality and time and there are more dimensions that exist?

Well, that's the big question, isn't it? I certainly wish I could answer it definitively, but you're certainly right to see it as the basic dilemma posed by the story. I certainly want to believe in the second alternative, and have probably slanted the narrative in that direction. On the other hand, all the narrator's observations are so contingent and deliberately unreliable that one has to acknowledge the first as an equally valid reading.

• I felt a false sense of security after the campsite. I however thought it was just the old man who was going to be the ghost, and not his daughter as well. Not sure if anyone else got tricked by this as well?

I've always been addicted to 'literary' ghost stories - M. R. James, Algernon Blackwood, and all the rest. I wrote this one as a kind of low-octane, vernacular nod to that genre. A twist of some sort is always required, though, and the best I could come up with was the double-ghost shtick. I'm very pleased to read of your reaction, as that's certainly what I *wanted* a reader to experience. The Irish poet Paul Muldoon speaks of sending a 'stunt reader' through each poem he writes just after it's finished - a kind of imaginary everyreader who will hopefully react to each clue, in turn, as it's presented. My ideal reader would certainly feel just as you did, but of course that's not to say that readers actually do.

• Did anyone else think the climax of the story was in Eketāhuna, begin to relax because the “climax” was just no one being around and a sub-standard campsite, and then get more of a shock from the actual climax because of that false sense of security?

Again, I love this reading, since that really was the point of the story for me - my (real) experience of driving through Eketahuna under precisely those circumstances (campground and all), capped by a bit of ghostly scaffolding at the end.

• Why do you think the daughter believes her father to be a ghost? What do you think separates her death from her father's? How come the two ghosts don’t know each other exists?

It's an odd admission, but I have to confess that I spend a lot of time thinking about ghosts and how they feel and react to things in general: which naturally includes each other. There is, in a sense, no such thing in purely narrative terms, since we can only describe living reactions and emotions - so our 'ghost' characters are really just adapted people, just as animal characters are always more or less anthropomorphic. I did get a kick out of the idea of a ghost who thought it was her father who was the ghost - the wheels within wheels suggested by that (and perhaps corollary doubts of the narrator's own status). I hasten to say that this is not an original thought: the classic Mexican novel Pedro Páramo, by Juan Rulfo, does wonderful things with a whole town full of ghosts who mostly think they are still alive.

• I’m really curious about the quote, “It’s tempting to call it ‘13’ and make the whole thing sound spookier than it was.” The story to date had given me an eerie feeling, why downplay it?

There was a British writer called A. J. Alan who used to tell ghost stories on the radio in the 1930s. I never heard any of them, but I've read quite a few, and they're in this very conversational, colloquial tone. I guess I was trying to get something of the same feeling into my narrative style - a narrator who is trustworthy because so self-deprecating and a bit slangy at times.

• Was the narrator's voice a conscious choice, or if there was at one point a draft written where the narrator is more insistent that the events were a truly supernatural experience?

No, I always needed a narrator to play down rather than build up the events, as those events basically evaporate if you look at them too closely. It's an old trick, really - Jane Austen does it wonderfully in Northanger Abbey. She wrote a very dramatic story, with a young lady thrown out from the house she's staying at because her venal old host has discovered that she's not really the rich heiress he expected, but it sounds very real because it's constantly paralleled by Catherine's own absurdly over-the-top readings of things based on endless perusal of Gothic novels. In my case, the narrator is aware of telling a ghost story, but constantly tries to emphasise its failure to be as melodramatic as such things are conventionally beefed up to be.

• The fact that Ross’ narrator seemed to be conscious of the fact that his experiences as they unfolded were fodder for good dinner party conversation really resounded with me. His use of certain words, phrases and gothic tropes indicated to me that the narrator was aware of the potential ridiculousness of comparing his experience to some gothic ghostly tale - but that this comparison would provide a certain amount of intrigue, and reflected the unshakeable fear of things actually going wrong.

I don't know if it matters if the narrator is likeable, but I think he definitely has to sound plausible. If he's a fantasist, then there's little interest in any experience he recounts. He's certainly very conscious of his role as a storyteller throughout, but I wanted him to be the kind who leaves you with a sense of something worryingly *possible*. What could happen if you set out to drive across country in the middle of the night. That great NZ film The Locals plays lots of interesting variations on that notion.

• The tone of the story comes off as recognisably Kiwi. How would you say your story sits within larger tradition(s) of ghost stories in Aotearoa New Zealand? A related question: Are you appealing to Kiwis, and how might non-Kiwis feel about the writing?

I guess that's more for the audience to answer. I certainly didn't play down the local colour and flavour, but those are the things I enjoy when I read stories from elsewhere, so I doubt that it's a problem for the sort of people who actually read short stories still. In the context of the book as a whole, though, I do develop some ideas about the nature of NZ ghost stories as a form: their relation to a pervading sense of alienation from the land contingent on the sins of colonialism. Again, that's something that's come out strongly in NZ film as well as the many, many ghost stories which seem to infest our literature: always some dark secret to be hidden, then gradually unearthed.

• Did you grow up (and now live) in the city or more rurally and has this affected your writing? More generally, do you have any thoughts on how rural areas figure in the New Zealand Pākehā imaginary? Is there a specific local legend around Eketāhuna?

Oh, I'm a born-and-bred suburbanite. But nowhere is truly urban in New Zealand - the country comes busting in no matter what you do. I think that's why I feel NZ is such a great place for storytellers: things buried deeply elsewhere are so much closer to the surface here: our small towns are so terrifying, our cities always on the point of disintegration (as in the recent occupation of Wellington Central: talk about the return of the repressed!) I don't know if there are any local legends around Eketāhuna, but it was a real motel. It's important to remember that. I *hope* there are some such legends, mind you.

• What advice do you have for students who are writing their own ghost stories, in terms of how to create atmosphere and suspense?

I don't really have much wisdom to impart on that. I feel myself that the closer they are to real experience - in the background details, at least - the more effective they're likely to be. Again, I think it has to be a vehicle for expressing your own doubts and unease over the nature of reality. As M. R. James stresses, a friendly ghost is really a contradiction in terms. By their very nature they question our assumptions, and you must be interested in that queasy feeling yourself before you can communicate your doubts to a reader.

• Which ghost story writers have most influenced your writing and why? More specifically: did you have any other “motel horror stories” in mind?

I suppose I've read so much M. R. James over the years that he remains my touchstone for ghost stories. I also love Dickens's few ghost stories: 'The Signalman', in particular. Shirley Jackson is one of the very few people who's ever written an effective ghostly novel, rather than just her (excellent) ghost stories. And finally there are such Stephen King stories as 'Rm 1408' (a great haunted hotel story) and 'All that you love will be carried away' - a wonderful haunted motel story.

• Anything else you'd like to add …

As I said above, I hadn't reread the story for ages, and it's hard to say what I make of it as a whole. The thing that seems most valuable about such exercises, though, is the degree to which your piece gradually sounds less and less like something you wrote yourself and more and more like something you just picked up to read. That's actually a bit of a relief.

And then there's the fact that the story itself embodies an interesting time shift - the actual experience it's based on, then the process of writing (and rewriting) it, and now, years later, seeing it as a kind of thing in itself. It's as if all of those times are still present inside it, which is probably the main reason why I persevere with trying to write things: good or bad, they mark and preserve time: for yourself, certainly; but possibly, if they strike a chord, for other people also.

I hope that's some help. It's certainly been very enjoyable - though also terrifying - to see my story through other people's eyes. Thanks for inviting me to contribute to your thinking on such gothic themes in general ...

ngā mihi hui, jack

A/Prof Jennifer Lawn

•

Poetry NZ Yearbook 2019 [Issue #53]

Cover Design by Jo Bailey /
Typesetting by Megan van Staden

Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2019. ISBN 978-0-9951029-6-5. 344 pp.

Contents:

Jack Ross / Editorial: What makes a poem good? / 14-20

FEATURED POET

Stephanie Christie

Stephanie Christie / 22

1. Microchasm / 26


2. Crossing the Park / 28


3. Unfinished Objects / 29


4. Amethyst / 31


5. -OH / 32


6. Mag[net]ic / 38


7. Flow(n / 40


8. Clod / 42


9. Krisis. / 44


10. Poverty Mentality / 46


11. FleshselF / 48


12. SQWANDER / 50


13. Nix / 52


14. Madeness / 55


15. Stephen Hawking’s Dead / 58


16. Mall Song / 59


17. Parachute / 61


18. Felt calculus / 63


19. Bode / 64

Jack Ross / An Interview with Stephanie Christie / 68-74

Stephanie Christie: Aubade (2013)

NEW POEMS

Gary Allen / The God complex / 76

John Allison / Die Luft hier in Laft … / 77

Aimee-Jane Anderson-O’Connor / Mice / 78

Miguel Ángel Arcas / Finales de los sesenta / 79

– / The End of the Sixties [translation by Charles Olsen] / 80

Shelley Arlidge / Albatross / 81

Stu Bagby / Who is it who remembers? / 82

Tony Beyer / The Globe / 83

Victor Billot / So as not to wake / 85

Benjamin Blake / Lost Recordings / 86

Cindy Botha / My Mother’s Hands, Mine / 87

Mark Broatch / Kererū / 89

Steve Brock / Humble Wine / 90

Owen Bullock / not knowing / 91

Chris Cantillon / Truckdriver / 92

Marisa Cappetta / Homeless like bones / 93

Mariana Collette / DNA / 94

Rose Collins / the Port Hills hare considers rock fall risk / 96

Jennifer Compton / Cat Sitting in Brunswick East / 97

E J Doyle / Inheritance / 98

Rachael Elliott / Wheel / 99

Johanna Emeney / RLSV / 101

Bonnie Etherington / Catcall on Oakton Street / 103

Mike Evans / Impermanence / 104

Rachel J Fenton / Break / 105

Jess Fiebig / morning after / 107

Sue Fitchett / I, robot / 108

Katie Fitzpatrick / Confession / 109

Dara Flaws / Dad / 110

Alexandra Fraser / Piha night / 112

Kim Fulton / This is it, Ruahine Range / 113

Ruth Hanover / The Oranges / 115

Paula Harris / I will go on tour and read my poetry all over the world / 116

Jenna Heller / tanka / 118

Sara Hirsch / Nocturnal / 119

Joy Holley / Twenty / 121

Alice Hooton / Lover / 122

Amanda Hunt / Family Skeletons / 123

Gail Ingram / Morning flight / 124

Ross Jackson / The exit / 125

Adrienne Jansen / The children in the dark canoe / 126

Lincoln Jaques / The Things He Left Behind / 127

Annie Tuarau Jones / For My Sister / 129

Robert Kempen / Hey, what is going on / 130

Paula King / The Square / 132

Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod / The Daughter Goes To Hospital By Car / 133

Katrina Larsen / Life is Like a Bag of Cats / 134

Jessica Le Bas / Near Blind Channel / 135

Wes Lee / By the Lapels / 137

Michele Leggott / the wedding party / 138

Izzy Lomax-Sawyers / Pre-loved / 141

Olivia L. M. / The harrowing ... / 142

Victoria McArthur / Self Portrait / 143

Olivia Macassey / Elephants / 145

Isabelle McNeur / Moss / 146

– / Happy Parents under the Microscope / 147

Mary Macpherson / On being unwilling to click ‘I forgot my password’ / 149

D. S. Maolalai / Raspberries / 150

Ria Masae / Children’s Eyes / 152

Layal Moore / Two / 154

Margaret Moores / Black and white / 155

Martha Morseth / The street / 156

Fraser Munro / Paper bags don’t have feelings / 157

Emma Neale / The TastiTM Taste Guarantee / 158

– / Affidavit / 160

Keith Nunes / In the bookshop uttering / 162

Stephen Oliver / Protocols / 164

Bob Orr / The Vegas Girl / 166

Hayden Pyke / Danger is my Family Name / 167

essa may ranapiri / Gallows / 168

Vaughan Rapatahana / Rangiaowhia, 1864 / 169

– / ngā rākau / 171

Ron Riddell / Remains of the Day / 172

Gillian Roach / The Object Disappeared / 173

Fiona Roberton / Chinese medicine / 174

Jeremy Roberts / A Movie Ticket & a Little Bit of Philosophy / 175

Siobhan Rosenthal / Whanau / 176

Dadon Rowell / Lily Bennett / 177

Sigune Schnabel / Grenzland / 178

– / Borderland [translation by Simon Lèbe] / 179

Sarah Shirley / Long lie / 180

Tracey Slaughter / mostly a/b/c/d / 181

– / archaeological / 183

Barry Smith / Arrival / 184

Ian C. Smith / Remembering Willie Pep / 185

Lauren J. Smith / you never know what’s on the other side / 186

Elizabeth Smither / Ten conductors / 187

– / Strange dream / 188

Stephen Smithyman / My Father and the Poplar Tree, 1979 / 189

John Tarlton / On Sabbatical / 190

Loren Thomas / Friends / 191

Tybalt / intimacy is a sick puppy / 192

Bryan Walpert / from Micrographia: Of the Bookworm / 193

– / Of the pores of bodies / 195

Laura Williamson / Wrong turn on the Hump Ridge Track / 196

Sue Wootton / from Typewriter songs: Anywhen / 198

– / Olivetti / 199

Sigred Yamit / Sweater / 200

Grace Yee / for the good husband / 201

Mark Young / Concerning / 203

Zuo You / I accepted his apologies (translation by Yi Zhe) / 204

COMPETITIONS

Poetry New Zealand poetry prize:

First prize ($500)
Wes Lee / The Things She Remembers #1 / 206

Second prize ($300):
Brett Gartrell / After the principal calls / 210

Third prize ($200):
Natalie Modrich / Retail / 213

Poetry New Zealand Yearbook student poetry competition

First prize (Year 11):
Aigagalefili Fepulea'i-Tapua'i / 275 Love Letters to Southside / 214

First prize (Year 12):
Kathryn Briggs / Earth is a Star to Someone / 217

First prize (Year 13):
Amberleigh Rose / Snake’s Tongue / 218

ESSAYS

Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod: A Map of Effort

Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod / Telling without Looking / 222-33

Jessica Pawley / Dreaming of Death: The Hangover of History in Derek Walcott’s ‘The Schooner Flight’ / 234-46

Erena Shingade / A Buddhist Hermitage on Great Barrier Island: Richard von Sturmer’s Suchness / 247-60

Richard von Sturmer: Clothesline on Great Barrier

REVIEWS

Ella Borrie / Owen Bullock / 262-64:

• Owen Bullock. semi. Glebe, NSW: Puncher & Wattmann, 2017. RRP $AU 25.00. 126 pp.

Mary Cresswell / Anna Jackson - Marlène Tissot - Tātai Whetū - Majella Cullinane / 265-70:

• Anna Jackson. Dear Tombs, Dear Horizon. Limited edition of 200 copies. Wellington: Seraph Press, 2017. RRP $20. 24 pp.
• Marlène Tissot. Last stop before insomnia / dernier arrêt avant l’insomnie. Trans. Anna Jackson & Geneviève Chevallier. Seraph Press Translation Series No. 3. Wellington: Seraph Press, 2017. RRP $20. 40 pp.
• Tātai Whetū: Seven Māori Women Poets in Translation. Ed. & trans. Maraea Rakuraku & Vana Manasiadis. Seraph Press Translation Series No. 4. Wellington: Seraph Press, 2018. RRP $20. 40 pp.
• Majella Cullinane. Whisper of a Crow’s Wing. ISBN 978-1-98-853122-9. Dunedin: Otago University Press / Ireland: Salmon Press, 2018. RRP $27.50. 88 pp.

Rachael Elliott / Rogelio Guedea - Jan Fitzgerald / 271-74:

• Rogelio Guedea. Punctuation. Trans. Roger Hickin. Lyttelton: Cold Hub Press, 2017. RRP $25.00. 48 pp.
• Jan Fitzgerald. Wayfinder: New & Selected Poems. Wellington: Steele Roberts Aotearoa, 2017. RRP $24.99. 64 pp.

Johanna Emeney / Michele Leggott / 275-78:

• Michele Leggott. Vanishing Points. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2017. RRP $27.99. 132 pp.

Matthew Harris / Mark Pirie / 279-82:

• Boots: A Selection of Football Poetry 1890-2017. Ed. Mark Pirie. Wellington: HeadworX, 2017. RRP $30. 102 pp.
• Mark Pirie. Sidelights: Rugby Poems. Wellington: HeadworX, 2017. RRP $20. 80 pp.

Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod / Jenny Powell - Damian Ruth - Mercedes Webb-Pullman / 283-88:

• Jenny Powell. South D Poet Lorikeet. Lyttelton: Cold Hub Press, 2017. RRP $29.95. 88 pp.
• Damian Ruth. On Edge. Wellington: HeadworX, 2017. RRP $30. 134 pp.
• Mercedes Webb-Pullman. Track Tales. Magill, South Australia: Truth Serum Press, 2017. RRP $Aus 11.00. 118 pp.

Bronwyn Lloyd / John Howell - Annabel Wilson / 289-96:

• John Howell. Homeless. Submarine. Wellington: Mākaro Press, 2017. RRP $25.00. 68 pp.
• Annabel Wilson. Aspiring Daybook: The Diary of Elsie Winslow. Submarine. Wellington: Mākaro Press, 2018. RRP $25.00. 128 pp.

Elizabeth Morton / Michael Steven - Tony Beyer / 297-302:

• Michael Steven. Walking to Jutland Street. Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2018. RRP $27.50. 88 pp.
• Tony Beyer. Anchor Stone. ISBN 978-0-473-341104-6. Lyttelton: Cold Hub Press, 2017. RRP $39.95. 166 pp.

Jack Ross / Dan Davin - Alistair Paterson - Johanna Emeney / 303-13:

• Dan Davin. A Field Officer’s Notebook: Selected Poems. Ed. Robert McLean. Lyttelton: Cold Hub Press, 2018. RRP $29.95. 82 pp.
• Alistair Paterson. Passant: A Journey to Elsewhere. London: Austin Macauley Publishers, 2017. RRP £8.39. 302 pp.
• Johanna Emeney. The Rise of Autobiographical Medical Poetry and the Medical Humanities. Studies in World Literature, 5. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2018. RRP €29.90. 264 pp.

Richard Taylor / Keith Westwater - Peter Rawnsley / 314-20:

• Keith Westwater. No One Home: A Boyhood Memoir in Letters and Poems. Submarine. Wellington: Mākaro Press, 2018. RRP $25.00. 88 pp.
• Peter Rawnsley. Light Cones. Submarine. Wellington: Mākaro Press, 2018. RRP $25.00. 74 pp.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS / 322-40

ABOUT POETRY NEW ZEALAND / 342-43

Samples:

Massey University Press

Poetry New Zealand Index

Poetry New Zealand Website

Reviews & Comments:

1. Anna Bowbyes, Poetry New Zealand Student Poetry Competition Winners. Massey University Press (24/8/18):
   

   
   We are thrilled to announce the winners of the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook Student Poetry Competition, judged by Jack Ross.
   
   To read all the winning entries, click here.
   
   Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone who entered!
   
   The first-prize winners in each category will be published in next year’s edition of Poetry New Zealand Yearbook, publishing in March 2019.”





2. Aorere College Facebook Page (13/9/18):
   

   
   A huge congratulations to Fili Fepulea'i-Tapua'i who has won the Year 11 category of the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook Competition.
   
   Described as “hard-hitting,... from the heart" by competition Judge Jack Ross, Fili's winning poem- "275 Love Letters to Southside" will be published in the 2019 edition of the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook. What an awesome achievement!.







3. Amberleigh's winning way with words. Kuranui College Online Newsletter (19/9/18):
   

   
   Kuranui Deputy Head Girl, Amberleigh Rose, has won first place in the high school section of the Massey University Press Poetry Yearbook competition, designed to foster a love of words.
   
   Amberleigh’s poem entitled Snake’s Tongue is an unconventional poem about love, causing one of the judges to comment in their feedback that they liked it because “It was a bit different and showed wisdom beyond her years”.
   
   “It’s what I call my weirdo poem,” explained Amberleigh. “It’s not straightforward and it twists and flicks, keeping you guessing.”
   
   The poem is going to be in next year’s edition of the yearbook and someday she would like to write a book of poems herself. For Amberleigh, poetry is a passion, especially slam poetry. “I love the way the words feel and their sound, the meaning behind how you speak and what message you’re trying to send.”
   
   Growth, another one of Amberleigh’s poems, was chosen to be a part of Christine Daniell’s ‘Poems Around Town’. The street art project focuses on fostering a love of words. A panel chose poems from Wairarapa to hang up around the community and Amberleigh’s poem has pride of place on the side of the Trust Lands Trust building in Masterton.
   
   Writing comes naturally to Amberleigh, but it wasn’t until she experienced poetry that her creative side really took off. “It was like a key had turned inside me and there was no going back.”
   
   Kuranui’s Head of English, Kathryn Holmes, said her work ethic and natural ability has meant that she has excelled at the college. “However, it is her heart that makes her very special; this adds depth to her poetry which means her message can resonate with the reader.”
   
   Apart from writing poetry, Amberleigh also excels in the sciences and her love of environment and communities has seen her enrol in Canterbury University, where she will study Natural Resource Engineering. “I am interested in making our world a cleaner, better place.”





4. Congratulations Kathryn Briggs. Baradene College of the Sacred Heart (1/11/18):
   

   
   In Term 3, Kathryn's poem "Earth is a star to someone" received 1st place for the Year 12 category of the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook competition run by Massey University. This poem will be published in next year’s edition of 'Poetry New Zealand Yearbook'.
   
   Click here to read 'Earth is a star to someone'.”






5. Nicola Legat, Massey University Press website:
   

   
   A dose of terrific new New Zealand poetry
   
   Poetry New Zealand Yearbook, this country’s longest-running poetry magazine, showcases new writing from New Zealand and overseas. It presents the work of talented newcomers as well as that of established voices. Issue #53 features 130 new poems — including work by this year’s featured poet, Stephanie Christie — essays, and reviews of 30 new poetry collections.
   
   Continually in print since 1951, when it was established by leading poet Louis Johnson, this annual collection of new poetry, reviews and poetics discussion is the ideal way to catch up with the latest poetry from established and emerging New Zealand poets.
   
   Praise for the 2017 edition:

   ‘It’s all too easy to look around at naked bachelors marrying at first sight, and clowns clowning where current affairs used to be, and despair about the state of the world and the taste of the people in it. But then, the Poetry Yearbook turns up again, to show there is still room for sophistication and quality at a reasonable price.’ — Paul Little, North & South

   For a full list of the poets featured in this year’s edition and to read the introduction, click here.

   CATEGORY: Creative arts
   ISBN: 978-0-9951029-6-5
   ESBN: N/A
   PUBLISHER: Massey University Press
   IMPRINT: Massey University Press
   PUBLISHED: 08/03/2019
   PAGE EXTENT: 344
   FORMAT: Soft cover



6. Jesse Mulligan, "1-4." Celebrating New Zealand Poetry (Monday 11 March 2019):
   

   
   

   
   
   Jesse Mulligan 1-4

   
   
   Poetry New Zealand Yearbook's 2019 edition is out now, focusing on Hamilton poet Stephanie Christie, and containing more than 120 poems.
   
   The country's longest-running poetry journal also features the work of young kiwi poets, winners of the inaugural competition for high school students.
   
   Dr Jack Ross, senior lecturer at Massey University and managing editor of Poetry New Zealand, joins us now to give us a taste of what's in the yearbook.
   
   Duration:  12′ 17″



7. Jennifer Little, "New Poetry NZ Yearbook moves in many ways." Voxy.co.nz (Wednesday 13 March 2019):
   

   
   "I feel the most proud of this volume," says Dr Ross, of the fifth consecutive edition of the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook he has edited, not including one as a guest editor some years ago.
   
   He says in the book’s introduction, What makes a poem good?, that being moved emotionally has increasingly become his sense of a successful poem, which may be about something funny, or painful or revealing. "It’s not that I sit here boo-hooing as I read through all the submissions for each issue - but every now and then something in one of them sits up and looks alive, persuades me that something is being worked out here that might be relevant to others simply because it seems so relevant to me."
   
   Mostly, he hopes the book will help to make poetry more visible, more accessible and maybe ignite new interest among a wider, more culturally diverse audience. This edition is his last as editor for the time being - he is handing the editorial reins for the next issue over to Dr Johanna Emeney, a published poet and creative writing lecturer at Massey. He is hoping to be able to devote more time to working on his own writing, with a project in the pipeline to explore his longheld fascination about ghost stories and the psychology behind them.



8. Jennifer Little, "New Poetry NZ Yearbook moves in many ways." Massey News (Wednesday 13 March 2019):
   

   
   

   
   
   Stephanie Christie (5/3/19)

   
   
   Dr Ross, a poet, editor and senior lecturer in the School of English and Media Studies at Massey’s Albany campus, says the task of sifting through over a thousand submissions to choose 130 for the book is formidable as well as a tremendous privilege. Always with an ear tuned for fresh and challenging new voices and views, he has mustered a bracing array of poetry from a diverse set of writers.
   
   From modern probes into religion, romance, love, death and loss to the inner lives of a retail worker, a refugee, a doctor, a drunk – the eclectic mix offers poems in a multitude of forms, including prose pieces. As well as captivating lines by emerging poets there is new work by some of the country’s most respected names, such as New Zealand’s inaugural Poet Laureate Michele Leggott, along with Elizabeth Smither, Emma Neale and Bob Orr. There are dual-text poems too, in Chinese, German, Spanish and te reo Māori, as well as 20 poems and an interview with featured Hamilton poet Stephanie Christie.

   
   
   Fardowsa Mohamed (5/3/19)
   
   
   
   
   
   Michele Leggott (5/3/19)
   
   
   


9. Paula Green, "Poetry Shelf review: Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2019." NZ Poetry Shelf (26 March 2019):
   

   
   Poetry New Zealand Yearbook always offers a substantial selection of poetry. This issue includes essays, reviews and the results of two poetry competitions, along with poems from new and established poets. I started reading the issue – I always dip and dive into literary journals – and made notes, gathering the poems that ‘spoke to me’. But then I hit the rest button and realised I was running on empty post big project. I have lain on a couch for a week and stared at the sky and after the horrendous terrorist event in Christchurch everything feels different. Because everything must be different. What happens when I pick up this journal again with a raucous bust-up of questions in my head: How to live? How to speak? How to connect? How to write a poem? How to run a blog? How to widen us and make room for past, present and future, to celebrate the good things and challenge the rest?
   
   I picked up Poetry New Zealand again and started at the first page. No dipping and diving. Just tracking an alphabet of voices and letting poetry work its magic.



10. Harry Ricketts, "Book review - Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2019." Nine to Noon, with Kathryn Ryan (Tuesday 4 June 2019):
    

    
    

    
    
    Kathryn Ryan: Nine to Noon

    
    
    Harry Ricketts from quarterly review periodical New Zealand Review of Books Pukapuka Aotearoa reviews Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2019. Edited by Jack Ross, this collection is published by Massey University Press.
    
    Duration:  9′ 07″



11. Emma Shi, "Book review: Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2019." The Reader: The Booksellers New Zealand Blog (13 June 2019):
    

    
    I look forward to The Poetry New Zealand Yearbook each year, because it’s so wonderfully filled with all things poetry. It’s also a great way to see the current landscape of New Zealand poetry, with familiar names making an appearance alongside newer poets.
    
    ... I also appreciate the addition of reviews and essays in Poetry New Zealand, since creating discussions about poetry is also a rewarding process that brings new ideas to life. As well as being an important space for the work of New Zealand poets, this new instalment will inspire writers to continue writing and to introduce new methods in their craft.

•


photograph: Mary Paul

Complete Interview:

10 Questions with Jack Ross
Editor of Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2019

This interview appeared on the Massey University Press website on 16th January 2019:

1. Another Poetry New Zealand Yearbook is off to print. What are the strengths of the 2019 edition?

I think this may well be the issue I’m proudest of so far. We have a very strong poetry feature, from one of New Zealand’s most original — though still strangely neglected — poets. We have a nice blend of essays, ranging from the very personal (Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod’s piece on her father’s suicide) to the profoundly learned (Erena Shingade’s analysis of Richard von Sturmer’s Zen poetics). We have deeply considered reviews of a range of recent books. Above all, though, we have a positive cornucopia of poems by hordes of poets old and new. I defy anyone not to find something to like in there.


2. How many submissions were there this time around?

272 email submissions (more or less) , together with 11 mail submissions: averaging four or five poems each — I guess that would add up to something like 1275 poems I had to read through to come up with the 100-odd I was able to include.


3. Was sifting through them to arrive at your shortlist of 126 any less challenging than usual?

No. It always takes far longer than I think it’s going to. First there’s the reading, and the initial winnowing of as few submissions as possible into the ‘potentials’ file. Those few keep on growing and growing, alas, because so many writers send in so many fine poems. Then there’s the final cutting and slashing at the longlist of poems I’d like to put in, designed to transform that category into poems I simply have to include.


4. There’s a great spread of age and experience in this book. Does the number of young writers bode well for poetry in New Zealand?

Well, yes, I think it does. Mind you, the subject matter of their poetry tends to be darker than I would like sometimes — but there’s no denying that the intensity of the emotions these young writers feel tends to concentrate their work amazingly. There’s nothing diffuse or self-indulgent about the best of them. But they seem only too aware that they’ve been doomed to live in interesting times. Franklin Roosevelt said in the 1930s that the generation then coming of age had ‘a rendezvous with destiny’ ahead of them. As it turned out, he was quite right. I can’t help feeling that the same may be true of this generation, too.


5. Why do some poets get two poems?

That’s an interesting one. I guess I start off looking for one poem from each submission, but some writers strong-arm me into taking more than one: the sheer merit of their work demands it. The default setting remains one each, but I can’t deny myself — and our readers — the pleasure of reading two excellent poems if they’re there on the page. It’s certainly got nothing to do with famous names or poetic reputations: just the quality of the work submitted.




Stephanie Christie



6. This year’s featured poet is Stephanie Christie. When did you first come across her and why did you decide to feature her?

I think I first met Stephanie in the early 2000s. I’d seen her work in brief, and had in fact discussed it with the then editor, John Geraets. I didn’t really get it at the time, but he said that she lived in the same apartment block, and had shown him some work and he thought it at the very least worth taking a punt on. But then I heard her read at Poetry Live, and it was quite a revelation. I could see that she understood precisely what she was doing in fragmenting and breaking up her words in such an ostentatious and flamboyant way. I do understand why some readers continue to resist this L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E-influenced approach to poetry, but for myself I’ve long since concluded that her body of work has lasting value. To me, in fact, she’s one of New Zealand’s most unsung and undervalued poets.




Wes Lee



7. Not one but two competitions this year! Tell us about the Poetry New Zealand poetry competition winners announced in this edition.

Yes, two quite different competitions. The first was the usual selection of the most outstanding poems submitted for each year’s issue. It’s an invidious choice, but when I first read Wes Lee’s poem ‘The Things She Remembers #1’, it completely transfixed me. When I heard it had already been accepted for publication elsewhere, I felt quite stricken. Luckily, though, the other magazine didn’t follow through, so I was happy to grab it for our pages. Brett Gartrell’s ‘After the principal calls’ was another strong contender for the top spot. Natalie Modrich’s ‘Retail’ is a bit of a change of pace, but it’s very amusing (it seems so to me, anyway). The winners this year are longer than in previous years: but I felt in each case that they needed that length to create the complex emotions their authors were dealing with.




Fili Fepulea'i-Tapua'i



8. And give us an insight into the student competition entries and winners.

The second competition, for school kids from Years 11, 12 and 13, was a real joy to judge. I chose a winner and three runners-up for each level, and I was spoiled for choice. The first prize winners from each have been included in the issue. There’s nothing naïve or half-formed about these poems, I have to say: they’re strong, confident work, by young writers who have a great deal to say. I hope that this success will help in encouraging each of them to keep writing: these are the kinds of young poets we will need in the future, I feel. I suppose that my personal favourite would have to be Aigagalefili Fepulea‘i-Tapua‘i’s passionate anthem ‘275 Love Letters to Southside’, but I like the slinky sensuality of Amberleigh Rose’s ‘Snake’s Tongue’ and the Joni Mitchell-like idealism of Kathryn Briggs’ ‘Earth is a Star to Someone’ very much also.




Amberleigh Rose





Kathryn Briggs



9. Can you see any sort of shift in content between the time six years ago that you took the helm as editor and this edition?

That’s an interesting question, too. Those first two issues look a bit tentative to me now. I hadn’t quite defined how my version of Poetry New Zealand would differ from Alistair Paterson’s — nor (for that matter) how the look of it might diverge from John Denny’s pared-back layouts. Nor did I realise at that stage that opening up the magazine to online submissions would encourage so many younger – as well as so many international — poets to send in work. The main difference, though, is that the poetics section, the essays and reviews, has grown much more varied and interesting — the poetry section was always strong.


10. Are there poetry books on your beside table at present or something else? What are you reading at the moment?

Well, at present I’m engaged in the rather lengthy task of rereading the greatest of the four classic Chinese novels: the Hung Lou Meng, or Red Chamber Dream (also known as The Story of the Stone). The Penguin translation, which I’m using this time — in preference to the only other complete version in English, from the Beijing Foreign Languages Publishing House — is in five volumes, so you can see that it’s quite an undertaking.

As for poetry, I have to admit that my bedside book right now is Rudyard Kipling’s Complete Poems. I’d always meant to read him all the way through, and the appearance of the new Cambridge edition — a copy of which I found second-hand in a bookshop in Lyttelton — has encouraged me to do so at last. He’s a bit of an acquired taste to those of us brought up on pared-back Modernism, but he’s still surprisingly readable (and really no more reprehensible politically than T. S. Eliot or Ezra Pound ...)

•

Edited: Magazines & Journals

Emma Smith: "Burning phoenix after phoenix"

Contents:

Almanacco dei poeti e della poesia contemporanea:


1. Almanacco dei poeti e della poesia contemporanea 7 (2019). ISBN 9788867922277 [guest feature editor].

Bravado:


2. Bravado: A Literary Arts Magazine 19 (July 2010). ISSN 9-771176-339003 [guest fiction editor].

brief:


3. brief 50 – the projects issue (February 2014) ISSN 1175-9313 [guest editor].
4. brief 32 – Joanna Margaret Paul (Winter 2005) ISSN 1175-9313.
5. A brief index. Supplement 1: 2003-2005. Auckland: The Writers Group, 2005. 20 pp.
6. brief 30 – Kunst / brief 31 - Kultur (Winter / Spring 2004) ISSN 1175-9313.
7. brief 29 – more fun than you’ve ever seen (Summer 2004) ISSN 1175-9313.
8. brief 28 – Alan Brunton (Spring 2003) ISSN 1175-9313.
9. brief 27 – Season of the Remakes (Winter 2003) ISSN 1175-9313.
10. A brief index: 1995-2003. Auckland: The Writers Group, 2003. 48 pp.
11. brief 26 – Smithymania (Summer 2002/3) ISSN 1175-9313.
12. brief 25 – trains at a glance (Spring 2002) ISSN 1175-9313.
13. brief 24 – less formal than bull (Winter 2002) ISSN 1175-9313.

Landfall:


14. Landfall 214 – Open House (November 2007). ISBN 978 1 877372 93 3 [guest editor].

the pander:


15. Pander 9: Crime (November 1999) ISSN 1174-4030 [literature & reviews editor].
16. Pander 8: Oceania (July 1999) ISSN 1174-4030 [literature & reviews editor].
17. Pander 6/7: Capital (March 1999) ISSN 1174-4030 [literature & reviews editor].
18. Pander 5: Pimping (Spring 1998) ISSN 1174-4030 [literature & reviews editor].
19. Pander 4: On the Map (Winter 1998) ISSN 1174-4030 [reviews editor].
20. Pander 3 (Autumn 1998) ISSN 1174-4030 [reviews editor].

Poetry NZ:


21. Poetry NZ Yearbook 2019 (March 2019). ISBN 978-0-9951029-6-5.
22. Poetry NZ Yearbook 2018 (March 2018). ISBN 978-0-9941473-3-2.
23. Poetry NZ Yearbook 2017 (March 2017). ISBN 978-0-9941363-5-0.
24. Poetry NZ Yearbook 2 (November 2015). ISSN 0114-5770.
25. Poetry NZ Yearbook 1 (October 2014). ISSN 0114-5770.
26. Poetry NZ 38 (March 2009). ISSN 0114-5770 [guest editor].

Spin:


27. Spin 45 (March 2003) ISSN 0113-8227.
28. Spin 42 (March 2002) ISSN 0113-8227.
29. Spin 39 (March 2001) ISSN 0113-8227.
30. Spin 36 (March 2000) ISSN 0113-8227.
31. Spin 33 (March 1999) ISSN 0113-8227.

Tongue in Your Ear:


32. Tongue in Your Ear 8 (2005) ISBN 0-476-01439-5 [co-editor, with James Crompton, Ingrid Joachim & Judith McNeil].
33. Tongue in Your Ear 7 (July 2003) ISBN 0-473-09619-6 [co-editor, with Gregory Brimblecombe, Ingrid Joachim & Judith McNeil].
34. Tongue in Your Ear 5 (July 2001) ISBN 0-473-07813-9 [co-editor, with Ingrid Joachim, Judith McNeil & Nik Smythe].

•

[2019]: Almanacco dei poeti e della poesia contemporanea 7 (2019). ISBN 9788867922277 [guest feature editor].

France - Nouvelle Zelande (1925)

Almanacco dei poeti e della poesia contemporanea n. 7 (2019)
A cura di Walter Raffaelli e Gianfranco Lauretano

SOMMARIO

QUADERNO 1: EUROPA - OLANDA
LA PIÙ PROFONDA DELLE PIANURE
PAESAGGI NELLA POESIA NEERLANDESE (a cura di Giuseppe Cocomazzi)
Gerrit Achterberg, Willem van Toorn, Rutger Kopland,
Jan Eijkelboom, Astrid Lampe

QUADERNO 2: LAVORI
Marco Antonio Campos (Poesie inedite tradotte da E. Coco)
Daniel Mark Epstein (a cura di S. Dubrovic)
Gianni Darconza (a cura di W. Raffaelli)
Wiel Kusters (a cura di W. Raffaelli - traduzioni di F. Paris e M. Prandoni)
Tat’jana Grauz (a cura di P. Galvagni)
Diego Valverde Villena (traduzioni di E. Coco)
Rafael Soler (Poesie inedite tradotte da E. Coco)
Valerio Grutt (a cura di W. Raffaelli)
Raquel Lanseros (a cura di G. Darconza)
Ben Clark (a cura di G. Darconza)
Mauro Ferrari (a cura di G. Lauretano)
Delilah Gutman (a cura di W. Raffaelli)
Antonio Machado (a cura di G. Darconza)
Felipe García Quintero (a cura di W. Raffaelli - traduzioni di E. Coco)
Jessica Freudenthal Ovando (a cura di W. Raffaelli - traduzioni di E. Coco)

Poeti italiani che non scivono in italiano (a cura di Gianfranco Lauretano)
Francesco Gabellini, Remigio Bertolino, Fulvio Segato,
Edoardo Zuccato

QUADERNO 3: SEGNALAZIONI
L'IMPREVISTO DELLA POESIA
(Sei giovani poeti italiani presentati da Isabella Leardini)
Matthias Ferrino, Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto, Lorenzo Babini,
Alessandro Anil, Valeria Cagnazzo, Ivonne Mussoni

QUADERNO 4: CALABRIAv VIAGGIO MERIDIANO 3 - di Gianfranco Lauretano
Ottavio Rossani, Alessandro Quattrone, Daniela Pericone,
Alfredo Panetta, Angela Caccia, Daniel Cundari

QUADERNO 5: INTERCONTINENTALE - NEW ZEALAND
POESIA CONTEMPORANEA NEOZELANDESE
(a cura di Marco Sonzogni, Leonardo Guzzo e Jack Ross)
Aimee-Jane Anderson-O’Connor, Fardowsa Mohamed,
Hamish Ansley, Elizabeth Morton, Stu Bagby, Charles Olsen,
Tony Beyer, Hayden Pyke, Semira Davis, Essa May Ranapiri,
Johanna Emeney, Vaughan Rapatahana,
Aigagalefili Fepulea’i-Tapua’i, Emma Shi, Natalie Modrich,
John Tarlton

Samples:

MediumPoesia

•

[2019]: Poetry NZ Yearbook 2019 (March 2019). ISBN 978-0-9951029-6-5.

Samples:

Massey University Press

Poetry New Zealand Index

Works & Days

•

[2018]: Poetry NZ Yearbook 2018 (March 2018). ISBN 978-0-9941473-3-2.

Samples:

Massey University Press

Poetry New Zealand Index

Works & Days

•

[2017]: Poetry NZ Yearbook 2017 (March 2017). ISBN 978-0-9941363-5-0.

Samples:

Massey University Press

Poetry New Zealand Index

Works & Days

•

[2015]: Poetry NZ Yearbook 2 (November 2015). ISSN 0114-5770.

Samples:

Poetry New Zealand Index

Works & Days

•

[2014]: Poetry NZ Yearbook 1 (October 2014). ISSN 0114-5770.

Samples:

Poetry New Zealand Index

Works & Days

•

[2014]: brief 50 - the projects issue (February 2014). ISSN 1175-9313 [guest editor].

Samples:

Works & Days

•

[2010]: Bravado: A Literary Arts Magazine 19 (July 2010). ISSN 9-771176-339003 [guest fiction editor].

Samples:

Bravado

•

[2009]: Poetry NZ 38 (March 2009). ISSN 0114-5770 [guest editor].

Samples:

Works & Days

•

[2007]: Landfall 214 – Open House (November 2007). ISBN 978 1 877372 93 3 [guest editor].

Samples:

Works & Days

•

[2005]: brief 32 – Joanna Margaret Paul (Winter 2005) ISSN 1175-9313.

Samples:

brief

Reviews & Comments:

1. Alistair Paterson. "Books and magazines in brief." Poetry NZ 32 (2006): 107.
   

   
   Issue 32 offers tributes to, and work by, Joanna Margaret Paul (1945-2003), ‘one of [NZ’s] most original poets, a painter and artist in the fullest sense of the term,’ tragically ‘drowned in broad daylight in the busiest tourist site in Rotorua, the Polynesian Pools’ – a sad loss to New Zealand literature. This special issue of brief does well to lament her death and celebrate her life. It serves as an exemplar to the value and appreciation we should accord writers of Paul’s quality but seldom do.

•

[2005]: A brief index. Supplement 1: 2003-2005. Auckland: The Writers Group, 2005. 20 pp.

Samples:

brief

•

[2005]: Tongue in Your Ear 8 (2005) ISBN 0-476-01439-5 [co-editor, with James Crompton, Ingrid Joachim & Judith McNeil].

•

[2004]: brief 30 – Kunst / brief 31 - Kultur (Winter / Spring 2004) ISSN 1175-9313.

Samples:

brief (30)

brief (31)

Reviews & Comments:

1. Alistair Paterson. "Books and magazines in brief." Poetry NZ 30 (2005): 108.
   

   
   Brief and its editor hold an important place in pushing the range of reader experience closer to the limits of poetic practice and in offering writers an extensive range of work that can assist them with their own writing should they wish it. Perhaps more importantly, there’s a cosmopolitan atmosphere about the magazine that reflects the eclectic taste of an editor, who doesn’t let his personal predilections cut off worthwhile poets who might otherwise be excluded.



2. Emma Neale. "Introduction." Best New Zealand Poems 2004 (31/3/05).
   

   
   (... I hope that readers will excuse me, as I step slightly outside the website’s frame) editor Jack Ross at brief, and Riemke Ensing as envoy, must share the accolade for publishing if not the best, then the most important poem this year. That prize must go to the chain of versions of Ahmed Zaoui’s ‘In a Dream’ (brief 31, Spring 2004); of which the most successful, to my mind, is the version given by Ensing herself.

•

[2004]: brief 29 – more fun than you’ve ever seen (Summer 2004) ISSN 1175-9313.

Samples:

brief

•

[2003]: brief 28 – Alan Brunton (Spring 2003) ISSN 1175-9313.

Samples:

brief

•

[2003]: brief 27 – Season of the Remakes (Winter 2003) ISSN 1175-9313.

Samples:

brief

•

[2003]: Tongue in Your Ear 7 (July 2003) ISBN 0-473-09619-6 [co-editor, with Gregory Brimblecombe, Ingrid Joachim & Judith McNeil].

•

[2003]: Spin 45 (March 2003) ISSN 0113-8227.

Reviews & Comments:

1. Gerald England. New Hope International Review On-line (10/8/03).
   

   
   Spin has the look of an slightly unpretentious little magazine, but is in fact quite sprightly.
   
   On front and back covers are b&w photographs by Michael Dean taken in Cyprus. The back one shows a pair of sunglasses on a table across which lies the shadow of a branch and beyond is a seemingly deserted lane, but tyre-tracks tell of recent traffic. The cover shows a picture of a plaster life-size figure of a fullsome female, nude but for a drapery across her thighs, propped up against a telegraph post, binbags at her feet, in front of a café called The Useless Take Away.

•

[2003]: A brief index: 1995-2003. Auckland: The Writers Group, 2003. 48 pp.

Samples:

brief

•

[2003]: brief 26 – Smithymania (Summer 2002/3) ISSN 1175-9313.

Samples:

brief

•

[2002]: brief 25 – trains at a glance (Spring 2002) ISSN 1175-9313.

Samples:

brief

•

[2002]: brief 24 – less formal than bull (Winter 2002) ISSN 1175-9313.

Samples:

brief

•

[2002]: Spin 42 (March 2002) ISSN 0113-8227.

•

[2001]: Tongue in Your Ear 5 (July 2001) ISBN 0-473-07813-9 [co-editor, with Ingrid Joachim, Judith McNeil & Nik Smythe].

•

[2001]: Spin 39 (March 2001) ISSN 0113-8227.

Reviews & Comments:

1. Tim Scannell. "Journeyman." Small Press Review 342 (July-August 2001): 22-23.
   

   
   There are 54 poems and a dozen short reviews in this – largely – journeyman poetry journal. The bulk of the poems are narratives of recalled memory (slow-motion crescendos of incident and character trait); yet the idiosyncratic stanzic patterns are refreshing – interesting to read. The real power, however, blooms (bright petals all) from intense and short lyrics, as in “What about” – by Alice Hooton: “the stillborn child/ the groundsman/ cleaning his spade// the doctor/ driving home to/ an empty house// the woman/ in a padded cell/ crying down evening.”



2. Tim Scannell. Katnip Reviews 11 (2002): 22.
   

   
   I do advise American poets to subscribe to a few offshore publications, recommending ZineZone (England) and Riposte (Ireland); and here give a qualified nod to this poetry journal from the antipodes ($7 buck/copy is high, but one knows it is mostly postage).

•

[2000]: Spin 36 (March 2000) ISSN 0113-8227.

Reviews & Comments:

1. Wayne Edwards. Small Press Review 334-5 (November-December 2000): 18.
   

   
   The work ranges from Jill Chan’s short and somewhat choppy “Image” to the languid and oddly-themed “A Clearer View of the Hinterlands’ by Jack Ross. Often edgy and occasionally rather harsh, Spin is an excellent starting place and sounding board for contemporary poetic endeavour.

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[1999]: Pander 9: Crime (November 1999) ISSN 1174-4030 [literature & reviews editor].

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[1999]: Pander 8: Oceania (July 1999) ISSN 1174-4030 [literature & reviews editor].

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[1999]: Spin 33 (March 1999) ISSN 0113-8227.

Reviews & Comments:

1. Don Hoyt. "Web Writers’ Workshop." Ol’ Muddy: Journals, Mags, Zines . [http://www.webwritersworkshop.com] (24/2/2000).
   

   
   New Zealand’s most challenging literary journal contains 59 “norm bursting” poems by english language writers from the islands and beyond. How B. Z. Niditch of Massachusetts got in here, is a mystery.

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[1999]: Pander 6/7: Capital (March 1999) ISSN 1174-4030 [literature & reviews editor].

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[1998]: Pander 5: Pimping (Spring 1998) ISSN 1174-4030 [literature & reviews editor].

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[1998]: Pander 4: On the Map (Winter 1998) ISSN 1174-4030 [reviews editor].

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[1998]: Pander 3 (Autumn 1998) ISSN 1174-4030 [reviews editor].

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