Shipwrecks/Shelters (2018)

Jack Ross, ed.: Poetry NZ Yearbook 2018 (March 2018)

Books and Magazines in brief:

Shipwrecks/Shelters: Six Contemporary Greek Poets / Ναυάγια/Καταφύγια: Έξι Σύγχρονοι Έλληνες Ποιητές. With Lena Kallergi, Theodore Chiotis, Phoebe Giannisi, Patricia Kolaiti, Vassilis Amanatidis & Katerina Iliopoulou. Ed. & trans. Vana Manasiadis. ISBN 978-0-9941345-4-7. Seraph Press Translation Series No. 1. Wellington: Seraph Press, 2016. RRP $25. 40 pp.

Vana Manasiadis (ed.): Shipwrecks/Shelters (2016)

At the Auckland launch of this book, editor and translator Vana Manasiadis made no secret of its connections with the catastrophic – and yet, it seemed, strangely inspiring – political via dolorosa of contemporary Greece.

And certainly it seems as if once again Greece is at the forefront of the most burning issues of our time: not just the imminent collapse of the economic underpinning of our post-Cold War world, but its direct corollary, the refugee crisis.

Shipwrecks, or shelters, then? The six poets Manasiadis has selected to translate do not appear to present a concensus: their personal dramas of love and loss are enacted in spaces which seem continually undermined by history: ‘An island doesn’t stop being deserted simply because it is inhabited’, is the quote (from Deleuze) Theodore Chiotis has chosen to put it at the opening of his own poem ‘21’:

The body carves a path which at first seems unfamiliar, then familiar, and a long time after, threatening.

If I had a criticism, it would be that there is not really enough space given to each of them here, what with dual texts and notes and prefaces and all, to enable us to get a clear sense of where these six writers are going individually – how they measure up against one another.

It’s a tribute to the fascinating nature of the materials Manasiadis has assembled, though, to have to complain that one’s principal desire is for more: perhaps even a book twice the length of this one!<

(9-10/9/17)

Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2018. ISBN 978-0-9941473-3-2 (March 2018): 334.

[295 wds]


Poetry NZ Yearbook 2018


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Signals 5 (2018)

Jack Ross, ed.: Poetry NZ Yearbook 2018 (March 2018)

Books and Magazines in brief:

Signals: A Literary Journal 5 (2016). Ed. Ros Ali & Johanna Emeney. ISBN 978-0-473-37760-1. Devonport: Michael King Writers’ Centre, 2016. 110 pp.

Ros Ali & Johanna Emeney (ed.): Signals 5 (2016)

So Signals has reached its fifth (annual) issue! Ros Ali and Johanna Emeney have done a remarkable job of maintaining the freshness and exuberance of this journal stocked by, and for, the young writers who’ve attended and been inspired by the workshops run by the Michael King Writers’ Centre in Devonport.

The book has been beautifully – and spaciously – designed by Sarah Laing. Its real strength is the contents, though. While it’s invidious to choose particular pieces for praise, I can’t bring myself not to mention such stories as Radhika Lodhia’s ‘You cannot wear my skin’:

I tiptoe around the aggressor; as though walking on eggshells;, saying men but ‘not all men,’ saying white people but ‘not all white people,’ … I hold myself back. But I wish. God. I wish. That I didn’t have to.

or such poems as Britt Clark’s ‘Walk Me Home’:

It is 4.45 on a School day, Mount Eden
The school is called NORMAL
But we don’t feel it

This is a wonderful collection. Here’s to five more years of such treats to come!

(9-10/9/17)

Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2018. ISBN 978-0-9941473-3-2 (March 2018): 335.

[200 wds]


Poetry NZ Yearbook 2018


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The Trials of Minnie Dean (2018)

Jack Ross, ed.: Poetry NZ Yearbook 2018 (March 2018)

Books and Magazines in brief:

Karen Zelas. The Trials of Minnie Dean: A Verse Biography. ISBN 978-0-9941299-9-4. Submarine. Wellington: Mākaro Press, 2017. RRP $25. 196 pp.

Karen Zelas: The Trials of Minnie Dean (2017)

This is a very strange book indeed. Even its author refers to it, in her acknowledgements, as a ‘rather idiosyncratic work,’ and is careful to admit her indebtedness to Lynley Hood’s ‘excellent biography’ Minnie Dean: Her Life & Crimes.

But surely Zelas must be mistaken when she refers to a 1985 review she wrote of Hood’s book? 1985 was indeed the date of Ken Catran’s book (and TV series) Hanlon: A Casebook, on Alf Hanlon, Minnie Dean’s Defence Counsel, but Hood’s biography did not appear – to considerable acclaim (as well as controversy) – until 1994.

Both Catran and Hood are sympathetic to Dean (though they fill in the more debatable details of her background very differently). So, too, is Zelas.

But is a verse biography the best medium for assessing the case for and against the only woman ever to be hanged in New Zealand? It’s hard to say, really. Certainly a close reading of Hood’s biography is excellent preparation for seeing precisely what Zelas has done with the story.

I’m not sure that the same could be said to apply in reverse, but it’s certainly true that the story maintains its fascination and allure in this new form, and – after all – 1994 is (now) a long time ago.

Was Dean guilty of anything meriting the punishment she received? The concensus from Catran, Hood, and now Zelas would seem to be ‘no’. Many people in Southland, and elsewhere, remain unconvinced to this day, however.

On the principle of extending the benefit of the doubt and judging not lest one be judged, it would be hard not to congratulate Zelas on opening up this awkwardly revealing case once more. After all, it could hardly be more relevant to a country with so shocking a record of abusing and terrorising its young. Conspiracies of silence and unexamined evidence seem to be the best way of guaranteeing the continuation of all that. Zelas, to her great credit, has decided to face the issue head on.<

(9-10/9/17)

Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2018. ISBN 978-0-9941473-3-2 (March 2018): 336.

[352 wds]


Poetry NZ Yearbook 2018


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