I'm reading for takahē this week, around 340 poems. Last month I read around 1,300 poems for the 2018 New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology. I've read a lot of free verse. I've read a lot of poems about the New Zealand landscape, seascape. Don't get me wrong, I l love free verse, I love the landscape ... loss ... love. But the poems that stand out are the ones that experiment; they have a confident voice, they use irony, they play with tone. The form is exactly right for the content. I get to the end of them and sigh. Or I get to the end of them and I don't know what it is that has made me shiver. They're complex. They don't tell. They're mysterious. I have to read them again. And again. And then I throw my arms up in the air and close my eyes and say, Jesus, that was good.

That's what happened when I read the winning poem for the NZPS competition, Bogusia Wardein's "Bathing in Melancholy", judged by Anne French. I didn't get it on the first reading. But some of the lines were jumping out at me: 'The use of the word rainy is deliberate. There is a reference to / Democritus in the poem. I recall he plucked out his eyes / in order to think ...'. It made me want to go back and read it again. And again. And then the bathing in melancholy of the title struck me. This was more than about writing poetry. 'I am writing for God'. What a god-awful thing to do, but here is she, here we all are, doing it. This is a winning poem all right. It captures the paradox at the heart of all good poetry, the universal dilemma in the particular experience. It's a hard thing to pull off. And I think it's achieved through craft -- playing with and refining the ideas that originate in language. Noticing the way language shapes our experience and then experimenting with shape, form, sound to re-new that experience, make new. Surprise.

You'll be able to read all of Bogusia's poem in November when the new anthology is launched. Read the judge's report here.

I've done a lot of submitting new poems this year. 15 of those submissions (usually there are three or four poems in each submission) I've heard back from, 11 declined, 4 acceptances. And that doesn't count the manuscript submissions, all of which have been rejected. It's hard work and there are way more rejections than I'd like, but sometimes it pays off. One of submission I made earlier in the year was to Hungry Hill Writing for their annual poetry competition; there were prizes and the winning and shortlisted poems are anthologised.

I actually wrote "Me too" for a Rattle Poetry competition in response to a news item (pretty big one, wasn't it, the #MeToo movement!). The poem originated in an exercise in one of Joanna Preston's poetry workshops (I've written about those before). We had to choose a line of poetry -- I chose a line from Maggie Smith's poem "Good Bones" -- and then you had to end each line of your new poem with a word from the original line -- sort of like a acrostic poem in reverse. The actual name for this kind of poem is called 'a golden shovel'. I was pretty pleased with the result. Rattle in the US didn't choose it (one of my rejections) so I sent it to Hungry Hill in Ireland. It came third.

And another poem "The same day we discovered the existence of a new human organ", basically about human ignorance, was shortlisted in the same competition. That's the way it goes. Some judges like your style. This judge was Emily Wills, UK poet. I haven't been placed in a competition out of New Zealand before and I can tell you it's a pretty nice feeling to think someone outside your normal sphere of existence might enjoy something you've written. I'll take that.

I belong to the South Island Writers’ Association (SIWA). I joined SIWA around 12 years ago, and was chair for three of those years, including the 50 year anniversary. Last month I was able to do a feature for Flash Frontieron some of the flash-fiction writers at SIWA. Thank you to the wonderful Michelle Elvy at Flash Frontier, who has kindly allowed me to reprint most of it here. The lead interview is with Rata Ingram, my daughter, but not because she's my daughter! but because as a member of SIWA, she won the SIWA competition that featured in National Flash Fiction Day event, Flash in the Pan 2017.

SIWA boasts Dame Ngaio Marsh as its first patron, and it is a lively group of writers based in Christchurch who meet once a month to take part in member competitions, open-mikes and discussions on the craft of writing and issues related to publishing. Our judges and speakers have included Michelle Elvy, Frankie McMillan, Joanna Preston, Bernadette Hall, Paul Cleave and Elizabeth Knox, to name a few.

Some members' names you might recognise if you are active in the NZ writing scene are Rachel Smith, Celine Gibson, Karen Zelas, Barbara Strang, Sue Kingham, Jenna Heller, Zöe Meager, Jeni Curtis, Jane Seaford, Shirley Eng and Sam Averis.

Last year, our youngest member Rata Ingram won the SIWA 2017 flash fiction competition and read her story at Christchurch’s Flash in the Pan. Her interview, story and related artwork are featured below, along with Sally Carroll’s story, which came second, and a story from the current chairperson, Céline Gibson.

For more about SIWA and how to join, visit the website. I recommend it for meeting other writers and keeping up your craft!

Interview: Rata Ingram, SIWA flash fiction competition winner

Winner of the South Island Writers’ Association (SIWA) Flash Fiction Competition 2017, Rata Ingram, chats to Céline Gibson, Flash Frontier contributor and Otago Regional Winner of National Flash Fiction Day 2015.

Céline Gibson: Biggest congrats, Rata on winning 1st place in the South Island Writers’ Association Flash Fiction Competition 2017, held to coincide with National Flash Fiction Day 2017. Your flash Verus Amicus Cognoscitur is a tender, touching flash on friendship. It felt to this reader to be a piece written to laud and celebrate that fragile gift that is true friendship. Was that the inspiration behind the flash?

Rata Ingram: Yeah, in a way. It was also about – well, I guess at the time I was feeling quite lonely. I think that as writers we tend to base some stories on people we know, or people who have made an impression on our lives, so this story was based on a friend; this friend was there for me when I needed a shoulder.

CG: The way you have chosen to structure the story is unusual – the breaking down of the word ‘amore’ letter by letter. Was this form something you envisioned from the outset, or did the idea suggest itself to you as the story progressed?

RI: I subscribe to an email newsletter called A.Word.a.Day and, true to their name, that’s what they do – send out a vocabulary word each day. They have a theme every week, and at the time, the theme was words that by removing the first letter would still be a word. They gave as an example Virgil’s quote: Verus amicus amore, more, ore, re cognoscitur, which translates into “You can recognize a true friend by their affection, behaviour, words and deeds”. A great Latin example of taking letters off words and making new words. I was really taken by the quote and structured my story around that. It’s meaningful to the story as well – the erasure of letters reflects the character’s need to erase the ‘black marks.’

CG: In the Ore section of your flash, I love the two simple but heart-rending passages of dialogue:

“I know I’m supposed to feel dread,” she said, “But fear is in my hands, not my heart or my head. My cuticles are bleeding.”

“Take this tissue,” he said.

There is much hinted at here about the bond between these two characters without overwriting it. How important is it to trust in your readers to ‘get it’ without resorting to the dreaded ‘signposting’?

RI: It’s very important! It’s that whole maxim of what makes for good writing – show don’t tell. That’s what teachers remind us of from when we first lift a pencil, and they’re right. I’m a fan of mystery stories, and simply put, if everything was spelt out, there’d be no mystery. If you make all the details explicit, the story becomes less relatable, less gripping.

CG: For those readers not overfamiliar with Latin, what is the significance of the title to the theme of your flash? I’ve read a few flashes where, for me, the piece was let down by the title. Your title, however, is a triumph – a mini masterpiece in itself. Was your flash fashioned from the title, or was the title born from the flash?

RI: It’s half of the quote – a true friend is known– and I used the other half for the sub-headings that structure the flash. So, in essence, my flash was fashioned from the title. The title was a gift in many ways! Latin has this dark, antiquated mood to it, which reflects how the character is feeling – the trying to make sense of something that they don’t necessarily understand.

CG: When did you first come across the genre of flash fiction? What is its attraction for you as a young writer in the 21st century?

RI: It would have been a SIWA competition. SIWA has introduced me to a whole raft of genres that I would never have come across otherwise. Discovering flash has been a twofold opportunity in that I not only found out about this whole new genre, but that I also get to now experiment and play with it.

I think my flashes are basically of a poetic nature, because they don’t have much plot – they’re exploring a moment, and in relating to the 21st century it makes sense, because we’re very much in this digital age where life seems more fragmented and fast paced – think of twitter, where you only get 280 characters to express your thoughts to the world. Flash keeps me disciplined in writing short but punchy pieces.

CG: You’re a member of the South Island Writers’ Association (SIWA) which was founded by Dame Ngaio Marsh in 1963. How important is it, do you think, for writers to be part of groups like this? Has your continued involvement with SIWA grown or influenced your writing?

RI: Fitting writing around your life is difficult and can tend to have you NOT getting around to it, but if you have a deadline, you have something to work towards. SIWA’s monthly members’ competitions are good for this. Also, you get feedback from judges, which is really beneficial; you get to explore different genres, and best of all you get to meet other writers doing amazing things.

Being part of SIWA has definitely influenced my writing. I’ve learnt so much from our Outhouse judges – all renowned local and national writers – and from my fellow writers who sometimes give a talk at the meetings. Having the opportunity to judge a competition myself – a blog with the theme ‘10 Things’ – gave me more insight as to how we write. And I would say that in my role as newsletter editor of SIWA, my involvement with it has definitely grown.

CG: It can’t help but be noticed that when you attend SIWA meetings, you often come dressed as a character – which we love, by the way – but what’s that about?

RI: Apart from the fact that it’s fun to do, I’m really just trying to reflect the different shoes that writers reside in.

CG: I think Myrtle was my favourite.

RI: Thank you.

CG: Has there been any literary inspirational figure/s in your life, Rata?

RI: I like the writing of Janet Frame – her playing with words and her sideways insight into the world… it’s possibly something that my character has in Verus Amicus Cognoscitur.

The image I have included was inspired from a passage by Janet Frame’s book Faces in the Water, and the style of Buck Nin’s The Mamakus. You’ll notice black marks (almost resembling bars or needles) and these black marks also feature in my story, as a metaphor (or a reality) of isolation.

CG: Finally, what lies ahead for you in your writing career?

RI: I want to continue to grow and develop my writing, obviously. Long-term… I would like to make a collection of thematically similar short stories, poems, flashes and essays. I think I’m building that up now in my writing, anyway. It wouldn’t be a book in the conventional sense because of its collage type of structure, but I think New Zealand is okay with that now – thanks to young writers like Ashleigh Young and Hera Lindsay Bird who challenge the traditional book forms.

SOME WRITING FROM THE SOUTH ISLAND WRITERS ...

'Verus Amicus Cognoscitur' by Rata Ingram

Amore / love It’d been a while since she’d seen anyone real. She stayed in the room with the sea-green walls and the skirting board that was exactly the height of her hand. When she heard footsteps from down the hall she stopped smoothing the black marks and peered out from where she had crept, under the bed. The door flinched. He walked in carrying the bulbous red mug, the only one she would drink from, full of hot tea. A teardrop of milk slid down the side.

More / acts The tea was hot but she was thirsty. She wrapped her fingers around the mug and pressed tightly until her nailbeds turned white and she couldn’t feel her fingertips. He laid a hand over hers and she heard the rasp of skin among the static grazing the corners of her ears.

Ore / words She wanted to wait for him to say something but it was her turn to speak. He cared about the symmetry of dialogue. She would speak, then he.

“I know I’m supposed to feel dread,” she said. “But fear is in my hands, not my heart or my head. My cuticles are bleeding.”

“Take this tissue,” he said.

The symmetry meant she tried to fit too much into her sentences, and they became tangential, like some German professor talking amicably to a blackboard, grammar uncannily tacked onto the ends of things. Now she had nothing. She’d abandoned words but was not alone from them.

Re / facts “Can you help me clean the marks on the walls?” she asked.

“I will. I’ll bandage your hands and you can show me where they are.”

He wanted to help her eradicate them. She pointed, and he took a cloth to the clean paintwork. He hoped they weren’t quite real yet.

'That’s My Girl' by Sally Carroll

Behind our garage there’s dirt like crap. My school skirt is covered in wet, clay shit. I’m hiding, listening for Dad’s footsteps… he’ll be in one hell of a mood until he sobers up. Then he’ll admire my guts for standing up for Mum. He taught me. I’d put my fists up to his face, play-fighting, “Get your knuckles straight,” he’d say, “That’s my girl.”

I got him good. I was ironing my new dress from the Sallies when I heard Mum scream. I grabbed the iron and blasted into the kitchen. My pissed Dad was forcing Mum’s hand over the stove, over a hot element, yelling, “Where’s the sixty bucks?” He turned letting Mum go, his eyes wide. He lifted his fist at me. I plunged. I slammed the iron at his chest. “Jesus,” he hollered rushing to the cold tap. I dropped the iron and ran.

I can’t hear footsteps. I’ll sneak into the house and grab the forty bucks stuffed under the ironing board. I hid it there after shopping at the Sallies. Fish n’ chips will be good, and some cigs and mixes. My phone… it’s a text… ‘What’s the yelling?’ it says. Shit. It’s from Tim. He’s on the street. No way he’ll enter my property cos’ he hates my parents. His parents have jobs and everything. If he posts stuff on Facebook about Dad’s yelling and Mum’s screaming… I don’t care if he’s my boyfriend… I’ll belt him one.

He’s sitting on the neighbour’s fence. I shrug when he asks me about the screaming. He puts on his I don’t believe you look. I let him know.

“We’ve just finished having fish n’ chips for dinner, crumbed blue cod, not that shark shit your family has.”

'Christmas Saboteur' by Céline Gibson

They bustled into the bedroom and settled on the shag-pile to watch her antics from the far side of the bed.

With the flourish of a magician, parcels of brown paper, roughly bound with string, were whisked from behind a sheet, then lobbed across the room. “For you, for you, and for you.” Feverish fingers tugged at bows.

“We’re having Christmas dinner out this year,” she said, whizzing the last brown parcel across the paisley eiderdown.

They envisioned a fancy restaurant, their best clothes, waitresses hovering with pads and pencils.

“Victoria Park,” she said. “Sandwiches and a thermos.”

Their beaks parted. Tiny, choky chirps about the worst Christmas, ever. No festive paper; no Christmas tree cleverly studded with cotton-wool balls to replicate snow; no naked dolly in the laundry basket masquerading as Baby Jesus. Mean old Mummy, out to sabotage Christmas.

Their father poked a hole in his parcel. “Lovely – Old Spice … again.” He plodded to the bathroom and shut the door. Poor Daddy!

At Victoria Park she reprised her magician role, producing ham-and-mustard sandwiches, tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs from a chilly-bin.

Daddy stretched out in his deck-lounger, took a sip from his beer can. The chicks admired their Christmas sandals while pecking at their sandwiches. Mummy shook her wrist to admire the charms on her bracelet – a ladybird, shamrock, apple, anchor and number 13.

Her brood watched her slice into the Christmas cake. Mummy was so pretty; Daddy was so happy. This was the best Christmas, ever.

I was lucky e

Gail Ingram: Tēnā koe, Anton. You are a terrific advocate of indigenous writing in Aotearoa, a publisher of two volumes of Māori poetry, and editor of New Zealand’s only Māori literary journal, the fabulous Ora Nui. Can you tell us about what inspired you – first, to publish the collection of poetry written by your mother For someone I love – a collection of writing by Arapera Blank, and second, to establish New Zealand’s only journal of Māori writing Ora Nui?

Anton Blank: While Arapera is a very important writer in the Māori literary canon, she is less well known than some who followed. Her love affair with my father Pius Blank is very central to her writing. I wanted to publish something unique which captured the power of her writing, and gave an insider’s view of her life. It had to be very intimate, and beautiful, because beauty is a recurring theme in her poetry. I also wanted to move away from a strident political statement. The politics are there but they are carried by the beauty of the prose and images.

Being gay and very integrated into mainstream New Zealand culture, I have always struggled to see myself in Māori texts, which tend to reduce Māori masculinity to a few hackneyed stereotypes. There is a preference for hyper-masculinity which we see at its most exaggerated in kapa haka, and a priviledging of age, with older males being most revered. Arapera bucked against these traditions and I have inherited her healthy disregard for the Māori patriarchy.

I established Ora Nui to increase the range of experiences in Māori literature. There is some really good contemporary Māori writing out there, which situates Māori tradition in the broader context of urban environs and globalisation. For me this is the realistic representation of the Māori experience. Jean Riki and Reihana Robinson, for example, weave their identity into long form prose that investigates global concerns. This is Māori literature at its most exciting.

GI: Issue 2 of Ora Nui was a collaboration with the First Nations Australia Writers’ Network. What were your reasons for collaborating? What differences did you notice between the writing of the two groups as a collective? Similarities?

AB: Issue 3 of Ora Nui takes this idea even further by including contributions from writers in Asia and Europe. By limiting the contributions to Māori writers, we get a closed, internally-focused discussion. I believe that as indigenous people, we have a lot to say about identity. Our cultural intelligence can and should inform broader discussions about diversity.

Māori and Aboriginal have a shared experience of colonisation which played out very differently in the two settings. The physical landscape of the two countries is also different. So while the pain and grief of colonisation is present in both Māori and Aboriginal literature, the narratives and language are different, and specific to time and place. This is evident in Ora Nui 2.

Issue 4 of Ora Nui, which we will begin working on later this year, will be a collaboration with indigenous Taiwanese writers. The theory of the Austronesian migration posits that Māori migrated originally from Taiwan, through the Pacific, to Aotearoa. I want to shine a spotlight on this aspect of our history, and reflect on what this means as Asians continue to migrate to Aotearoa New Zealand.

GI: What are your feelings about creating a written record of Māori stories and poems in an oral tradition? Do you feel as though you are forging a new path, given that at least in the English literary tradition there seems to be a difference in the kind of work that’s performed orally versus the written variety?

AB:I hear this question asked a lot and I find it a little bit annoying. It assumes Māori don’t have a literary tradition.

Māori have been literate for over 150 years now. I love writing, my sister and I are both writers, a gift inherited from Arapera. My mother loved Keats and Shakespeare. My uncle Wi Kuki, an actor, also loved English literature. I’m more influenced by the beatniks and post-modernists. So who owns literature now? We all do.

It’s not one or the other, it’s both. Oral and written traditions help us retain and develop our culture. We have to be open to change and new modes of communication.

GI: I found the cover art for Ora Nui mesmerizing – beautiful, powerful, political. Paula Green, on reviewing Ora Nui Issue 3, describes the journal as ‘a symphonic treat of art and writing’. Do you give your artists a brief? What role do you want the art to play in the journal? Do you have a favourite artist?

AB: I have tried giving Ora Nui a theme but it doesn’t work; people don’t write to brief. With the open submissions process, we get a sense of the current concerns of Māori literature. I wanted the images to provide pauses in the text, and be moments of reflection. Everything is connected. Beauty is the messenger.

GI: Our guest editor Vaughan Rapatahana asks: You have long been an advocate of tino rangatiratanga for Māori, especially after their colonised past history. Similarly and equally, you are also a strong advocate of the rights of ngā tamariki, LGBT, underprivileged and marginalised sectors of Aotearoa New Zealand society. What can writers and artists do to voice similar concerns in a literary culture that tends to ignore – indeed, sometimes even abnegate – such issues?

AB: We need to increase the diversity of voices in literature and this means we have to be proactive and search for them. I am used to working on large collaborative projects where Māori wellbeing is a concern. Sometimes I am the squeaky wheel but people respect that. You have to be resilient to work against the hegemony. Everyone benefits from diversity.

GI: What do you like to read? Can you recommend some up and coming Māori writers for readers to check out? How about any favourite flash fiction you’ve read recently?

AB: At the moment I am reading Shermaine Alexei’s memoir of his mother, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me. It’s a mix of narrative and poetry. He’s also very funny and his recounting of life on the reservation reminds me of aspects of my family.

My favourite flash fiction right now – my own. There’s a story in the middle of my new short story collection Global Roaming titled ‘The Call’. I wanted it to be break in the middle of the collection, a short moment between the longer pieces. It’s about love and responsibility.

Every single Māori writer in Ora Nui 3 is great, and I don’t want to single out my personal favourites. I’ve already flagged a couple. I am most drawn to writing that I can see myself in. I’d like to see more Māori writing fiction – short stories and novels – and literary non-fiction. We always get a lot of poetry submissions.

GI: Finally, what writing / publishing / editing projects are you working on now, and when can we look forward to their release?

AB: My short story collection Global Roaming will be available in shops and from my website in the next few weeks.

My next project will be a non-fiction title exploring how we can use the Treaty of Waitangi to transition to diversity and multi-culturalism. Many Māori are resistant to multiculturalism but I believe indigeneity and diversity can co-exist, they are complementary. Māori need to lead these discussions of cultural change.

After that work will begin on Ora Nui 4. And I’d like to start writing a novel, based on one of the short stories from Global Roaming.

Thank you, Anton, wonderful to korero with you.

Anton Blank (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu) has an extensive history in social work, communications, Māori development, public health and literature. Anton has held senior roles in the government and not-for-profit sectors, including Communications Services Manager at the Ministry of Education and Executive Director of the Māori child advocacy organisation Mana Ririki. He has maintained a significant media profile as a Māori child advocate and cultural commentator and was the Principal Investigator of the 2016 report Unconscious bias and education – a comparative study of Māori and African American students. Anton is also the editor and founder of the Māori literary journal Ora Nui.

I would like to thank Ivy Alvarez for publishing the following article in the Feb 2018 edition of a fine line:

On editing the 2017 NZPS anthology after the cyclone

by Gail Ingram

At the beginning of August, a pile of poems around two hand-spans high arrived in the post. My job: to select around 100 of the 1285 poems entered in the annual NZPS competition, lay them out in an 124-page anthology all ready for printing by October’s end.

There are four sections – Adult Open, Junior Open, Adult Haiku and Junior Haiku – and the four judges had already chosen the winners from each section for inclusion in the anthology.

Yes, Probably, Possibly, No

I spent about four days reading the Adult Open section, sorting poems into piles of Yes, Probably, Possibly and No — I got this idea from Canterbury’s father of poetry James Norcliffe.

The largest piles were the middle two. At times, I would get a string of what seemed to be poorly-written, clichéd or old-fashioned rhyming poems, and I wondered if I was judging too harshly, but then I’d have an ‘oh-oh’ or a laugh-out-loud moment, and I kept on.

It was my first time editing alone. The downside of this was I couldn’t bounce my choices against someone else. The upside, of course, was I could put my own stamp on the anthology.

After the strange first hours of doubt, I got into a rhythm, a more instinctive style than the analytical up-close style I ordinarily use for poetry reading. I tuned into the feeling of the piece, noticing techniques if they leapt out either to help or hinder.

I judged blind but, as a member of the poetry community, I recognised a small number of poems. I selected most of them. They were good poems, though I was aware I might have been influenced precisely because I had seen them before, and also because I knew the poets were well-respected. I suspect this latter bias cannot be helped, though, like other editors in this situation, I trusted in my intent not to choose a poem if I didn’t think it up to scratch.

On the flip side, it was a thrill to discover later that I had selected other poets I knew along with those to be published for the first time. Also, I felt assured that any familiarity bias might have been flattened out along the way, since I read almost every poem at least three times by the end of the process. I used this same process of sorting for each of the other three sections. As you would expect, reading the haiku and senryu was much quicker.

How many gems?

The next step I took was to work out exactly how many poems I could include. I decided to base this on the percentage of entries for each section. Thus, the section that would make up the largest portion of the book would be the Adult Open since there was a far greater number of poems entered in this section — a little under half of the total.

This was where the re-reading of poems came in. I went through all piles again to check I hadn’t missed any gems. Of course, one woman’s gem is another woman’s gravel.

I wanted the poems I chose to connect or resonate with the heart, all through the cunning and craft of the poet. I wanted there to be an awareness of language as a tool, for it to rise above mere description. I also wanted the poet to treat everyday or common subjects with an original or surprising arrangement of vocabulary, lines or form, or alternatively, to capture new subjects.

The poems in the ‘No’ pile didn’t do this. Some might force words into unnatural order to fit the rhyme scheme, for example, or a haiku might describe an interesting action, but without the necessary break in meaning to give the reader pause to reflect.

Chaos to order

Finally, I had the poems I wanted. Laurice Gilbert — the real gem of the whole process, my NZPS go-to when I had any questions — emailed to ask for the title of the new anthology. This was traditionally chosen from a phrase in one of the prize-winning poems. I’d been playing with a couple of ideas but kept coming back to the title that won the Adult Open, “After the cyclone” by Alexandra Fraser.

Cyclones and global warming were in the news, plus Alexandra’s poem was brilliant, capturing, I felt, the zeitgeist of these turbulent times. Having a title helped me to sort the poems into the order they would come in the book.

The first poems were chosen quite mechanically by their placing in the competitions, but still, I placed poems together that complemented each other by topic, tone or feeling when I could, a process I’d practiced in one of Joanna Preston’s outstanding workshops. After that, I laid out all my selections on the lounge floor, choosing the first and last poems of each section to hook into the title-theme, after the cyclone. Then, I slotted each poem into its designated page.

Final details

The last month of the process, I spent mailing the poets to give them the good news, formatting the poems, sending the poets proofs for checking, and finally sending the PDF to Laurice and my daughter Rata Ingram (who also designed the cover) for proofreading.

There were many little mistakes, but Laurice assured me this was normal. Two days before the final print, Rata spotted one of the poets’ names spelled as ‘Cathering’. Man, I’m glad we got that one!

Observations

Three things I learned:

At some point during those first few days, I realized what a huge privilege it was to be able to see what preoccupied a relatively large group of individuals from this land and in this time – and not just any individuals, but poets – people who, through the act of writing poetry, must observe, reflect and care enough about the world to write it down.I also got a sense of what it was that might distinguish this group of mainly NZ poets from others. You cared a lot about our landscape, the sea, our genealogy. Your observations were often wry or humorous. Amongst the Open section, there was a sense that you are older, concerned with personal histories, but also outward-looking with the world, and concerned for the people in it.The last thing that stood out (unrelated to the first two) was that the Junior section seemed under-subscribed, with the selections seeming to come from a handful of schools. Teachers sometimes set the class the same task, which potentially eliminated poems that were too closely related by form or content. This means there is a huge potential for younger writers next year to get out there, enter, and be noticed!

I would like to say thank you NZPS for this awesome opportunity. I’m back next August, so I look forward to reading your gems.

Once were elvers

Isn't it strange a river

close to the sea appears slow?

Your cheek was smooth when we met

but now I trace the pocks and furrows

with my finger. It’s expanding, the universe;

my arse is getting bigger, but none of us notice.

We travel through galaxies until we find

our burrow in the sea-sand.

I give you this world

in a bowl, here you are.

Filled with eggs of eels, pupil embryos

held in by skin, but I remember

the sashay and flick of your sleek form

under the water of a mountain.

We were married 25 years ago today -- our silver anniversary. I wrote this poem in 2014 and it got published in takahe 84 in 2015, yay! It's about sharing a very long journey together; eels travel 2000 kms from our NZ rivers to Tonga to lay their eggs, and their elvers travel back again to begin their lives. Wow, this gift of a journey, the beauty and excitement of the beginning, collecting memories, losing time, and how lucky we are and how precious it is to have someone we love to go through it all with. That would be someone called Zippy for me, the inspiration for the poem. It was love at first sight ('I want that man!')and thunder bolts and fire crackers in a flat in London in 1988. Our flatmates put rocks under our tent in the back yard, but that didn't deter us. Five years later back in NZ at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Tekapo surrounded by our amazing friends and family, we tied the knot. Our big love gave us two little elvers of our own, Rata and Fergus, and now they're 21 and 19. As they branch out on their own journeys, our next adventure into more unexplored territory begins. Scary. Hard work. Exhiliharating. Am I up for it? Yep.

Yesterday -- that's right, a sunny Sunday -- I spent six hours in a back room of a friendly country pub built out of salvaged earthquake materials 20 ks out of the Christchurch. What ever for? For kick-starting my Muse, of course, with around 12 other disciples of poetry, at Lincoln's wonderful newest pub, The Laboratory. Kick-starting the Muse was the name -- and the game -- of this particular workshop I was attending. By the end of the day, I had four promising first-draft poems to take home with me. Four. How many poems do you write on any good writing day? Well then, let's talk about Joanna Preston's workshops, the-most-productive-of poetry workshops.

They are also the most educational, mind-expanding and feel-good classes in and out of town that any aspiring, jaded or muse-free poet could ever hope for. And word has got around. People in her class came from as far as Dunedin and as wide as Temuka and Kaiapoi to be inspired to write limericks, lyrics and poems that include maypoles and underwear (often related). The results are often mind-blowingly good. After giving us some models of the kind of thing she wants from poets like Billy Collins to Seamus Heaney to Viola T Paradise (yes you read that right, and you should see the poem), we are given half an hour to give it a go. We share our results and usually there are at least two or three poems that floor us. All the more astounding given that they are first drafts. Those of us lucky enough to be living in Christchurch will often hear many of these poems in shiny new polished outfits performed at the Canterbury Poetry Collective's Spring Reading Series. Many others turn up in journals and anthologies all over New Zealand and further afield. Where would Canterbury poetry be without Joanna?

Joanna runs her poetry classes throughout the year in Christchurch and Lincoln. The next one starts March -- '2017 -- an Odyssey by Anthology', which is one of her famous 'Reading for Writing' workshops. Not only a chance to sample contemporary poetry from across the globe but to increase your knowledge and craft of poetry. Her handouts are copious and informative. I have been to many poetry workshops over the years but this one really is the best little poetry workshop in town. Don't miss out. Book online at The Dark Feathered Art, and check out her blog too.

I've just sent in my article to a fine lineon my experience and reflections of editing the New Zealand Poetry Society (NZPS) 2017 Anthology, after the cyclone. I take the reader through the process of editing a poetry anthology -- the troubles and joys -- as well as share my impressions on how it felt to read and select around 100 poems from around the 1300 poems I received. It was a real privilege to get a sense of what concerned a relatively large group of poets from mainly NZ in 2017. I give my impression of where the interests of the group lay and how their writing might differ from other poetry in other places and times. Check it out in a fine line next month or keep an eye on this space!

A fine line is the NZPS quarterly online magazine edited by the wonderful Ivy Alvarez. As well as articles, it publishes poems from its members. It's easy to join NZPS, not too expensive, and if you're a budding poet from Aotearoa, I recommend it.