Lynn Jenner has won the Adam Prize for the best portfolio of her year in the Creative Writing course at the Institute for Modern Letters at VUW - the course that is generally known as 'Bill Manhire's course'. Richly deserved - I have heard poems from the poets who studied with her and enjoyed them too. Lynn's work is very very good.
After many years, have re-read Carlos Castaneda and am struck about how good his writing is - fluent and descriptive. The book is A Separate Reality, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, Further conversations with Don Juan - there are two subtitles for some reason. (Penguin Books reissue 2003, first printed in 1971).
An impatience grew in me with all the stories about smoking drugs, being dunked in water and washed, seeing allies or green mists, hearing cracking branches, being very afraid, questions being answered by Don Juan laughing merrily, or heartily and not saying anything, it felt invented, or the product of the drugs, except for about 3 passages which stand out, which seem real. Someone else (it's a library book) had turned over the corner of the page where one of these passages featured, perhaps having a similar reaction to me: This is what matters, this is the important bit.
In the original, it is written as a dialogue. Castaneda's questions have been left out here.
Don Juan says (p. 226):
"You talk to yourself too much. You must stop talking to yourself. [...] You're not unique in that. Every one of us does that. We carry on internal talk. [...]We talk about our internal world. In fact, we maintain our world with our internal talk. [...] The world is such-and-such or so-and-so only because we tell ourselves that that is the way it is. If we stop telling ourselves that the world is so-and-so, the world will stop being so-and-so. [...] ...you confuse the world with what people do. [...]What we do as people gives us comfort, and makes us feel safe; what people do is rightfully very important, but only as a shield. We never learn that the things we do as people are only shields and we let them dominate and topple our lives... [...] The world is incomprehensible. we won't ever understand it; we won't ever unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat it as it is, a sheer mystery!...a warrior [ a truth-seeker] treats the world as an endless mystery and what people do as an endless folly."
Don Juan mentions the folly of human actions earlier, referring to his own vain attempts to influence his grandson into a more thoughtful life-style.
Tried a couple of other books, including a biography of Allen Ginsberg, and a detective story translated from the Japanese, but a few pages were enough - the first far too detailed, the second too slow and stilted.
Back to the library with them.
Showing posts with label Bill Manhire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bill Manhire. Show all posts
Sunday, 14 December 2008
Sunday, 28 September 2008
Seamus Heaney
A friend - a fellow student - lent me her copy of Seamus Heaney's New selected poems, 1966-1987 (1990, Faber and Faber). This cross-fertilisation is one of the ways in which the class expands one's horizons. Heaney is a pleasure, and a challenge - so many new words.
We talked in class recently about the fact that we tend to write re-using the same words, without being aware of it, one person uses 'gonna', as in 'I'm gonna do...', and Hinemoana told us of a poet who often has 'teeth' in her poems. Most of us would need friends to point out these repetitions.
Seamus Heaney tends to include mud in what he writes, and he has a hundred words to describe its consistency, colour and the sound it can make...I am sure that he is very conscious of doing this.
The first poem is the one that has affected me most so far, so powerful. It is called Digging , it describes his father and his grandfather digging, and how he (Seamus) digs with his pen. The first stanza in that poem has a nice little trick in it, the pen "...snug as a gun".
Read Bill Manhire's Hotel Emergencies last night to friends over dinner, as an example of modern poetry. It is such a pleasing poem. Another favourite is Stevie Smith's Oh Pug!.
There was still someone who pointed out, It does not rhyme, and, Is that poetry, then?
Hinemoana, if you read this: There's a wonderful poem about a dog! Or it might be - really - about something else - anxiety, maybe, the way it arrives and attaches itself randomly to situations ? It reminds me of the on-going competition for a sonnet about Wellington: it seems impossible to write about Wellington without sounding like a gushy travel guide. The only way might be to write ostensibly about Wellington, while underneath it is about something else.
We talked in class recently about the fact that we tend to write re-using the same words, without being aware of it, one person uses 'gonna', as in 'I'm gonna do...', and Hinemoana told us of a poet who often has 'teeth' in her poems. Most of us would need friends to point out these repetitions.
Seamus Heaney tends to include mud in what he writes, and he has a hundred words to describe its consistency, colour and the sound it can make...I am sure that he is very conscious of doing this.
The first poem is the one that has affected me most so far, so powerful. It is called Digging , it describes his father and his grandfather digging, and how he (Seamus) digs with his pen. The first stanza in that poem has a nice little trick in it, the pen "...snug as a gun".
Read Bill Manhire's Hotel Emergencies last night to friends over dinner, as an example of modern poetry. It is such a pleasing poem. Another favourite is Stevie Smith's Oh Pug!.
There was still someone who pointed out, It does not rhyme, and, Is that poetry, then?
Hinemoana, if you read this: There's a wonderful poem about a dog! Or it might be - really - about something else - anxiety, maybe, the way it arrives and attaches itself randomly to situations ? It reminds me of the on-going competition for a sonnet about Wellington: it seems impossible to write about Wellington without sounding like a gushy travel guide. The only way might be to write ostensibly about Wellington, while underneath it is about something else.
Monday, 15 September 2008
Adrift
Have drifted away from poetry again, reading prose. So silly, I should focus on poetry for the moment.
Found a lovely poem by Elizabeth Smither on the web, in The Listener, (July 21-27, 2007, Vol 209, No 3506) entitled Plaits:
For the full poem, go here.
* * *
Last Monday, attended the annual reading of poetry and prose by creative writing students of the MA programme at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University (commonly known here as "Bill Manhire's programme").
Lynn Jenner read two impressive poems, both anti-war. One of them is about her thoughts after the birth of her son, thoughts of cutting off part of his index finger to ensure that he may never be able to shoot - "a Russian thought". People were impressed.
The second half of the readings is today.
* * *
Listening to a recording of Bill Manhire reading his poetry at Whitireia on Thursday was a stimulating exercise - was able to write four poems in succession immediately afterwards - no idea what they are worth at this stage. The best stimulus for writing poetry is to be exposed to it, again and again.
So searched for and found a collection of 3 CDs of poetry read by the poets themselves, including Dylan Thomas and May Sarton, from the central library in Wellington.
Wellington Central Library - photo from their website
I love the central library, not just the books, but the building and the service - time and again I have taken out a book that was a "Librarian's Choice", and it has proven a joy - think Per Petersen's In the wake - so I now trust them (almost) completely.
Found a lovely poem by Elizabeth Smither on the web, in The Listener, (July 21-27, 2007, Vol 209, No 3506) entitled Plaits:
I had two plaits: one thick,
an anaconda plait, and the other
more like a thin grass snake.
For copyright reasons, I can't put the whole thing, though it is not very long. Here are the last one and a half lines:
I could feel how it was distributed.
For the full poem, go here.
* * *
Last Monday, attended the annual reading of poetry and prose by creative writing students of the MA programme at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University (commonly known here as "Bill Manhire's programme").
Lynn Jenner read two impressive poems, both anti-war. One of them is about her thoughts after the birth of her son, thoughts of cutting off part of his index finger to ensure that he may never be able to shoot - "a Russian thought". People were impressed.
The second half of the readings is today.
* * *
Listening to a recording of Bill Manhire reading his poetry at Whitireia on Thursday was a stimulating exercise - was able to write four poems in succession immediately afterwards - no idea what they are worth at this stage. The best stimulus for writing poetry is to be exposed to it, again and again.
So searched for and found a collection of 3 CDs of poetry read by the poets themselves, including Dylan Thomas and May Sarton, from the central library in Wellington.
Wellington Central Library - photo from their website
I love the central library, not just the books, but the building and the service - time and again I have taken out a book that was a "Librarian's Choice", and it has proven a joy - think Per Petersen's In the wake - so I now trust them (almost) completely.
Tuesday, 6 May 2008
Gracelessness
Went to hear Michael Palmer read his poetry at the City Art Gallery yesterday, very musical, flowing, and as most poets do, he gave an introduction to each poem, though when Bill Manhire who was running the show asked him afterwards about what he thought about introducing each poem this way in print, he did not think it was a good idea.
His last poem was very short, and memorable, The End of The War, "She lifted her arms and took the clips out of her hair", that is what I remember, it may not be exactly that.
Then he went and spoiled the whole feel of the event with bitchy comments about a colleague who had been made Poet Laureate, what bad poetry he wrote for the Queens' birthday. That is what I remember, the little poem at the end, and his bitchy comments and also rudeness to Bill, who made a little joke about doing a song and dance routine while MF was scrabbling through his papers looking for a poem, and MF said without pausing for a breath, Oh if you cannot tolerate the silence, and that was such an obvious taunt, and so stupid.
In the evening went to Ngaio Library where 6 local writers were being introduced, including one who was doing the Creative Writing course at Whitireia, 3rd year, and that took my breath away, though he has published a book...and there too someone was rude, so in the future I'll give these things a miss, which is what I used to think anyway.
His last poem was very short, and memorable, The End of The War, "She lifted her arms and took the clips out of her hair", that is what I remember, it may not be exactly that.
Then he went and spoiled the whole feel of the event with bitchy comments about a colleague who had been made Poet Laureate, what bad poetry he wrote for the Queens' birthday. That is what I remember, the little poem at the end, and his bitchy comments and also rudeness to Bill, who made a little joke about doing a song and dance routine while MF was scrabbling through his papers looking for a poem, and MF said without pausing for a breath, Oh if you cannot tolerate the silence, and that was such an obvious taunt, and so stupid.
In the evening went to Ngaio Library where 6 local writers were being introduced, including one who was doing the Creative Writing course at Whitireia, 3rd year, and that took my breath away, though he has published a book...and there too someone was rude, so in the future I'll give these things a miss, which is what I used to think anyway.
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