Winning the 2011 Margaret Mahy Prize.

“Ok, so you’re pretty prolific, get 100 poems together and let’s see if there’s a book amongst them.”  Thus began the relationship with my Hagley Writers Institute supervisor, John Dickson.

OOOkay… I gulped and got to work and lo, I pulled it off. I narrowed it down to 47, submitted the manuscript for my final folio and it was short listed in the top seven. From these Anne Rogers, editor at Random House chose the winners of the Margaret Mahy Award. I thought I hadn’t heard correctly when my name was called. I stumbled up to receive the award, and then spent the rest of the evening in a grinning daze. Always remember to prepare a winners face, as well as a losers. I have learned by experience now! Pictures of graduation here.

The manuscript is called, A Machine of Herbs and Flowers. It’s my first collection of poetry. Hagley are now sending it to Auckland University Press and one other publisher yet to be decided to be considered for publishing.

2011 was tough, with some 9,500 aftershocks and quakes in Christchurch and the death of one of my best friends. Hagley held me together and gave me purpose and hope. There’s a lot to look forward to and work towards in 2012. I’m returning to Hagley for year two. This year my tutor is the brilliant Frankie Mcmillan who I know will be able to polish my short fiction writing skills.

Review of apple strudel

Thank you to Emmett Wheatfall for his review of 'apple strudel'. It's always a pleasure to be reviewed by a peer. His review can be read here http://emmettwheatfall.tumblr.com/ .

apple strudel

My mum and aunties stretch it with their fists. They coax it thinner and thinner stretch it until it covers the whole laminex kitchen table and I can see the check of the cloth through the membrane of pastry. Stretch out their pride in their children stretch out their cackles of laughter at the stupidity of their husbands stretch out their tears for the sister who died young. At 15 they let me have a go, I try to mimic their hand over hand and rip a big hole in it they laugh at my clumsiness and shoo me away. When I’m 20 they laugh at my university-learned hochdeutsch even though I can stretch the dough as good as them “ooo la di da” they screech taunts at my posh accent and it thins the pastry a little more. Taunts add tartness to the apples they scatter. They add the finely chopped bitter rind of  long standing family feuds, a sprinkle of spicy sugar gossip and roll the whole thing up using the cloth, lifting it so that fold upon fold of pastry swaddles the apples and all the ancient history.

Stubborn as Stone

I sent my love a naked lithotint,

gold print on stone. 

He says I’m a kind of rock

plants grow on,

a stone swallower,

rock borer,

fossilized fruit,

a concretion in his veins.

I assert that

for my fire I have flint,

to furrow the rows of my garden

I have a small stone adze;

live and worship in a stone circle.  

A stone that falls to earth I become

phosphorescent when heated.

reasons for silence

so the wheel barrow
full of star frequencies
can speak

so the energy wave
that is body
may be seen

a table cloth may
embroider itself
with grub roses

soliloquy
of the sewing box
may be heard

thunder of rust developing
on the hollow legs
of picnic tables
rattle the trees

the harmonic of frost chimes
resonant in the lacunae
within the leaves
of felicia amelloides
calls the followers to prayer

so that a rush
of seedlings heaves
the clay aside and terrifies

so the crackle
of thin bible pages
is delicious

so that as you
breathe out
and I breathe in
we synchronize

fuse at the sternum
with a seam of gold
in the ore of our bodies
the sound
of silent lightening

My Wedding Shoes

The cobbler couldn’t squeeze my foot
into the standard last size no matter
how much sweat beaded  his forehead.

So he went back to the drawing board.
He made a new shoe last.
He cut a new pattern;
cumulonimbus for the upper,
plumes of pampas grass for the sole,
and a wedge of utopia for a heel.

The shoes reach for my feet.
First the broken left one,
the shoe strokes my scars with its dainty
leather straps calming the angry
swelling before buckling
with the sound of lips on lips.

The right shoe is more teasing,
pretends coyness before
it invites my foot to tango
giggling when I tickle the buckle.

My wedding shoes are wrapped
in delicate linen and boxed.
I stumble across them when
I put away the winter woolens,

open the box, nudge aside the fabric.
My shoes glow with a wake up
smile and hold out their hands to me.

child's play

as snake
beautiful but blue

as snow
remembered but black

as human
innocent but almost
born inside
a monster
a child
a bird
a cry of wings