The Pretentious Poet #4: Ian Wedde

New Zealand Gerald is delighted to announce that the essence of this week's Pretentious Poet, Ian Wedde, has been extracted by one of the country's most talented verbal artists, Anthony Blanche.

Blanche was born in a taxi en route to Hamilton Hospital in 1977 and reborn exactly 33 years later on a rainy winter's night in Grey Lynn, when he was simultaneously drenched by a passing BMW and blinded by a speed camera. He documents the effect this experience had on his poetry in "Beamed by a Beamer", which was chosen as one of the 25 best poems published in New Zealand last year by Victoria University's International Institute of Modern Letters, headed by Bill Manhire.

Ian Wedde's poems appear in numerous journals and anthologies, and he has published 13 collections. He was recently chosen as our third poet laureate. Says Blanche: "Wedde's poetry runs the gamut from bonsai images of bliss to vicious vistas of the unweeded gardens of our souls . . . he's a true poet of the age."

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"On being appointed New Zealand Poet Laureate"

I quit the matted russet folds that lie between her
legs to answer the phone one morning. The Green Link bus
rolled by, rattling china dogs on the mantelpiece. Time stood
still. “You’ve got it,” said Bill
Manhire.

My thoughts run to Ted Hughes, my brother Laureate, that
scourge of feminists, “Daddy you bastard” (we had coffee once
at his club off Piccadilly); he of the wild ink-black forelock
scouring his face like a demented windscreen wiper. I
grab Ted’s book of Ovid poems from the shelves and a box of

Kleenex and scurry to my hideaway – the alcove under the
staircase. Dark encloses me, like the dank womb: memories
crowd in. I never liked Casablanca, the black-and-white scenes, I
wanted to colour them in with crayons, with my twin brother, until losing
patience I forced them down his throat. I much prefer The Usual Suspects, it’s in

colour. Kevin Spacey – who would have known? And Gabriel Byrne, searching that

ship for cocaine that wasn’t even there: “There’s. No. Fucking. Coke!” I turn on the
light. Blinking I clutch and mould a wad of Kleenex and read of
Cinyras, cramming his seed into the forbidden place: I wedge the used
bolus of tissue with the others, now dry, my very own little

ossuary of triumphs, and think: Here am I, the tokotoko-bearer, the
Keyser Söze of New Zealand letters. Look on my works, ye Mighty, and

despair!

The Pretentious Poet #3: Cilla McQueen

New Zealand Gerald's third Pretentious Poet is Cilla McQueen, our second poet laureate (2009-2011). A three-time winner of the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry and recipient of just about every other NZ poetry award going, McQueen's achievement is extraordinary for all the wrong reasons. Her writing displays no discernible awareness of how poetry differs from prose. To mask this fundamental ignorance, McQueen writes "poems" that are described by critics as "elusive of definition" (read: lazily formless) and as exploring "a space between prose and poetry".

The extent to which McQueen has managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the NZ Poetry Establishment is best evidenced by the fact that she brazenly describes one of her writing projects as poet laureate as a novella, which is of course a prose narrative. Called Serial and divided into eight chapters of a few hundred prosaic words each, its word count is barely that of the average short story. To disguise this, McQueen peppers the narrative with well over a hundred photographs she creatively found in the National Library of New Zealand archives.

So in McQueen we have a poet who refuses to do the hard work that every poet of substance knows they must do in order to discover what poetry is and then create it. There is of course nothing wrong with writing that inhabits no fixed genre, but when something like Serial is deemed "poetry" in the sense of a work produced by a poet who has been honoured as the country's poet laureate, there is something very wrong indeed. Postmodernism and its attendant academic laziness have created a situation where the Poetry Establishment no longer knows or even cares what poetry is. Hence the super-saturated irony of the recent establishment of the position of New Zealand Poet Laureate. Going by McQueen's Serial, which she calls a novella and is barely as long as a short story, the position should be renamed "New Zealand Writer Laureate".

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"After 'Timepiece'"

I got home from work and Jeez it was such
a long day I can tell you and I looked at the
kitchen clock and it said Ten to eight and I
thought Wait a minute that means I haven't
been at work because Ten to eight is the time
I go to work so I quickly cooked some eggs for
breakfast and did the dishes and I looked at the
clock and still it said Ten to eight, so I thought Jeez
I better get going if I'm gonna catch that bus
but then I remembered I hadn't fed the cat
so I gave Molly her biscuits and then I thought
Hell I'm gonna be late but then I looked at the
clock again and it still said Ten to eight so I
breathed a huge sigh of relief and ran out the
door just as the bus came round the corner,
but I didn't catch it, I thought What if I just
RUN UP INTO THE SKY? I did in fact run up
into the sky, into the clockless, catless,
workless cloud-canopies where I hide,
and it is silent, silent.

The Pretentious Poet #2: Robert Sullivan

New Zealand Gerald’s second Pretentious Poet is Robert Sullivan. According to the New Zealand Book Council, Sullivan “has emerged as a significant Maori poet, publishing several collections and featuring in key anthologies. His writing explores dimensions of contemporary urban experience, including local racial and social issues. His writing has a postmodern feel, where history and mythology, individual and collective experience, become areas of refined focus.”

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Tahi.
The first thing I do is look up a book about history,

or maybe a reference book (I’m a librarian), have a bit of a read,

and then I write poems that begin like this:

According to his entry in the New Zealand Encyclopedia of 1966,
Sir Algernon walked around with the feathers of the last Huia in his cap . . .

Rua.

A Pakeha woman once said to me: “You’re just copying stuff

out of books and calling it poetry, aren’t you?”

I said: “The Moa is held up as an example of Maori

exterminating a food resource.”

She said: “Now surely you’re just having a laugh.

My 8 year old’s poetry is more original than that.”

How could I make her understand? I said:

“The Giant Eagle had a wingspan of three metres —
its main food was moa. It was the world’s
largest eagle — the youngest set of bones found so far
is five hundred years old.”

But she walked away before I’d finished.

She would never understand my attempts

to draw the attention of Pakeha to their own

literary and customary heritage.

Toru.

I read a Marxist history of London by George Rudé.
Lemony Snicket recently completed A Series of Unfortunate Events.

The Cliffs Notes on The Odyssey is so poetic — it reminds me of my poems.

Wha.

What I like to do best is rewrite history.

I make stuff up like a warrior-laden
waka travelling up the Thames
in the hull of a steamer called Troy which
leads to Governor Heke ruling the British Empire.

A Maori man once said to me:

“Your understanding of history

is as outdated as the books you read.

You’re living in a fantasy world

That’s sustained by Pakeha poetasters.”

I said: “Palestine free! Rhodesia free! South Africa free! Kenya free!
India free! Canada free! Ireland free! Australia free! West Indies free! Aotearoa free!”

But he walked away before I’d finished.

He would never understand my attempts

to draw the attention of Maori to their own

literary and customary heritage.

The Pretentious Poet #1: Vincent O'Sullivan

New Zealand Gerald is proud to present the first in a new series of posts showcasing New Zealand's finest poetic talents. "The Pretentious Poet" series condenses the genius of NZ's leading poetic lights into a single poem: a distillation of their greatest hits — and misses.

The honour of being New Zealand Gerald's first Pretentious Poet goes to Vincent O'Sullivan, whose most recent collection of poetry is The movie may be slightly different (Victoria University Press, 2011).

According to his publisher, "The movie may be slightly different offers a rich harvest of recent poems displaying the wit, intellectual agility and arresting beauty for which Vincent O'Sullivan is renowned."

It certainly provided a rich harvest for New Zealand Gerald. Now, dear readers, sit back and enjoy "The Pretentious Poet #1: Vincent O'Sullivan". 

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I’m gonna give you “God” in the first line —
He always stands for anything I can’t explain
which is a lot more than I can.

Coupe du Monde is French, which goes well

with Latin canis tags — ask God for help if you don’t get it.

The movie of this poem will never be made

but I'll take you through the storyboard anyway.

We open on . . . Sundays. I’m so old I can . . .

No, it’s too painful. God, are You there yet?

As the fat, boss-eyed mama shattered the bead curtain

I almost dropped the relic of St Peter she wanted 6,000 euros for.

It was his coccyx; it smelled of ambergris.

The mama babbled something in Italian and I answered in

Ancient Greek: “Gnothi seauton.” Her reply came crisp,

Like a gala apple: “Vaffanculo!” She wasn’t a saint.

I read today that tutae means “shit” and felt full of myself.

I once dined with God on squid ink linguine in San Marino.

It was an electric, erotic experience.

I wouldn’t let Him pay — I’ve made a fortune using Him in my poems.

As we left He said: "I love your poetry. It really speaks to Me."