“chisel-bouncer / you are the big stick / made with fire / and containing the means / of making more sacred and profane” (“te ahi tapu rākau / jacob’s fire song,” ‘MIRABILE DICTU,’ 18). Pictured left to right: New Zealand poets laureate Elizabeth Smither, Michele Leggott, Jenny Bornholdt, Brian Turner, and Bill Manhire. Photo by Maarten Holl, courtesy of Stuff Limited.
The volume MIRABILE DICTU (2009) celebrates Michele Leggott’s tenure as inaugural Aotearoa-New Zealand poet laureate (2007–9) and marks an inflection point in her poetic career. In brief, the volume presents a world of adaptation: coming and going, joining and severing, isolation and community.
A few years ago I wrote a piece entitled Toward an Aotearoa Poetic: a few suggestions about constructing a specifically Aotearoa poetic as opposed to the — then extant — mono-cultural, monolingual, monocentric monotonous model of what poetry is and means to many Kiwis.
Down the track of time somewhat and now living right back bang in the centre of this skinny country, my essential points still remain valid, given that my many generalizations in that piece remain exactly that: the piece requires modification and further reflection. It was never meant to be an ‘academic’ item either.
Introductory
Toward an Aotearoa poetic?
A few years ago I wrote a piece entitled Toward an Aotearoa Poetic: a few suggestions about constructing a specifically Aotearoa poetic as opposed to the — then extant — mono-cultural, monolingual, monocentric monotonous model of what poetry is and means to many Kiwis.
Down the track of time somewhat and now living right back bang in the centre of this skinny country, my essential points still remain valid, given that my many generalizations in that piece remain exactly that: the piece requires modification and further reflection. It was never meant to be an ‘academic’ item either.