200! This is the 200th monthly episode of PoemTalk. To mark the occasion, we celebrated Evie Shockley with a day of events and recordings and conversation and it was all informally dubbed “Evie Day.” Before a live audience in the Arts Café of KWH we talk about two of Evie’s poems: “My last modernist poem, #4 (or, re-re-birth of a nation)” from The New Black; and “studies in antebellum literature (or, topsy-turvy)” from Semi-automatic. Evie’s expansive PennSound page happens to include recordings of her performing both of these poems, but since we were feeling the honor of having Evie there with us in person, we asked her if she wouldn’t mind reading these poems. She did, and you'll be hearing them as part of the PoemTalk discussion after the introductions. It was the annual gathering of a group that had been meeting for some years: Aldon Nielsen, William J. Harris, and the late and much-missed Tyrone Williams.
October 11, 2024
'Small' poetry publishers and publications
'Small' poetry publishers and publications
Kia ora ano.
It is important, I believe, to feature the myriad of ‘smaller’ poetry publishers and publications per se in Aotearoa-New Zealand. Why? Because these are at the forefront of pushing and placing poetry in front of the people; all-too-often without any Creative New Zealand funding, sometimes without selling enough copies/issues to recoup finances deployed. If there is a poetic spine running the looooong length of New Zealand, it is these presses and periodicals that provide resonance, flexibility, alternative therapy.