Wishing you all a wonderful 2012.

So I have some news. I feel very happy and nervous abut it but I also feel keenly aware that while I have good news some friends, who are extremely talented, have had bad news or are unable to take up the offer due to damn financial constraints.

So the news is that I have accepted an offer of study towards a PhD in creative writing at the IIML to start in March 2012.

It will be part-time study so I can continue to work part-time.

The PhD has two componants; creative and critical. For my creative component I intend to write a collection of poetry exploring the intersect between people and technology. For my critical component I intend to explore the use of science in the works of Jorie Graham, Lavinia Greenlaw and Robert Crawford. These things may, of course, alter slightly over the next few years.

I'll be using this blog as my reading journal next year but I'm hoping to continue with the interviews, poems and other booky stuff too.

I just want to say thank you to all my friends, family and everyone else who reads this blog and supports my work. None of it would have happened without your support.

This weekend gone I had the good fortune to attend what I think may be my favourite book launch ever. My dear friend Helen Lehndorf's long awaited book of poetry - 'The Comforter', published by another wonderful Helen, Helen Rickerby of Seraph Press.

Emma McCleary has already done an excellent brief of the launch on her blog. So I'll just say it was a truely lovely afternoon and steal a couple of images from Helen's flickr stream.

The book itself is 'a beautiful object' as Pip Adam said in her launch speech. The poems are beautiful too. You can win a copy by leaving a comment here but I also urge you to buy a copy, you'll be supporting an excellent poet and wonderful small publisher! The winner will be drawn on Friday night NZ time.

Bravo Helens!

The NYPR programme Radiolab broadcast a very good podcast on time perception . It includes the story of a woman with lupus who suffers acute short-term memory loss and as a result is an excellent very long-distance runner. She runs those three-week races through the Arizona desert where you (certainly not I) run for 23 hours and sleep for one hour, or something like that.

Her advantage over other runners is that around the tenth day, they’re not only carrying their backpacks and water but also the weight of the knowledge and resentment that they’ve been running ten days and they must be mad to have thought they ever wanted to and maybe they’d like to stop. The woman with memory loss doesn’t remember how long she’s been running: she simply knows that she needs to run.

(I haven’t listened again to check the details, by the way. Remember what Ondaatje says about novelists needing a bad memory. That’s me.)

Anyway, this story reminds me of the effect of my Kindle on my reading.

I love using my Kindle. It’s funny that the word ‘using’ presented itself to me just then. ‘I like reading from my Kindle’. That sounds odd. You can read a book, but you can’t read a Kindle. The Kindle is merely the technology which transmits words to my brain via the movement of photons bouncing off that pearlised, non-glare screen. Without the text - the author’s ideas and work - it would be nothing.

But without text there’d be nothing to a book, either, except its pages and binding. A ‘book’ in this sense is more accurately called a codex: the technology of binding pages together and giving them a cover. (You can imagine a 3 CE Facebook scroll-status: “Just visited the Oracle. She reckons those clunky square-edged codexes aren’t destined to catch on – says scrolls give you a more flowing sense of the meaning, come closer to emulating life’s cyclic nature, type of thing.”)

We’ve long been used to collapsing the identity of a specific codex, its cover design and typography, together with the ideas, poetry or narrative it contains. A hard-copy book takes on the memories and impressions of its reader. The books on my shelves are bound up with the conversations I’ve had with friends and colleagues about them, where I acquired them, and my ideas of the person (people?) I was when I first read them.

But I have to admit that the Kindle is making me into a better reader, and for that and the excitement associated with reading, I love it.

Normally I read ludicrously fast (unless it’s non-fiction, or I’m going to review the book or assess a manuscript), absorbing chunks of text for a story-drugged escape and the pay-off. That wouldn’t matter if I only wanted to read for fun, but language and narrative and ideas are how I see the world, and developing my understanding of how they work is vital to what I do.

When I first took possession of my Kindle, I tried reading a few pages of Pride and Prejudice (pre-loaded onto it by the lovely person who gave it to me). The reading felt boggily slow. When I tried to figure out why, I realised that usually I read up and down the page as well as from side to side, and scan across to the facing page to check whether there’s anything more scintillating going on there, skipping to dialogue and action. Sure, call me shallow. Only a love for language and composition and an intense interest in human behaviour has prevented me from becoming a James Patterson or Dan Brown fan.

For those who haven’t yet viewed a Kindle, its screen behaves only a little like a paper page. The lines are much shorter, and in the font size I’m reading at (about 12 point) it fits around 230 words – a couple of meaty paragraphs. I’m currently reading The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Green, and it takes five screens to get through a single page of the edition. Because I see fewer words at a time, I read more meditatively. I’m less distracted, and the ideas seem to sink more deeply into me.

Both The Fabric of the Cosmos and Anna Karenina (my previous Kindle read) are weighty books. I don’t have a good history with weighty books. In a swotty way I like their challenge, but about a third of the way through, I feel the pressure of all those unread pages on my right wrist. The story’s great, I think, but still so far to go. Even if I slog through to the end, my pleasure in the story is diminished because finishing it has begun to feel like a duty.

The Kindle, on the other hand, weighs the same no matter how much I’ve read. It tells me at the bottom of the screen what percentage of the book I’ve finished, and there’s even a little visual indicator (a bar that slowly fills from the left), but that’s more abstract: it doesn’t affect me in the same way as would a bunch of actual paper. As a result, a little like the long-distance runner with memory loss, I focus more closely on the words in front of me and think less about how far I have to go.

I don’t want to do all my reading on a Kindle. Codex-books with their designed covers and tactile pages possess more dimensions and reach more of my senses than the Kindle. They seem imbued with more spirit, feel friendlier – perhaps that’s down to our shared essence of carbon – and are immeasurably more attractive. I’m looking at a collection of spines on my desk that include Further Convictions Pending, Towards Another Summer, Marcus Chown, Wulf, Gifted, Sport 38 and Strange Meetings. It’s soothing and exciting just to run my eyes along them. However, I think everyone who’s watching is agreed that for better or worse, this time round it won’t take several centuries for the balance between old and new technologies to shift.

Susan Pearce is the author of Acts of Love and a number of short stories. She teaches the Short Fiction course for Victoria University Continuing Education and sometimes writes about books and writing at swimmingwithbooks.

As a follow up to this morning's post here is a mix & mash entry by Maria McMillan:

a voice that’s not the same as hers

Under the trees in Victoria Park certain grasses

bleed. I shave parts of my skull to the scalp.

My old woman loses speech. The morning’s tai chi

moves like seaweed as we move our pockets full

of river rocks and jam jars our house made of bamboo

you fill it up and it fills up and you’ve filled

it up. And there it is. Whole mornings whole.

Afternoons. Cut and grow. Cut and crush.

I had a knife and you had shoulder blades and

a hollow chamber making dream words making

tyre swings and fresh water crabs, crackers and

boiled lollies. We scramble into the goat

cave and sit on wooden beer crates. We stay

until it gets dark. It takes two years. The rain

rattles. I press my ear to the smooth sodden

green turf. The goat shit. I see all this from the link

bus window. You go away and come back

different people. None of the hair I have now

knew you when you still knew me.

There’s a call from home. Shadow stands up.

Uses Helen Lehndorf "Tincture", Ian Wedde, "Shadow Stands Up" and Emma Barnes, "Don't Lean Away"

All made available through Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 New Zealand License.

Ok, so this isn't a Tuesday Poem but it's pointing you to one. It's not too late to enter this year's mix & mash.

Check out Sarah Jane Barnett's amazing entry on her blog. 

Also just up is Harvest Bird's entry.

In the Literature Remix category you take two or more creative commons works listed on the page and rework them into a new piece. You could win $2,000 and be published in an ebook by Mebooks.

Go on, have a go! 

Years with a Husband

Stone to her water

his edges eroded slowly

leaving the core in place.

He was immovable

from desk, chair,

or opinion,

the slave and exemplar

of routine.

If she let him

he would wear those clothes —

scuffed fawn trousers,

frayed blue shirt —

till eternity,

till kingdom come.

He would vote the same way,

express the same

dislikes:

lawn bowls, modern art, the very thought

of a Pacific holiday.

Their son

she now saw

was growing stony too.

She blamed testosterone

and private schools.

Still, there was this:

that as she stretched and changed

rode the courses of her life

her husband would always be there,

blunt, imperceptive, abrupt:

her rock.

"Years with a Husband" is included in Tim Jones' new poetry collection "Men Briefly Explained", published by Interactive Press (Brisbane) and now available from Amazon as a paperback or Kindle ebook. "Men Briefly Explained" will be launched by Interactive Press in October 2011, together with Keith Westwater's debut collection, "Tongues of Ash". Details of the launch events will appear on Tim's blog. 

Tim last appeared here with a Summer Poem. He has a gentle sense of humour and his work really feels true.

For more Tuesday Poems go to the Tuesday Poem hub.

Lagoon

A navigation has been made,

black swans and spoonbills

come back through all kinds of weather.

Harvest done. Soon they will start again,

rounding the plough, dry summer clods

buried in new dark furrows.

The bristled hills reach for each other

across the gully, creek makes its way there

ends in a pool with this after-sea.

Lagoon is a gathering place, waters

merge; birds find their float

and hutch and settle,

return is an instinct. Things I’ve known,

hair cut close on a woman’s neck, and how they vanish

and how they leave a touch in memory.

Return is an instinct or else it’s a wild dream

bending me to this slow water,

scud of foam and kelp,

long flying days unwind

come down. This summer

with its un-companioned course

steers me in.

Rhian Gallagher’s first poetry collection, Salt Water Creek (Enitharmon Press, London, 2003) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for First Collection. Gallagher received the Janet Frame Literary Trust Award in 2008. Gallagher is also the author of a non-fiction book, Feeling for Daylight: The Photographs of Jack Adamson, (South Canterbury Museum, 2010).

'Lagoon' comes from Rhian Gallagher’s second collection Shift (forthcoming from AUP), which, as the blurb says - "encompasses a departure from London, where she lived for eighteen years, and a return to the pines and paddocks of the South Island. This mid-life shift involves acts of retrieval, confrontations with loss and movements towards renewal"

I find this poem very sensual, melancholy and almost electric with anticipation underneath the gentle language. I'm grateful to be sharing this preview of the collection with you and looking forward to reading the whole collection.

For more Tuesday Poems go to the Tuesday Poem hub.

The Economist

The Economist is bored by Brussels. Green sprouts

out of his mouth; he is forgetting his roots. Jesus

said teach the poor to fish. Garnished they look

much better on his plate. They trust but make military plans.

Soldiers in his son's hands. In his wife's fair hair.

The first person had four children and the next had five. Fish fingers

every Thursday is when they get paid. Atrocities on remembrance

day, the day after and the day before. If I spent all my time popping

out babies I would be poor: poverty is a condition, a state of mind.

Anyone receiving assistance should be limited to two children max.

The Economist grazing is an insult to the intelligentsia at large.

Who milks the cows in Cambodia? Show me your frequent food miles.

After your second child forced sterilization is required. These World

Bank measures judge a person to be poor if his income falls short

of a given level. The first person had three children and the next had four.

In principle poverty rates based on these measures count the people

lacking resources to buy a notional basket of goods. The real winners

are the creditors, with ears of tin. Sardines fly in and get dropped

on the heads of unsuspecting passers-by. Third World measures

judge a person to be poor if his heart falls short of a given level.

The first person had two children and the next had three.

The Economist had Weet-Bix for breakfast. It takes a poor

to understand another poor. It is necessary to keep your money

to yourself; there is a need to be labour market aware,

but many poor people aren't. The first person had one child

and the next had two. Put another way, greed is good.

The Economist is sleeping with the lefties, it smells of Chinese

takeaways in there. The rich aren't like you and me. The first person

has no children and there is no second opinion on the market share

of the heart. Forced sterilization is required; do not go on giving fish.

Aleksandra Lane completed her MA in Creative Writing at the IIML (Victoria University) in 2010, and was awarded the Biggs Poetry Prize for her portfolio. Her poems have appeared in various online and print journals, as well as two poetry collections in Serbia, and some of her work will appear in anthologies in NZ and overseas. Her book Birds of Clay will be published by VUP in 2012. "The Economist" was first published in Takahe 72.

This poem is so surreal yet very real at the same time. I love the way it surprises and takes a stance. I'm really looking forward to seeing Aleks' collection come out next year.

For more Tuesday Poems go to the Tuesday Poem hub.

Unity Books crew. Photo from Booksellers NZ.

July is a busy month in the New Zealand book industry calendar. We've had the Booksellers' conference, NZ Post Book Awards, Poetry Day (Week!) and assorted launches and associated events.

This year was the first (its seems to me) conference in years that wasn't all doom and gloom about ebooks. You can read some coverage of the sessions on the NZ Booksellers site here and here. The Independent Bookseller of the year award (announced at conference) went to Unity Books Wellington, my favourite Wellington bookshop! They really know their books. Specialist knowledge, a lovely atmosphere and an excellent venue for launches – these things you can't get at Amazon.com. Unity recently renovated their shop and it looks stunning.

The NZ Post Book Awards (again organised by Booksellers NZ) were a great night, the Town Hall was decked out in a winter wonderland theme without being too cheesy. I was slightly worried by the snow foam machine at the door but it was all great fun. There were no big suprises on the night, except perhaps Damien Skinner's The Passing World: The Passage of Life: John Hovell and the Art of Kowhaiwhai (Rim Books) winning the illustrated non-fiction award. It was so unexpected by Damien that he needed to book a new flight home so he could stay on for the meet the winners event he hadn't expected to attend. The biggest suprises for me had been at the shortlist announcement earlier this year when Bill Manhire and Patrick Evans were astoundingly overlooked.

Top prize for glamour on the night goes to Kate Camp in her excellent retro coat and dress, even if she did get snagged by a tree on her way up to collect the award for Best Book of Poetry (Damn you winter wonderland!).  Prize for most humble goes to Pip Adam, winner of Best First Book of Fiction. 

The only Poetry Day event I got to was the lovely reading at Unity Books Wellington by Airini Beautrais, Jenny Bornholdt and Dinah Hawken. Unity was packed even though it was a miserably cold night, which gives me hope for the future of poetry! The other highlight of the day was a nice young man saying to me 'I've got to tell you how much I love you' (over the Poetry Phone). 

The other online palaver this month was the North & South magazine article slagging off NZ literature ‘The (not so) great New Zealand novel’ (August issue) I can't link to it as it isn't online, you'll have to read it at the dentist, but basically the jist I got was that NZ 'literature' doesn't sell enough (not true!) so we shouldn't bother with it and should focus on popular fiction. This was replied to well by Stephen Stratford here and here and debated on the Booksellers blog also. Then Fergus Barrowman (VUP) and Debra Millar (Penguin) discussed the topic with Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon.

When are we going to grow up enough to escape our cultural cringe? I truly believe critics and readers are far harder on NZ books than international titles. We produce some amazing titles every year from a tiny population. Lets start celebrating that for goodness sake! New Zealand books are one type of book you won't find cheaper on Amazon or the Bookdepository. They may be the thing that saves our brick and mortar bookshops if we the readers can get in behind them. Surely we can be patriotic without becoming ranting flag wavers (wait, isn't that what we do for rugby?!).

Should we stop writing art if it doesn't sell? What do you think? Do you buy NZ Books? Why/Why not?