learning Revolution
or
the resurrection

(on forgiveness, memory and forgetting)

dedicated and
in memoriam to
Florence Rita
and
Ronald Leslie Barrow
 

Master of Being
slave to fate

Master of destiny
slave to history

Master of faith
slave to priest

Master of wisdom
slave to truth
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The Comforter, Helen Lehndorf (Seraph Press, 2011)

Reviewed by Sienna Latham

It’s often said that there are two types of people in the world. There must exist as many ways to divide us as there are people to imagine, but right now let’s consider just one possible dichotomy: that among us are those who view poetry as simultaneously lofty and unnecessary, disconnected from everyday life, and those who actually read it. Don’t get me wrong; this world of ours is riddled with landfills of angst and terrible wordplay best written and kept hidden away in teenage journals. But to divorce that language from the experiences, thoughts and emotions that inspired it is to miss the point — and to miss out. Read more »

Next Monday will see four poets with collections published in the last twelve months reading their poems at Te Papa. Helen Heath (Graft) and Joan Fleming (The Same as Yes) are first-timers; Lynn Davidson (whose Common Ground mixes poetry and essay) and Harry Ricketts (Just Then) are both teachers of creative writing with longer track records.

The Scoop Review of Books is pleased to be able to bring you a sneak preview of some of the poems that will be having an outing on Monday 16 July between 12:15 and 1:15pm at the Marae, Level 4, Te Papa.

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China as Kafka (Kilmog Press: Dunedin, 2011)
Home, Away, Elsewhere (Proverse: Honk Kong, 2011)

Reviewed by Mark P. Williams

In the middle of reading Vaughan Rapatahana’s two books of poetry I flew home to the UK for a fortnight. The experience of crossing time-zones, journeying there and back again, passing in and out of cultural reference points, transiting through airports, seems a perfectly appropriate backdrop for the dramas of Rapatahana’s verse. Borrowing techniques freely from Modernist, Beat and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, Rapatahana plays with spoken sound and textual surface to explore concepts of cultural marginality. Rapatahana’s teaching background and interest in language and culture are clearly in evidence in these collections. Read more »