Mark Pirie

In August and September, my publishing company HeadworX released two new poetry books by Brentley Frazer, of Brisbane, Australia, and MaryJane Thomson, of Wellington.

Frazer's book combines major new sequences with shorter lyrical, concrete and prose poems, and gives a generational sense of what it means to be an urban Australian looking into the future. A 21st century apocalyptic howl from the cities: Aboriginal to nowhere.

Thomson’s book, Songs of the City, is the third collection by her and continues the development in her poetic since her second collection Lonely Earth. Songs of the City ranges over contemporary issues and offers a generational assessment of a technologically driven world.

I’m very pleased to be publishing both of these titles by two excellent Australasian poets.

For more details on each book, please visit the HeadworX website:

Aboriginal to Nowhere by Brentley Frazer

http://headworx.eyesis.co.nz/poetry/aboriginal

Songs of the City by MaryJane Thomson

http://headworx.eyesis.co.nz/poetry/songs

Recently, I appeared along with the Poetry Archive of NZ Aotearoa in Jacket2, USA, in a series of commentaries by Vaughan Rapatahana on the small press and poetry scene in New Zealand.

“One such example of sterling input is the invaluable Poetry Archive of New Zealand. As Mark Pirie points out to us, ‘I co-organise the Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa (with Dr Michael O’Leary and Dr Niel Wright, the founders) collecting poets back to the nineteenth century. There are more good poets than people realize reading mainstream historical anthologies of New Zealand poetry. I have realized this fairly recently after wasted years of looking at and learning from selective, academic anthologies ever since I was a student. Since 2010, I have edited the quarterly Poetry Archive newsletter Poetry Notes. This has featured many forgotten historical New Zealand poets and presented highly original research by myself, Rowan Gibbs, Niel Wright, and Michael O’Leary. The National Library of New Zealand online research tools like Papers Past have been vital to this rediscovery of early New Zealand poetry too. Poets like Robert J Pope, Ivy Gibbs, and A. Stanley Sherratt have had their work republished.’ It needs to be made clear that these three guys receive no emolument for their earnest endeavours and do rely on donations of both funds and poetry texts to proliferate their resource, ‘so very good historical and contemporary poets don’t get missed.’ Stalwarts all, indeed.”

Vaughan Rapatahana also interviewed me on HeadworX, JAAM and publishing poetry in New Zealand and ran a poem of mine as well as mentioning my featuring of Mahinarangi Tocker in broadsheet no. 10.

It was great to be profiled so prominently overseas, and Vaughan gave me considerable understanding and recognition for my literary work.

Here are the links to Vaughan's articles:

Slam, slam ... & thank you Mams, Vaughan Rapatahana, in Jacket2 Commentaries, USA, 2015 (online).

'Small' poetry publishers and publications, Vaughan Rapatahana, in Jacket2 Commentaries, USA, 2015 (online).

A certain 'Je ne sais quoi' — Percutio with JAAM, Vaughan Rapatahana, in Jacket2 Commentaries, USA, 2015 (online).

Ngā Kaituhi Wāhine Māori — Māori Women Writers,'Vaughan Rapatahana, in Jacket2 Commentaries, USA, 2015 (online).

July 2016 saw the return of Winter Readings, a popular poetry event in Wellington that I co-organised with Michael O’Leary from 2003 to 2008.

A feature of these events was that Michael and I dressed up as music stars and did tributes to bands and groups that we had admired as well as promoting our recent titles as publishers (HeadworX and ESAW).

This year we did the Bee Gees, whose early work and some of their disco party anthems still resonate with me. It was nice to do a tribute to the Gibb brothers.

Those taking part at our appropriately titled Poetry Gees event were exciting new writers MaryJane Thomson and Polina Kouzminova of Wellington, along with myself, Michael, Jeanne Bernhardt (from Lawrence, Otago) and Rob Hack (Paekakariki).

A report featured on Beattie’s Book Blog, which also included the awarding of the Earl of Seacliff Poetry Prize to Jeanne Bernhardt.

I also edited a small 20-page booklet of the poets at the reading. The anthology included Niel Wright's poem on the Bee Gees first published in my journal broadsheet.

Here's the link: /books/poetry-gees

The July issue of the International Journal on Multicultural Literature, Vol. 6, No. 2, India, edited by Professor Dr.  K. V. Dominic (English poet, critic, short story writer, editor) includes two of my poems.

I was very pleased to have been included among many learned contributors in a refereed and fully indexed international journal.

The poems had a special connection to two countries: Bangladesh and Nepal. One poem was on the devastating Nepal earthquake last year, which occurred around the time of Prince Harry’s visit to New Zealand. The second poem, another cricket poem of mine, focused on Bangladesh’s wonderful opening ceremony at the 2011 ICC World Cup.

Earlier this year Professor Dominic also published my interview with the New Zealand poet, reviewer, interviewer and editor Patricia Prime (see IJML, Vol. 6, No. 1, January 2016).

Patricia Prime’s fine poems also feature with mine in the above-mentioned July issue of the IJML.