Mark Pirie

Over 2,000 poem publications in a dozen countries worldwide.

November sees the publication of my poem bibliography, an enormous task that took several years to compile from old records, online Google key word searches and via search indexes like Index New Zealand at the National Library of New Zealand.

The project entailed reading a lot of microfilm to find all newspaper publication of my poetry. Like a number of New Zealand authors, I had not kept good records, but the publisher Niel Wright took an interest in my work and encouraged me to complete the huge task.

The bibliography is as complete as I can get it but I recognise some of my online publications have since disappeared from the late 1990s and early Noughties.

Poetry bibliographies turn up all sorts of interesting data as well as empowering authors with a sense of their progress. I didn't think I'd find 2,000 poem publications when I began the project.

I would welcome more poem bibliographies by New Zealand authors and state the necessity of poets keeping records such as these for posterity.

Here's the link to the pdf: /books/bibliography-of-mark-piries-poetry

In September, my publishing company HeadworX released two new poetry books by John O’Connor, of Christchurch, and Jack Ross, of Auckland.

O’Connor’s book is a nifty collection of his poems and prose poems called Whistling in the Dark with a neat cover by renowned Canterbury artist Eion Stevens. 

Ross’s book, A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014, is essentially a major retrospective of his work, and something of much anticipation in New Zealand poetry circles.

I’m very pleased to be publishing both of these well established New Zealand poets.

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

Jack Ross, A Clearer View of the Hinterland

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

John O’Connor, Whistling in the Dark

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

The latest issue of my poetry journal broadsheet, no.14, November 2014, features the distinguished New Zealand poet Michael Harlow, who has recently read at world poetry festivals in Romania and Nicaragua. In 2014, Harlow published his selected poems Sweeping the Courtyard and a collection of love poems Heart absolutely I can.

The issue of broadsheet is the first journal to feature his prose poetry in New Zealand.

The prose poems are from a work in progress that Harlow is writing. Of these poems, Harlow writes: ‘they are best described as very short prose texts (rather like the French récit—I resist the “flash fiction” definition/category). Closest thing we have to it here is the prose-poem, and I’m happy with that. I like to think of the poème en prose, these texts as an example of the “prose that’s in poetry”—following on from the great Greek poet Seferis, who once remarked words to the effect that “I wish our poets would write poems with more of what our best prose writers have…” Or something like that. Thus far, I’ve only published a few of them in bilingual, translation form, English and Spanish, in overseas journals.’

Others included are: Michael Duffett (USA/UK), award-winning poet Brian Turner, P V Reeves, Laura Solomon, MaryJane Thomson, Nicholas Reid, Edward Sakowski (translated from the Polish by Robert Zuch), Riemke Ensing, Noeline Gannaway, Cameron La Follette (USA), Brentley Frazer (Australia), Michael Walker, Pat White and Mark Young.

Here's the link:
http://broadsheetnz.wordpress.com

This year I published a small book of my poems written between 1993 and 2008 through my imprint The Night Press.

Poems for my Father is a collection of my poems for, concerning, or related to my father.

The poems form a sequence and cover a range of subjects from childhood travels to family portraits and reunions.

"Leo the lion, American President George Washington, poets Allen Curnow and James K Baxter, and the Great Diviner of the Pyramid in Uxmal, Mexico, form unlikely starting points for Mark Pirie’s experiences. His father is ever in the picture."

Here's the link to the free pdf ebook:
/books/poems-for-my-father