Congratulations go to Johanna Emeney, a PhD candidate in the School, who has had a poem selected as “commended” in the prestigious UK-based Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. The poem, “And then it spreads“, is from her creative/critical thesis, which is focused on medical poetry. Further details can be found at: http://hippocrates-poetry.org/hippocrates-prize/2015-hippocrates-prize-for/.
Bryan Walpert’s recently launched book, Native Bird, is currently sitting at #9 on the New Zealand Bestseller list. Check it out here:
First prize of $500 in the fifth annual Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize for 2015 has been won by Dunedin poet and graduating Massey University Masters of Creative Writing student Sue Wootton, for her poem ‘Luthier’. Second prize ($250) was awarded to Jessica le Bas, of Nelson, for ‘Four Photographs from a Window’.
Alexandra poet Michael Harlow, who judged the competition, said in his report that ‘Luthier’ was ‘a poem alive in its language’ and ‘a fine pleasure to read aloud’; and he described the second-prize-winning poem as ‘a poem of celebration, accurate to its truth-telling’.
Mr Harlow listed six further entries as highly-commended. The poets are Carolyn McCurdie (Dunedin), Jillian Sullivan (Omakau), Michael Morrissey (Auckland), Karen Zelas (Christchurch), and Pat White (Fairlie).
The two winning entries will be published in the literary journal Landfall in May, and all of the award-winning poems will then appear on the Caselberg Trust website.
Around two hundred entries are received each year for the Caselberg Trust International Poetry Competition, from writers working in a number of different countries. Entries are judged ‘blind’, with the judge being completely unaware of the poets’ identities until after the final decisions have been made.
The prize-winning poems and the judge’s report will be published in the May issue of Landfall, and along with the highly commended poems, will be posted on the Caselberg Trust web-site. Awards will be presented at a function in Dunedin in April.
Past winners of the Caselberg competition include Massey tutor Mary McCallum from Wellington, and Massey University PhD student Tim Upperton from Palmerston North.
For more information visit http://www.caselbergtrust.org/sue-wootton-wins-2015-international-poetry-prize/
Congratulations to Masters of Creative Writing (MCW) student Janet Newman, whose poetry collection beach.river.always – written during her Massey MCW – was just listed as the runner up for the 2014 Kathleen Grattan Prize for a Sequence of Poems: http://www.iww.co.nz/KathleenGrattanPrize2014%20PressRelease.pdf.
Image from Maddie Leach’s collaborative artwork, ‘If you find the good oil let us know’
A creative essay by School of English & Media Studies senior lecturer Dr Ingrid Horrocks is currently featuring as part of the Walters Prize exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery.
The essay forms a key part of Maddie Leach’s collaborative conceptual art project ‘if you find the good oil let us know’, which is a finalist in this year’s Walters Prize, New Zealand’s premier contemporary art award. All four finalists are on display at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki until 12 October 2014.
The $50,000 Walters Prize, named after the late New Zealand artist Gordon Walters, is awarded for an outstanding work of contemporary New Zealand art produced and exhibited during the past two years. The prize aims to make contemporary art a more widely recognised and debated feature of our cultural life.
Dr Horrocks’ work of critical-creative prose is the closing piece in the publication, ‘if you find the good oil let us know’, which is the culmination of Maddie Leach’s 2012 Govett-Brewster Aotearoa New Zealand Artist in Residence project of the same name. The project as a whole unfolds an imaginative narrative of whales, cement, art works, scientists, seafarers, migrations, and oil companies via a community of letter-writers and readers.
Dr Horrocks’s contribution works both as part of the artwork, and as the single critical response to the work as a whole. It also involves a recorded performance of her work, which serves as the audio narrative of the project in its next incarnation online in association with the Walters Prize exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery.
Maddie Leach is a senior lecturer and postgraduate coordinator for fine arts, in Massey University’s Whiti o Rehua – The School of Art at Wellington.
Link: http://maddieleach.net http://www.aucklandartgallery.com/media/6032904/twp2014_catalogue.pdf
Dr Jack Ross on an earlier cover of Poetry NZ
Watching an Al Jazeera television item about a young Arab poet spraypainting words of protest on a wall somewhere on the West Bank struck a chord with Massey University English senior lecturer Dr Jack Ross.
In his new role as managing editor of the country’s longest-running poetry journal, Poetry New Zealand, he hopes to infuse something of the spirit and energy of that far-flung poet in future issues of his new literary baby.
In the spirit of his predecessors at the helm of the periodical, he intends to keep it youth-oriented, politically engaged, experimental, and culturally diverse – all necessary attributes for an international journal of poetry and poetics.
Ross – a poet, editor and critic who teaches fiction, poetry, and travel writing in the School of English and Media Studies at the Albany campus – replaces distinguished poet, anthologist, fiction-writer, critic and retiring editor Alistair Paterson, who held the role for 21 years.
From this year, Poetry New Zealand will be edited and published by Massey’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences. An agreement was signed by its head of the School of English and Media Studies, Associate Professor Joe Grixti, Poetry New Zealand’s former managing editor Paterson, and production manager John Denny, for the future housing of the magazine by the university.
The journal originated in 1951 when poet Louis Johnson began publishing his annual New Zealand Poetry Yearbook. Johnson’s series stopped in 1964, but a bi-annual version re-christened as Poetry New Zealand was revived by Frank McKay in the 1970s and early 80s with a total of six issues, each with a different guest editor. It began appearing twice yearly under Oz Kraus at the end of the 1980s, initially with a series of guest editors and then with Paterson at the helm.
Currently working on his first issue, the 49th in the series, which is due out in October this year, Ross says the journal will continue to feature work primarily by established local and some overseas poets, as well as commentary and reviews. Pivotal to attracting and fostering a new generation of poets is his wish to showcase emerging – and inevitably challenging – poetic trends, voices and styles.
“There will still be a featured poet in each issue – but we’ll have to wait and see who’s been chosen to inaugurate the new yearbook version. It may be surprising to some!” he says. “Poetry New Zealand is for readers and poets who crave stimulation and real challenges from encountering experimental work that’s not always immediately accessible,” he adds.
He’s keen on the idea of including some foreign language poetry in translation by overseas-based or migrant writers living here.
Cosmetic and technological changes are afoot too. The feature poet’s portrait as the cover will be replaced with fresh new artwork. Contributers can also submit their work electronically for the first time. And instead of two issues per year there’ll be an annual edition with roughly twice the number of pages.
The changes will not only open up new directions for readers and writers, but an opportunity for graduate students studying creative writing and communication at Massey to become involved in editing, design and layout through internships.
“It [Poetry New Zealand] will help complement the link between teaching and doing your own work. It’s good for students to see that while you are at university, even in arts and literature you can be learning in a pragmatic way. These are real world skills.”
Ross, who was featured in Poetry New Zealand’s Issue 22 in 2001 and guest-edited Issue 38 in 2009, has a wealth of experience in writing, editing and teaching poetry. He shares his poetic interests via a highly stimulating literary blog, The Imaginary Museum.
No stranger to experimenting with genre, as in City of Strange Brunettes (1998), Chantal’s Book (2002), and To Terezin (2007), as well as in foreign languages with Celanie, (which he translated from German – via French – into English), he also co-edited the trilogy of audio and text anthologies Classic, Contemporary and New NZ Poets in Performance (AUP, 2006-8).
While he acknowledges editing Poetry New Zealand is a time-consuming labour of love fitted around a busy teaching and PhD supervision schedule, he will be supported by an advisory board including Massey academics, poets and editors Dr Thom Conroy, Dr Ingrid Horrocks and Associate Professor Bryan Walpert; along with poet and academic Dr Jen Crawford; publisher and printer John Denny; poet and 2013 Burns Fellow David Howard; poet and editor Alistair Paterson ONZM; and poet and academic Dr Tracey Slaughter.
Ross says his ultimate aim is to make Poetry New Zealand as relevant and rivetting to a new generation of readers and writers as the most powerful films, novels and digital content. Like the graffitied words of that young Arab poet.