Ode to our poets

More than any other genre, New Zealand poetry bridges New Zealand's disparate worlds, of Pakeha and Maori, and of urban and rural, if the finalists in this year's Montana Poetry Awards are anything to go by.

The three finalists - Glenn Colquhoun, Robert Sullivan, Jeffrey Paparoa Holman - share a great commitment to things Maori. London-born Holman burst into a congratulatory haka as Colquhoun was announced as winner and, as Colquhoun put it in his acceptance speech on June 20, they are all "people who have a love of both cultures" and who all live in very small rural communities. He then sang a waiata that was Flick the little fire engine, sung in Te Reo.

Their work arcs far beyond their immediate environments, ranging through history, into personal relationships and touching on issues of morality that lie at the core of contemporary life.

Colquhoun, whose The Art of Walking Upright won the 2000 best first book award, now goes forward on the shortlist for the Montana Medal for Non-Fiction, along with the winners of the other non-fiction categories. That will be announced in Christchurch on July 22.

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GLENN COLQUHOUN

Glenn Colquhoun is a doctor, working in Te Tai Tokerau in Northland. As well as The Art of Walking Upright, he has published a children's book and a slim volume called An Explanation of Poetry to my Father.

His new collection, Playing God, is based on his experiences in medicine. The judges commented on his freshness and originality which has "no obvious connections to other contemporary poetic movements", and his "quirky take on things that might otherwise seem so commonplace as to be hardly worth noticing".

What Sort Of Day Will It Be?

Some days, when he wakes up,

It seems the horizons have been bent,

Then he has to lean all day to see

if he can stand up straight.

Some days, when he wakes up,

He sees a world where all the signs say

Wet Paint. He will not touch anything

for fear that it could smudge.

Some days, when he wakes up,

He is a stack of papers fallen down.

He is not sure where to turn.

And some days, when he wakes up,

Things remain the way they were before.

Then he thinks he must be getting better.

Words of pure gut-wrenching emotion fill this poem, one of eight about Parkinson's Disease, the degenerative neurological condition. They are all dedicated to the poet's father and every word is loaded with love and sadness.

Describing the extreme vulnerability of someone in the grip of this bewildering, devastating illness, Colquhoun conveys an admirable, rare empathy. And of course the poem is for every one of us facing our own mortality.

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JEFFREY PAPAROA HOLMAN

Jeffrey Paparoa Holman was born in London in 1947, but grew up on the South Island West Coast, mainly in Blackball. He has published two previous volumes of poetry, Two Poets (with David Walker) and Flood Damage. He works in the Maori Department of Canterbury University and his new volume As big as a father was a finalist this year.

The judges said his poems "are redolent of senses of the South Island's West Coast: arms wide spread, wind, seas, ruggedness".

Bending the Bricks
for Rudolf Boelee, b. 1940

History was water

boiling the dikes

when you were born

into Rotterdam's storm:

the burning sky

the crumbling doors

your mother's cries

& the antiChrist

fanning the redhot coals

bending the bricks as you

wriggled and bawled

tsunamis bulging the walls

Two poets have dedicated work to Christchurch artist Rudolf Boelee this year (the other is James Norcliffe) so he must be a sound fellow. With every word counting, Holman wonders about a birth in the middle of bombs and death and war at the port of Rotterdam in the war.

If "to read poetry is essentially to daydream" - a quote by Gaston Bachelard that Holman uses in his Prologue - then this poem is a daydream about new life blossoming in the middle of mayhem and death.

* * *

ROBERT SULLIVAN

Robert Sullivan, of Nga Puhi and Galway Irish descent, has published three other books of poetry including Star Waka, shortlisted for the 2000 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. He was the 1998 Literary Fellow at the University of Auckland and in 2001 was the Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Hawaii.

His latest book, Captain Cook in the Underworld, for which he was shortlisted this year, is a long poem originally commissioned as a libretto by the Orpheus Choir of Wellington to celebrate its 50th anniversary. It was first performed last November.

Sullivan's prefatory quotations from Coleridge, Dante and Walcott "are the first of many examples of Sullivan's sophisticated awareness of literary forms and influences, and his understanding of historical and cultural contexts," the judges said.

Captain Cook in the Underworld (excerpt)

[Endeavour crew]

The captain doesn't know his men

we would follow him to the end,

out of the blazing native sun

sketched by Sydney Parkinson:

where Cook goes we go too!

But we don't just thrust and chew,

we're disciplined, we're English

through and through - Venus

is our mission, and exploration

next. We crew for the nation!

Labouring under not a single shred of self-doubt, Captain Cook's loyal crew make a brief appearance in this long poem. They are proud to be part of a scientific expedition to chart new coastlines and observe the Transit of Venus from Tahiti. A vast Pacific ocean is where European myths make space for Polynesian myths.

In the last pages, there comes a reckoning where the English voyagers start to realise the damage they have inflicted upon the peoples of the Pacific. Sullivan, with the benefit of hindsight, portrays a world where there is dawning recognition by the explorers and absolution from the island inhabitants.

Poems from As big as a Father by Jeffrey Paparoa Holman (Steele Roberts); Playing God by Glenn Colquhoun (Steele Roberts); Captain Cook in the Underworld by Robert Sullivan (Auckland University Press).