At the Point of Seeing, by Megan Kitching (Otago University Press, $25)
In her debut collection, Megan Kitching draws on her knowledge of both botany and traditional poetry to tell us about the parts of nature that we often forget: the undervalued plants that do so much to sustain our environment. This is emphasised in the poems Botanising and Weeds. We are never chastised or preached at, for much of her work simply catches the natural beauty of things, as in vignettes like Mornington, a vision of rain falling on the suburbs; Hiatus, on the moment the sun rises; or On Kamau Taurua, where a moment of sunset and dusk is beautifully captured.
Kitching can be satirical in Appropriation, where she condemns the way mass-produced images can destroy our understanding of animals. Humans are part of her vision, but humans are very much controlled by nature, like the surfers in Cold Fusion.
A poem in a class of its own – the type that should be anthologised – is A Bee Against a Window, with its precise observation and steady beat as a bee climbs laboriously up a window pane. Nature observed clearly and in close detail.
Saga, by Hannah Mettner (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $25)
From its confronting cover design (incorporating an intrauterine device) to its very last trope, Hannah Mettner’s Saga is loud, boisterous and very, very readable. Often written as prose-poems, the collection is clear in what it is saying, straightforward and candid.
Mettner tells us of lovers female and male. Sometimes she rages at prohibitions, as in the poem Birth Control, or protests against the way people are bullied, pushed around and categorised in corporate life in Beep Test. In Anita, she holds to account the false versions of women presented in advertising.
Male behaviour is condemned in Bad man kink, in which she suggests extreme measures.
Yet after the anger and polemics, there is also an undercurrent of general disappointment where lovers let you down (Sea Horses), positive forecasts of the future never live up to their hype (Thought experiment in the future) and there is anger at the world our parents have left (Who doesn’t love miniature horses).
All quite a ride, but an energetic one.
Middle Youth, by Morgan Bach (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $25)
If Mettner expresses herself in a loud, confronting way, Morgan Bach works with more subtlety. Her poems are often lean, never prosy and frequently allusive. Yet in terms of sexuality, the two poets have much in common.
Sexual encounters are sometimes noted discreetly as in blood moon and in oracle where “my sexuality / is that I would have made / a good oracle / I would take / or leave you after / cryptic truth …”.
Like the oracle at Delphi, she can be ambiguous. Vividly conveyed are trips the poet appears to have taken in parts of Europe, but seemingly always alone. In this context, it is interesting to see how much loneliness is one of her main themes.
In the title poem, the poet apparently declares herself to be 40. In this context “middle youth” seems to mean something like the early part of middle age, with perhaps a little regret in what has not happened in her life. There are a few slaps at males, one poem beginning: “The world is full of great men / making it completely unliveable for the rest of us”. That sense of loneliness works its way into poems about the cold universe around us.
Often a sequence of sorrow and hesitation, Middle Youth is carefully crafted and does open up to us a certain perspective that is rarely revealed. An interesting collection.
