P. S. Cottier reviews Timelord Dreaming in the Sydney Morning Herald

In this volume, Reiter presents the reader with a poetic response to his experiences in hospital, as the cause of extreme pain is diagnosed, treated, and operated on.

The short poems inhabit a region between reality and the speculative. The treating doctors merge with images of Doctor Who, and various inhabitants of that Doctor's universe, or multiverse, appear in the pages. Daleks, Cybermen and equipment such as the sonic screwdriver run shoulders with nurses, spirometers and the dubious properties of hospital food. The result is a vivid and, at times, moving chronicle of the journey through serious illness, and the mysterious world of medicine from the patient's perspective.

Here is an example, from early in the process of diagnosis, where the poet is in the Emergency Ward:

EW – SUNDAY, MIDNIGHT

'Excluded your heart. Now for the shadows.
My 10#sonic screwdriver will scan for 11#aliens.'
Yes, my pain is there, and there – a solid 8.

Immediately apparent is the inclusion of links, which take the reader from the text of each poem into the worlds of the internet. These links are repeated in footnotes. The "aliens" link in the poem above, for example, takes one to a web page outlining identifiable mistakes in Aliens, the 1986 film. We immediately see the hideous attraction of mistakes to someone caught in the terrifying parallel universe of medical diagnosis. The ebook, of course works more efficiently in this regard than the printed book, although one could use the links given in footnotes to explore the added dimensions.

Personally, while I chased some of the links, and found some of them fun or illuminating, I also found the appearance of the poems a little cluttered. At least in the printed book, I would have preferred simple footnotes (or end notes) containing some of the linked information, and the poems presented without the underlining and tags.  Others may delight in the intertextual voyages being ticketed from within each poem.

David Reiter dubs the form of these poems, which he writes that he invented while in hospital, the tweetem, which he states is a cross between the "character limited tweet" and "Japanese forms like the tanka".  I have to say that I do not like the word "tweetem"; to my ears it sounds too cute. But there is no denying the powerful kick of some of these works, whatever one thinks of that name.



Many people are writing poems combining the exigencies of Twitter and either haiku or tanka, and finding this to be a convenient and portable way of composition without the need for pen, paper, or even sonic screwdriver. A phone is all one requires. At Micropoetry.com, tweeted poems from around the world are brought together, allowing the curious to find poets of interest. Most of the poems here are, in some way, derived from Japanese forms. Tinywords, founded in 2000, is a daily magazine publishing and distributing haiku, tanka and brief haibun by web, email and SMS. Timelord Dreaming can be seen as part of this developing tradition.

This book is disconcerting, amusing, timely and adventurous. It should be of particular interest to those undergoing medical treatment. In reusing motifs from popular culture, particularly that of science fiction, the poet ties deeply personal experiences to those we share through the web and other created worlds.

Skylark Review of Deep in the Valley of Tea Bowls by Kathy Kituai & Fergus Stewart

Here's an extended review of Deep in the Valley of Tea Bowls by Kathy Kituai and Fergus Stewart that appeared in the international journal Skylark.

Marks that Keep on Burning

Claire Everett, England

they linger

in the corner of the kiln

tea bowls

glazed in deeper hues,

smoke the colour of sorrow

I recall reading this tanka (in Simply Haiku, if I’m not mistaken) early in my tanka career. It stayed with me. I found it compelling, Jungian, shrouded in mystery. I knew nothing of Kathy, or the project she had embarked on, yet I found the tanka wholly satisfying; what did these tea bowls represent? Were they memories? Fears? Hopes unrealised? Words on the tip of a poet’s tongue? Perhaps they spoke of all that is ineffable in this worldly existence. Imagine my delight to find this tanka lingering within the pages of Deep in the Valley of Tea Bowls. Now, on reaching into the kiln to once more feel the shape of Kathy’s words, I am rewarded with the sight and scent of many tea bowls, of various shades and textures, all waiting to be filled with my own particular brew of poetic interpretation. Isn’t that part of the art of tea and its making that the experience is as much about the flavour as it is about the vessel in which the leaves are steeped and the cup or bowl from which the tea is sipped?

In Japan, we see the spiritual, ceremonial side of tea-making, Chanoyu, involving the preparation and presentation of matcha (powdered green tea), but in western culture ‘the Way of Tea’ is no less significant, whether it is made in a bone china pot and served in matching cups, or brewed in an earthenware mug, ‘builders’-style’, its strength determined by how long the bag is left to stew, or how many times it is dunked. Tea is brewed in celebration and as consolation, its therapeutic benefits far exceeding a simple elixir of ground leaves and boiling water; asked what place it has in their daily lives, many would flounder like a wrestler trying to get to grips with the Crown Derby. Fittingly, on the dedication page to Deep in the Valley of Tea Bowls, we read:

Strangely enough humanity has so far met in the tea-cup. It is the only Asiatic ceremonial which commands universal esteem.
– Akakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea (1906)

And just as the west has embraced the art of tea-making and made it its own, o its poets have welcomed tanka into their creative lives. Tanka was integral to the Chanoya; in his poetic afterword to Kathy’s collection, the potter Milton Moon observes:

Tanka embodies the gentle perception of words

Chanoya embodies the shape of the form.

At their highest expression

they take us into the silence beyond either.

Little did Kathy know when she first encountered Fergus Stewart plugging clay in a studio at Strathnairn Arts Centre, Canberra in the 1980s, she was about to embark on a friendship that would span more than two decades and lead to a unique collaboration between poet and potter. From the outset, she was not only fascinated by Fergus’ Aberdeen accent, but also the sheer physicality of his craft. In her prologue she says of potters, “knowing clay has a memory they learn its way of being and never lose sight of that fact.” For many of us tanka, too, is a way of being; moreover, it is a living being, born of breath and experience, something we can knead and mould into a form that expresses our deepest joys and fears, our full immersion in a given moment, our fundamental need to create, to make a mark. And afterwards, we can choose to keep that tanka-ware, or discard it; we can embellish it, or we can cherish it for its earthy simplicity.

can potter

and poet meet in each

turn of phrase?

test cones twist, melt

and break in the kiln

Throughout the collection, Kathy draws many comparisons between pottery and poetry, but as she says in her prologue, she and Fergus - whose beautiful work is showcased in full-colour photographs accompanying the tanka - concluded that the main difference between pottery and poetry is the extra ’t’ in the former. (How appropriate that the additional letter should be a ’t’ …) Potter and poet are both well acquainted with the is-ness of a moment; that space, however briefly inhabited, that reminds us we are beings, not doings. 

Was it synchronicity, serendipity, or some otherworldly blessing that the National Gallery of Australia exhibited ‘Black Robe, White Mist: art of the Japanese Buddhist Nun Rengetsu’ at the very time Kathy and Fergus were seriously considering the collaboration that was destined to become Deep in the Valley of Tea Bowls? In another nod to Rengetsu, Kathy went on to win the Tea Towel Tanka Award with the first tanka she wrote for the project - further affirmation:

every night

she raises to her mouth

his tea bowl

whose idea was it

to glaze it with the moon?

Kathy’s engaging prologue in which she outlines the history of and inspiration for Deep in the Valley of Tea Bowls, is followed by two free-form Western-style poems, the first of which, (‘Teapots and Cats’) is dedicated to Fergus. Kathy has already explained that she enjoys both Western and Eastern poetry and does not favour one over the other, but tanka with its associations with the Tea Ceremony and its potential for brevity, expansion, malleability, dreaming room, passion, ornamentation - qualities that we might find in clay itself and the process of making tea bowls - seemed most appropriate for her purpose. With the first section entitled ‘pricking holes’, like salt to the glaze, the magic begins. Immediately, we encounter Fergus through Kathy’s eyes:

she finds him

outside his studio

on the lawn

pricking holes in colanders

and thoughts she had on potters

With this arresting image, we have an inkling that as readers we, too, are about to have our preconceived ideas about potters (and poets) challenged; how will this synthesis be realised? How will the story unfold? On the page next to the opening tanka there are two colanders, one nestled inside the other. We are told these colanders are finished with ‘Bracken Green slip’ and a ‘Wood-fired salt glaze’. Image and description are a poem in themselves. One wonders if, in the process of crafting these pieces, Fergus was reconsidering the thoughts he had on poets. From the outset, there is a sense that this collection is as much about what is taken away as what remains. In the words of the Tao Te Ching:

… Shape clay into vessel,

It is nothing (the emptiness) that is of use as a vessel.

Open the door and frame the window,

It is nothing (the hollowness) that is of use as a room …

Potter and poet are experts at harnessing the use of nothingness, relishing in what others might carelessly discard. in the say way

joyous

after it rains

tadpoles

swimming in tea bowls

thrown away as seconds

Here is Kathy, pen poised above a clean page of her notebook while the clay spins on the wheel ready to become what ever the hands desire.

bubbles

before they burst

raindrops

before they fall

pots before they are thrown

The image that closes the opening section is of the ‘Old Stable Studio window’ with its pillar-box red frame stark against the white-washed wall of the cottage. Are not pottery and poetry both ways of looking at the world from outside-in and inside-out?

In ‘pots and poetry’, as witness to Fergus’ art, Kathy sees the rough clay at every stage of its journey to becoming a finished pot, perfect or otherwise, but is Fergus privy to the snippets and drafts in her notebook? As poets are we quite so open about the creative process?

no pinch pots

or coiled platters

will she share

scribbled scraps of ideas

or poems trimmed and glazed

As we enter the mind-set of poet and potter alike, there is a certain poise, an awareness of the trance-like connection between artist and art; that epicentre into which none other than the dreamer and the dream can enter:

they limber up …

he with clay centred

on the wheel

she with pen on paper

steadying each word

Here, too, is a reminder to be fully engaged in the present moment:

how to wedge

the next what if

clasp hands

around lumps of clay

feel its roundness

I imagine (perhaps incorrectly) that most readers coming to this collection will be poets rather than potters; what, then, of these vessels we create? The potter’s wares remade for our hands, just so; the cup or jug invites us to feel its weight, to fill it, to tip it, to set our lips to its rim. How might  poet persuade the reader to interact with her creation?

no handle

or spout for this vessel

just five lines

pouring from the nib

to sip or savour

This can be seen as quite self-deprecating: just five lines? Or could it be that the poet must fashion something that will move or transfix the reader out of a mere five lines? To those new to reading tanka, it can seem quite simple and apparently easy to create; once one becomes more familiar with this versatile form, its capacity to say so much more than its five lines, is as endlessly spellbinding as that first sliver of light that brings its cursive to a dark moon. Poet and potter might talk well into the night about the things they share as artists, and those they don’t, but ultimately

for all their talk

on poetry and pots

the wheel spins … 

look at what might be said

simply without words

And as we turn the page, there is a reminder of how we throw words away so thoughtlessly, or those occasions when we put our heads together in idle chat as the moments tick inexorably by: an image of ‘A Cluster of Colanders, red clay slip, gas-fired salt glaze’. Never before have I been so aware of the human qualities such vessels possess; how beautifully Fergus’ colanders (in association with Kathy’s carefully chosen words) convey the sense of an empty mind, whether that is a mind sieved of thought, stilled by meditation, or one that has allowed the finer points of life, or meaning, to slip away. Anthropomorphism is a theme that Kathy plays with throughout this collection. With a childlike eye she conjures all kinds of characters:

gossiping

hands on hips

teapots

facing each other

on a wooden shelf

And reminisces as a mother is wont to do:

pots fired

ready in the kiln

shouting

look at me! look at me!

were her children any different?

Even the kiln takes on a life of its own, standing before the poet, mirroring her open-mouthed wonder, ‘not always speaking of perfect pots’, but endlessly enchanting when it is ‘cool enough to open brick by brick’. Here, too, we are alerted to the quiet presence of the potter who will ‘listen later, as best he can to pots with little to say’; just as the poet’s words will not always sit comfortably with their creator once reviewed in the cold light of day, the tableware made yesterday might not return the kindness of the hands that shaped it.

Not only do these vessels of clay exhibit human-like qualities, the glazed tea bowls themselves are mirrors of the landscape from which they came: the briefly-clouded loch, the sun-shimmered tarn, the green valley …

in a row

ready to be bisque

pots

set outside at sunset

glazed pink, red and gold

Throughout the section, ‘a mantra of pots’, there is a real sense of the interconnectedness of all things; of clay beings rising from the spinning wheel just as our most distant forebears emerged from the primal slip.

do spherical

creatures arise

from the deep

with only finger and thumb tips

guiding them out of mind?

What does this tanka say about Kathy’s regard for Fergus’ art? This god is in his heaven and he has the power to create life:

kanna*

and body-mind centred 

he carves

the foot of each bowl

waiting to be discovered

*metal finishing tool

On entering ‘the potter’s mind’ we cross the threshold to even deeper mystery. A silvery shape at the window of the potter’s shed and glimpses of that inner sanctum with its carefully-stacked wood (‘preparing for the firing at Torbree’) segue beautifully into Kathy’s tanka-portraits of Fergus as alchemist: ‘keeping track/he charts temperatures/every hour’ and ‘diligently/with unwavering focus/he stokes and stokes the kiln’. These pages lie at the heart of the collection and seem to encapsulate the very essence of Kathy’s fascination and deep respect for the potter’s art. Suddenly, in white on a black page:

flashing

in the darkness

potter …

wood … firebox …

pen on the page

In bearing witness to Fergus’ creativity, Kathy is attuned to the flickering edges of her own. Here are echoes of William Blake’s The Tyger. There follows a journal entry by Kathy, dated 29th July 2010 in which she says: “Alive, throbbing and crackling, we abandoned all our energy to the flame … the last throes of creativity where there is nothing to do but give yourself up to the heat of the moment, the pain or joy … No light, or moon, just before midnight. Nothing more than darkness and the kiln, Fergus opened the firebox, flames leapt out at him, drawing us both in …”

In Kathy’s eyes, this might well be Hephaestus fashioning the shield of Achilles. This is myth in the making, and in reading it we become part of it, as we peer into the furnace of the potter’s (and poet’s) mind. We also learn that Kathy’s time with Fergus is coming to an end, and she must return to Australia. The sections that follow are infused with acceptance, reminiscence, a sense of holding on to what is dear even in the knowledge that all is transient.

head bowed … hands folded

she is thankful for mushrooms

in a bowl of soup

spiced with onions garlic thyme

and the outline of her face

careful …

hold it with both hands …

catch every drop

of Lochinver sunlight

spilling into the cup

functional

plain simple teapot

she brews tea

whenever she can

just to say amen

This book does not preach - far from it - but it imparts a gentle wisdom:

to which

would Buddha bow …

this bowl

fitting the palm of her hand

or those the potter discarded?

I could say so much more in praise of this long-awaited collection; the images and themes are as many and varied as there are blends of tea. Kathy’s tanka invite the reader to pause, hold, weigh, consider, and time and again, I find myself wanting to reach into the photograph to take out one of Fergus’ creations and set it on my table. This unique collaboration, like the ritual it celebrates, is inherently comforting yet strangely tantalising:

hand-coiled

lop-sided tea bowl

set on a tray …

the taste of tea

before it is poured

It is not a perfect collection: a discerning reader will spy minor flaws, but therein lies another of its charms. How apt that this tanka

perfect

imperfection …

pots

drying too rapidly

crack without warning 

is followed by a double-page spread in which the potter can be seen at work surrounded by his pieces at various stages of their production; the accompanying tanka that overlays the image is quite difficult to read and this detracts from the delightful pairing. 

I am grateful for the gift of Deep in the Valley of Tea Bowls and where Kathy’s words offer a deep bow to the potter (her ‘mentor’) while he, in turn, creates vessels for her outpourings, I bow deeply to them both.

sheer poetry

leaping from the kiln

will her poem

make marks

that keep on burning

… the answer is “yes.”

IPOZ: Writing in Elsewhere, Graham Reid is impressed wit...

IPOZ: Writing in Elsewhere, Graham Reid is impressed wit...: Writing in Elsewhere , Graham Reid is impressed with Jeremy Roberts' Cards on the Table, despite the fact that Jeremy lacks the profile...

Writing in Elsewhere, Graham Reid is impressed with Jeremy Roberts' Cards on the Table, despite the fact that Jeremy lacks the profile of Big Name New Zealand poets...

Pity the poets.

While musicians bemoan the fall-off in sales, for decades poets have had to accept that selling 200 copies of a collection is actually a pretty good result. Most have to do with considerably less than half of that, unless they have a very big extended family.

And in the poetic landscape there are the Big Names whose work can be acclaimed but largely unread (the late Kendrick Smithyman comes to mind) or are admired but often the reader can be made to feel unworthy for not actually “getting it” (Bill Manhire).

There have always been the volume dealers (Sam Hunt, James K Baxter) whose lives, personae and approachable work means they can shift the units and every now and again get their compilation out for Christmas.

Poets have been "indie" for decades in that because major publishers don't see a dollar in poetry collections other than by Big Names or those with some cachet (Brian Turner, Hone Tuwhare), they are obliged to produce their own work. It's called vanity publishing in the book trade, and for the most part it is ignored by mainstream media (which actually ignores most poetry anyway). 

Spare a thought then for expat Jeremy Roberts who is part of this broad spectrum but doesn't even have the advantage of being around to have a profile.

Jeremy Roberts

He is currently teaching in Jakarta where this large paperback – about 70 poems at a guess – had its launch.

Roberts – an Auckland uni graduate way back whose subsequent career seems to have involved doing most things (oyster farmer to picture framer) and time spent in Australia, Canada, the USA, Britain and Europe – has been influenced by the soundtrack of his times: soul, classic rock, punk and beyond.

And it seems in Jakarta he has formed a couple of bands with local musicians.

So he has a lot to write about, from reflecting on films like Surf Nazis Must Die or Warren Zevon's fatalistic acceptance of death in the song My Ride's Here to a Zen-like detachment or quiet, pared-down observations.

He picks up stones and shells from the beach of life, looks at them careful, turning them in his gaze, then places them back . . . but never in exactly the same position.

In 'Whimsical Vegetables' where he contemplates a city of traffic and psychic energy he says, 

“the moving parts of life swirl in yellow oil/thru car windscreens/& shopping lists ricochet inside skulls of/thought/there's hope in that feeling of sun on the steering wheel . . . turning warmly through choices . . .”

'Driving With Terry' opens like this: 

“the cassette tapes I play as I drive around the city/in my1984 Toyota Corolla LE/are a dead man's tapes . . .”

He is in a Spanish railway station, an Irish bar in Takapuna, on a balcony in Indonesia (“sipping vodka with Trotsky in old Batavia”) and on the road to somewhere else.

Musical references pepper these poems: Jimmy Page's soundtrack to Death Wish II, Neil Young, 

Hank Williams, the second side of Abbey Road, Marvin Gaye and Ian Curtis and the Pet Shop Boys all appear in Cafe List . . .

Pop culture as much as philosophy is here, sometimes in deliberately jarring collision or simply coexisting in harmony.

'Rainy Season Poem' pulls all those threads and ideas together in monsoon season where the Adagio in G Minor plays in a Starbucks while outside are frogs, rats and monkeys . . .

it was an old year falling.& I kissed the residue& waited.

Gemma White's poetry collection Furniture is Disappearing was released in 2014, but here's a thoughtful review by Roxanne Bodsworth that will hopeful renew interest in it:

When living with the threat that the tactile experience of reading may be subsumed by the digital era, this book recalls the sensual experience. It feels good to hold, like handling suede or ancient vellum, and the image of the wine-dark tulip against the window looking onto an overgrown garden invites the reader in. 

The poems are equally as sensual; looking through the window into the poet’s experience of sex, adventure, longing, relationships that begin, end, and where the “furniture is disappearing” as lives are packed up and removed. White, in sharing her experience with such beautiful poetry, engages the reader in the experience of her life.

The first poem in any collection, like the opening paragraph in a novel, is the most important for capturing the interest and enticing you to read on. ‘Guru’ does this:

Peopleon the streetseem to likeasking me questions.

Like the people on the street, we’re prepared to follow White’s directions into the rest of the book, and her engaging personality comes through each one. That personality is nice, likeable, open and trusting, with a child-like sense of play, playing with language and images. Which all can make you very angry, upset for her, when she comes up against the inevitable bastards like in ‘Crimson Encounter’. Sex that isn’t what it should be, instead is meaningless and messy, and non-consensual, leaving her debased, devalued. Paradoxically, White’s strongest poems are the ones that leave behind that child-like state and engage with the darker aspects of life. 

Gemma White

And there is nothing child-like about her skill with language and imagery. These poems are the result of careful and disciplined honing of her craft, evident in ‘Love Poem for London’, arranged in rhyming couplets but with the rhyme in the assonance, giving it a soft, rounded sound that matches the emotion and the aesthetic of the memory. And the excellent pantoum of ‘Ardent Lovemaking’ where she also plays with a juxtaposition of the phrases that works to avoid the monotony of repetition while strengthening the connection between the quatrains. The erratic rather than regular rhythm adds to the topical chaos. 

Some attempts haven’t worked quite so well. ‘Father’s Breath’ is another pantoum but it feels contrived and awkward. And ‘Sonnet for my Lover’ is cloying in its romanticism, though breaking away from the metrical requirements does effectively move it into contemporary modernism. Others such as ‘Friendship’ are just snapshots of her life, encounters, relationships, friendships. There’s a lot of sex, drinking, and drifting, and it does start to feel a bit voyeuristic in the reading. 

I don’t know what this friendshipIs based on, maybe justThe drinking of SmirnoffInto the early hoursAnd the promiseOf your skin.

But there are few enough collections where the poet hits the mark with every offering and here there are enough very good poems to make it worthwhile reading. 


One of my favourites is ‘Where I grew up’ that begins:

The trees had their wings clipped,lumbering amputees with leaves.

Her poem, ‘Mum’ about a mother’s degeneration into senility is aesthetically simple, pared back, but fear-filled and poignant:

Your thoughts likescrambled egg:
I wonder where.I wonder where the pieceswent?

The closing of a collection, for it be a satisfying experience holistically, is as important as the opening and White achieves this with ‘Furniture is disappearing’. With the furniture goes her optimism and this collection has been a rite of passage into adulthood. Despite the disappointment expressed in the last poem, readers can confidently, and optimistically, expect more poetry from White in the future that will reflect an increasing depth, maturity, and mastery of the craft. 

– Roxanne Bodsworth, Goodreads

We're delighted to share this review by Susan Constable of Deep in the Valley of Tea Bowls by Kathy Kituai and Fergus Stewart, which appears in the latest issue of Expositions.

In this collaboration, the Australian poet, Kathy Kituai, travels to Scotland to spend three months interacting with the potter, Fergus Stewart, who produces beautiful art through the use of his hands and creative eye. While appreciating the time and patience he exhibits with his craft, Kituai displays her own artistic talent by using images and words to express what she sees and feels.

they limber up …
he with clay centred
on the wheel
she with pen on paper
steadying each word 

In the introduction, Kituai notes that “although poets use less physical energy they can be weary at the end of a day’s writing. Fergus and I came to the conclusion that the main difference between pottery and poetry, was only an extra ‘t’ in pottery.”

Perhaps that’s true, for it seems there are many similarities between these two artists, including knowledge and skill for their chosen art form, as well as prolonged concentration, patience, and a willingness to experiment and takes risks with their pots or poems. Just as potters take handfuls of wet clay and mould it into vases, bowls, cups, and pots for us to use in our daily lives, poets use words and images to mould their thoughts and ideas, enriching the world in which we live. Stewart shows us his work through colourful photos, Kituai reaches us through the printed word, and there’s a lovely balance between the two throughout this collection.

for all their talk
on poetry and pots
the wheel spins …

look at what might be said
simply without words 

no handle
or spout for this vessel
just five lines
pouring from the nib
to sip or savour 

Kathy Kituai

For the reader, Deep in the Valley of Tea Bowls is like arriving at an intersection where a visual art meets a verbal one. Such a lovely place to stop, sit for a while, and simply enjoy what’s going on when cups, bowls, and pots seem to live lives of their own.

they linger
in the corner of the kiln
tea bowls
glazed in deeper hues, 
smoke the colour of sorrow 

gossiping
hands on hips
teapots
facing each other
on a wooden shelf 

There’s a musicality to these poems and a smooth flow of words that seems to match the rhythm of the potter’s wheel. Many of the tanka sound effortless, which is surely not the case, but rather the result of a great deal of practise and considerable talent on the part of the poet. It takes time and attention to get the wording, the line breaks, and the use of sounds ‘just right.’ Consider the following tanka with its alliteration of 3 hard C’s and 4 W’s, the consonance of P’s in line 1 and the assonance of long A’s in line 5. And then there’s the sound of the

wind itself. 
teapot and cup
her only companions
close by
the wind wailing 
with loose window frames 

Also in the introduction are these words from the poet:

“… the daily task of working with clay, be it plugging, glazing or trimming pots are much the same as writing zero drafts in a journal and moulding them, first to last draft, into poetry ready for publication.”
Her tanka go well beyond description. They leave the reader with dreaming room – a space to evoke our emotions and an invitation to ‘finish the poem’ which she’s begun.

to which 
would Buddha bow …
this bowl
fitting the palm of her hand
or those the potter discarded?

every night 
she raises to her mouth
his tea bowl
whose idea was it
to glaze it with the moon? 

Deep in the Valley of Tea Bowls is a welcome addition to my tanka library. Nicely laid out with usually only one or two tanka per page, the book is broken into numerous sections, including ‘pots and poetry’, ‘a mantra of pots’, ‘no other spice’, and ‘set with a linen cloth’. The many pictures, by various photographers, add a wonderful splash of colour, while providing a good look at the potter’s workplace and finished products. The tanka, including the title poem, stand well on their own and speak for themselves.

Fergus Stewart

Oh! to rest 
deep in the valley
of tea bowls
the clay … the kiln
and craftsmanship 

Kituai says, “I embarked on this journey wondering if I could take a handful of words, five lines, no more than that, and like potters, set out to create vessels in which to offer up food for thought.” Considering the consistency in the quality of her writing, the poignancy of many of her tanka, and her ability to convert imagery into words, her success is readily apparent.

– Susan Constable, Expositions

How did an Auckland poet living in Indonesia come to publish with IP?

Jeremy Robert's book Cards on the Table is about to be toured in New Zealand, along with David Reiter's latest Timelord Dreaming: tweetems from ward 8b.

We asked Jeremy to blog for us about his adventures as a poet in a strange land – or should we say, a strange poet in a stranger land, and here's what he's posted for us, and you.

BAJAJ BOY STORIES: Star Deli Gig, 2013

Even after a few months in Indonesia, we were still very much strangers in a strange land - experiencing things unknown in our former lives. It felt like we’d been given the key to a mystical city - the colourful Jakarta landscape alive with the sound-track of a million motorbikes & Bajaj, blaring minaret towers & calls of “Hey, mister!” Our eyes were full: female smiles filled with mystery; exotic-looking food we weren’t brave enough to try; the sight of a ‘rubbish-picker’ hauling his wooden cart - loaded with several hundred kilos of trash, barefoot, in driving rain with lightning overhead, straining uphill into oncoming rush-hour traffic; foreigners drunk on free beer; snakes slowly waking up at dusk. Of course, we were itching to keep playing live.

The need to scrounge for gig venues led us to the Star Deli, which is a gritty music bar in Kemang, South Jakarta - frequented largely by a mix of seasoned ex-patriot oil industry workers, with a sprinkling of Jakarta ‘greenhorns’ & staffed by young Javanese beauties decked out in cute little matching outfits. It is locally famous for being the bar where patrons have literally died while sitting at the bar. It serves as your typical seedy watering hole, where a good dose of bullshitting, cheating & gold-digging goes on, as the beer & spirits flow & the cigarettes are sucked off, one after another. There’s also a bit of violence, on occasion. The Star Deli’s stage is home to everything from tattooed punk bands to Country and Western. It was the location of the most in-your-face gig the Bajaj Boys ever did.

We talked our way into the gig by selling the idea to the owners that we were poetry & Rock ‘n’ Roll. Which was true. Not poetry trying to be Rock ‘n’ Roll; not Rock ‘n’ Roll trying to be poetry, but poetry AND Rock ‘n’ Roll. I thought our sound was maybe a little different to what I’d done before. It was a step away from ‘soundscapes’ & jazz influence & the free-form improvisation thing, where the musician stood there waiting for the moment to be cut free so they could largely play whatever they felt like. The two of us were tied together. You didn’t need a full band. ‘Manchester City’ man Derek was a good enough guitar player to create a memorable riff or borrow a suitable one from somewhere & it would set up a productive tension under the words. It worked. Our creative process was simple: I’d read a poem out loud & Derek would listen & try a few chords or notes – usually striking the right feel very quickly. The other way was for me to listen to a riff or tune Derek had come up with which we both liked & then I would rifle through the files & pick a good match for the music. The Bajaj Boys were simpatico.

It was the last gig done with Derek playing his Jakarta, Blok M-purchased rubbish guitar, too. Within a few weeks of buying it, the neck had warped in the constant humidity & the cheap strings threatened to go out of tune at any moment. After fruitlessly searching the streets, he’d been forced to part with a few hundred thousand Rupiah to buy the piece of shit, in a shop where the manager refused to turn down bad booming club music, when Derek asked if he could check out this guitar more closely. Have a play. Urgent necessity meant that he had to buy it.

So, at the Deli, we took a few grateful sips on our free-drink-of-choice (Scotch & dry for Derek; vodka, lime & soda for me!) & got into our work on stage. Just this side of ‘in-tune’, Derek’s picked-up acoustic twangs bounced off the walls & flew like dazzled mosquitos into the eardrums of unwilling listeners. Right from the start, it was clear we had only about a third of the audience in our pocket. The others really were just there to puff, drink & talk. Sometimes I yelled into the mic, blasting words into those same ignoring ear-drums: “Who surfs porn out there?”, “Who’s been to Paris?”, & “Hey, is there any cherry brandy behind the bar?” to cut thru the noise & indifference. If those fat beer-drinking expats didn’t want a mental floss, they were suddenly stuck in a room with two messengers who came to get the job done. It never really worried us if we met disinterest & we often did. The Bajaj Boys once played to an audience of one. But I felt that if I actually sat down with these nicotine junkies & alcohol sponges & gave them a copy of a poem to read, they would most probably relate to the content & say something positive. Was it bad memories of crappy, boring poetry teaching during ancient school days? One notorious local piss-head had commented to me a few days before our gig: “Poetry? Shit! - isn’t that something that people did about 500 years ago?”

During the gig, our eyes constantly scanned the dark, smoky room – past our own little posse of supporters, watching the sauntering, sideways-looking waitresses & chain-smoking regulars who would turn their startled heads every now & then, when a particular phrase caught their attention. Probably a dirty word. The whole scene seemed to unfold in slow-motion, while outside, the Java night hummed - busy as a gargantuan hornet’s nest, but filled with friendly, grinning teeth instead of threatening stings. Constant inspiration hung in that fertile, steamy air, which was always ready to be breathed in, absorbed. 

The truth is you never really know who might be listening & what people are thinking. I once chose to perform a piece about 911’s infamous pilot Mohammad Atta (in which I say “I’m glad you died”) at a PC, life-affirming Oxfam fund-raiser, where one poet actually apologised for being an American & for the existence of George Bush. There was surprise & dead silence after I finished my short piece - the last two words being ‘jet fuel’. Later, I was slightly shocked to have two female audience members approach me separately, with thanks & to say how much they loved it. No, you never know what people have in their heads.

Still, this Bajaj Boy set list was put together specifically for a Rock ‘n’ Roll bar: THE PUNK M O (anti-politician); THE TACO EXPRESS (drinking Margaritas in Texas); LENA (a young woman using men); PERMANENTLY TEMPORARY (watch out – change is coming); CICCIOLINA (how a famous Italian porn star once tried to save the world); SHE NEVER KNEW (falling in love with a woman who barely knows you); CHERRY BRANDY & THE LEAP OF FAITH (religion, alcohol & spirituality); IS ALL RAIN THE SAME? (life can be so full of PC, culture-respecting bullshit); THE FREAKS OF VENICE (homeless people who live outside the mainstream with their addictions know as much about the meaning of life as anyone); FADING WITH THE NEON FLOWERS (guys on the town, drinking & trying to pick up women); HE’S GOTTA SEE US, HE’S GOTTA STOP (live fast, die young - à la James Dean).

The Bajaj Boys did well that night.

Due to the pushing of the wrong button on the Sony Dictaphone on the darkened stage, no recording exists.