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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781775581925 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Auckland University Press |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 56 |
| File size: | 161 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Long Road to Teatime
By Anna Jackson
Auckland University Press
Copyright © 2000 Anna JacksonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77558-192-5
CHAPTER 1
16 Pakeha Waka
1
Just as Maui once chanted the Hiki to make heavy weights light
and so from his waka pulled up New Zealand on his fish hook
so Robert Sullivan has the way with words to make light
the whole heavy mythology of New Zealand
and pull it up, up, up to burst into the supermarkets
and mortgaged houses of his Star Waka,
his life, our lives.
I paddle my waka in his slipstream.
2
Robert's Waka 80 tells of Peter Robinson's painting
of all the white canoes and the one brown canoe
that depict his ancestry, one part Maori.
Of my sixteen waka lined up on the beach,
none would be painted brown.
My families came from Scotland
and the north of England.
They brought the name Cameron
and the Cameron tartan from Scotland
and from England a Bible recording
the names of many Margarets
all linked up with pencil lines
to delineate the family tree.
3
One of my sixteen waka arrived in Auckland in 1860,
the Ellen Lewis from Nova Scotia, and on board
my great-great-grandparents, John and Flora McDonald.
Thomas and Mary Ann Jackson arrived on the second
of my sixteen waka, the Burns, in 1879.
A shoemaker, and the daughter of a shoemaker,
they taught school, dispensed medicine and the Quaker faith.
Their son Theodore married Margaret McDonald
and in 1904 my father's father was born.
4
Most of the eight waka of my mother's family
landed in nineteenth-century Tasmania
where family fortunes rose and fell like waves.
My mother's mother Elaine was the rich daughter
of John Speed who came to Australia a poor cobbler
and made a fortune in shoes.
My mother's father John Lovett was the poor son
of a wealthy Tasmanian family who lost everything
in the Depression. He rose again with Speed Shoes.
5
My father's mother, Margaret, was the daughter of doctor
Adam Pairman, the son of doctor Robert Pairman.
Adam's brother Thomas was a doctor too, and a reader of Dante
who started Dante reading groups all over settler New Zealand
and gave a translation of the Paradiso to my Gran, long before
I translated it into my own life. He called his daughter Beatrice.
6
My brother is Cameron,
I am Anna,
my sister is Juliet.
Shakespeare's three children were Hamnet,
Susanna,
and Judith.
And they were shadow names too.
Names, manes.
7
When Simon and I crossed seas
to England we carried with us
a daughter's name.
We would call our baby Elvira
after the pinball game we played
at Urbi et Orbi.
Of the town, and of the world.
8
The baby carved me out inside
and I was a waka for a fish
that was a waka for a
person.
9
There is all the taonga of my tohunga
to pack.
I carve translations for Mayakovsky, Ovid
and Dante.
There is a dark wood to carve
into a would.
10
The baby carries the language genes
we have carried across the generations
since our hair grew sparse on our skins
and our babies, unable to cling,
cried out to us to speak.
We sang.
11
We call the baby Johnny after Johnny Cash.
We call the baby Johnny after Johann Bach.
We call the baby Johnny after Grandpa John.
Sometimes we call him Johnny Smoke.
Johnny calls himself Envelope Man.
He calls himself Superhero and Batman.
Sometimes he's a polar bear and sometimes a rabbit.
Elvira calls him 'bruvva'.
12
Simon's ancestors were Welsh,
French, Spanish.
He grew up on ships sailing to and from
Wales and New Zealand.
We went to Wales, to Bangor, where he was born,
but couldn't find the hospital,
and I wanted to swim in the municipal baths
but they didn't hire out togs.
What we liked best about Wales was
how much more like New Zealand it seemed
than England.
13
England is Johnny's Hawaiki – somewhere
like Home, too far away to visit
but the source of miraculous things,
like Rose, and toys from English toy shops.
He was born there, but remembers only here.
He asks, 'Is England the olden days?'
It is his once upon a time, his happy ever after.
14
We went to Spain when Johnny was still a fish
inside me – smaller than a trout –
and in the heart of Spain found Elvira street.
We would have bought tiles with ELVIRA on
but the shop was closed for the winter –
we had come outside the tourist season.
I took a photo of Simon in Elvira street
under graffiti of his name – SIMON –
and he photographed me under the sign ELVIRA
with Johnny, who might have been Elvira,
invisible inside me.
15
Simon is fifteen-sixteenths Celtic, a descendant
of those restless Celts who kept moving
right to the edges of Europe, and across the Channel
to the edges of Britain, heading for the edge of the world.
The Greeks thought them barbarians in their hilltop huts,
a story-telling, war-waging people who spoke no Greek.
Today the Welsh children are relearning their language
in language nests like the Kohanga Reo.
We were going to call Elvira Ifor, the Welsh name for Johnny.
16
Our daughter was born at last, in New Zealand,
at home, in the bath, on the 7th of February
after a Waitangi Day of contractions.
We call her Elvira – a Spanish name
meaning fair one – foreigner – Pakeha.
At sixteen months, she still rows herself
about on the floor, bottom-shuffling.
Not a walker, but a waka –
my waka to the stars.
The Long Road to Teatime
1 The road to Karekare
In the middle of our journey
we found ourselves lost.
'This is the jungle,' said Johnny.
Rose asked if we had a map.
'Not a road map,' said Simon.
'So what sort do you have?'
We looked for a life map.
In the middle of the journey
of my life, I sat on one side
of Elvira and Rose sat
on the other. I have known
Elvira for sixteen months
since she was born,
Rose for sixteen years.
At Karekare Rose and I
left the children to walk
the length of the beach.
'What was it like?' she asked.
It was like a dark wood.
We walked across sand
next to water, under sky.
We walked back to the car
across the dunes and through
a wood of cabbage trees.
Johnny said, 'Be quiet
or the wild things will hear.'
There might have been a leopard.
There were dogs.
2 My friendship with Dante
Lost in the dark wood I want
to rekindle my affair with the sun.
I look about for my stiletto-heeled
black leather boots to put on.
It is too dark to see.
Three beasts stand between the sun and me.
Simon, Johnny and Elvira stand at the top of the hill
and howl at me. 'We are baby panthers.'
Elvira howls at the sight
of my wool work coat.
I can't get past.
But out of the obscurity emerges the figure of a man,
weak, as if his lungs have been still too long.
It is Dante, of course.
Dante! Can't you take me to the sun?
But Dante has to take me first along the path
he once was led along by Virgil.
'Another poet will take you to the sun.
Frank O'Hara knows the sun well
and knows the way to Paradise.
But I can show you the way to hell.'
And so to escape the three beasts
I take Dante by the hand.
When he moves on, I move on close
behind.
3 Into darkness
Dante's cantos are 'missiles for capturing
the future'. But they lead me
into the dark.
But I am not Ciardi! Mandelbaum!
Barely published! My friendship
with Mayakovsky is my sole
claim to fame.
Can I translate the Inferno, knowing
no Italian?
'Oh, come on. I am doing this for Frank
and Emily Dickinson and all the other
poets of the sun. They recognise you
and even I picked you in the dark.
Why delay?'
And just as flowers rise again
from their night postures
when the sun drives into their stems,
I too stand tall.
Where Dante goes I will follow after.
I start on the road to hell.
4 I meet up with the spineless
Now what comes next is not all good to tell
and I'm sorry to put you through it
but for the sake of those who will call this present
the olden days I'll let those present resent
me and write on.
Dante smiles as he leads me through the gates,
and as I read the fearful words carved there
he slides an arm familiarly around my shoulders
like a heavy ray of sunshine.
And here are those who were too cool to speak.
So this is where you ended up
when I vomited you out of my mouth!
I recognise you but I will name no names. Yet.
I am tired at the thought of you.
5 I wake up amongst the lustful gluttons
I wake up and at first I think I am back on Ponsonby Road.
A greasy cheesy smell of food thickens the air
till I lift my feet. Then another smell stirs
and rises from the ground, a smell of rotting meat
and fruit scraps turning slimily to earth.
The slime seems bottomless underfoot
but is so thick with its own stench it supports my weight.
The restaurants all spill onto the footpath,
drunken customers lurch out and lie in the gutter
pressing their lips slackly on each other's mouths.
They eat in the gutter where they lie as if it doesn't matter
when they vomit over each other
between bites. Their mindless moans and shouts
clash with the discordant music all about.
Seeing me some look up from their brawls
and copulation. Jade wants to know
if Greg is still alive. As more rubbish falls
on our sodden spattered clothes
she begs me to speak of her to all
she begs me to speak of her to all
those left living, then lurches from her stool
to heave her guts out in the road.
6 Pain hosts the party the romantics cannot leave
Pain offers me a glass of wine
but I still feel sick from the level above.
Someone takes my arm, pulls me down
to a sofa. 'I have so much to tell you,'
she whispers in a breathy voice.
'Lisa? Is it you?'
It is too dark to see.
'What are you doing here? Why is it so dark?'
I ask. The guests are crammed into the smallest
kitchen of any party I've been to
and there is no door out.
Such a small kitchen
to hold such large anguish.
Everyone is sobbing
and smoking.
I become aware of Nik melded to Lisa's side.
I can't hear what Lisa is saying, she is sobbing
so loud. Something about reading
romances together till they were
crammed into the narrowest one and
their vision shrank to its size
and all went black.
Then pain returns to my side, bringing pity,
who comes between me and Lisa,
offering salted peanuts
and small
talk.
7 So far the sinners have merely been incontinent
and it takes a boat ride to the big city
to reach the usurers in their slime.
Here they are with the murderers and homicides.
The usurers too are in for violence,
they have violated nature and art
by investing their hopes in roads and commerce.
There are too many names to name.
Gloss this canto with the stockbrokers of your time.
8 I am reaquainted with the furry fish of fraud
I remember my surprise eight years ago
when I looked under the downy fluff of Micky's sweet talk
and saw the scales of fraud beneath.
It is this furry fish Dante urges me onto now.
I climb on and off it flies, out into thin air.
I look down and hastily shut my eyes
but I can't shut out the screaming
from those below me in the flames.
I feel like Icarus must have felt, feeling his sides unfeathering
as the wax began to melt and nothing,
nothing held him up.
Remembering the freefall from my romance,
I cling on tightly now to the fishy fur.
9 The flatterers still teem with language
in the maze of stinking ditches where we land.
They can't see each other over the putrid walls
and though they reach out with their voices
their sugared words stick to them like glue.
I won't look for Micky, his hair like candyfloss.
I bury my face in my furry fish.
10 Over the valley of the therapists to the soup bowl of the malicious
Gently Dante takes my hand and guides me off my furry fish,
to lead me now up a rocky path and across a bridge
over a deep valley, long and narrow like a throat,
swallowing down huge tongues of flame.
This is the valley of bad therapists, who are hidden
in the flames of guilt that consume them
for the harm their wrong advice has caused.
But now I'm stuck, because who could describe, even in prose,
the pain suffered by those in the next level of hell?
Language isn't big enough.
Here the troublemakers who caused discord when they were alive,
who made friends fall out and who split families,
are themselves split
and split, sliced
by blades,
bleeding,
screaming,
sliced and split
and split again but
still one, to be sliced
again and again and again sliced.
The screaming cuts through me till I cry out,
Hellish blender make soup
of them, make soup! Make soup!
11 Soberly we move on to the lowest levels of hell
This part is even harder for me to tell.
My stomach is cold with nerves,
I write with a grip on my face.
We have reached the levels where the treacherous plunge after death.
Dante leads me down past the traitors to their country
but when we reach the traitors to their families
he stops, and when he stops I stop with him.
Here are the parents who betrayed their children,
who turned away from the good in them
to complain about them to their friends,
who saw their children as obstacles
to their own rewards.
Screaming with horror they are forcing the children
into their gaping mouths, and the air is thick
with the smell of their children's blood
running down their chins, drenching their clothes,
pooling at their feet.
I am retching, retching, dry mouthed.
I am terrified Dante will leave me here,
but speechlessly he leads me on.
12 Impossibly, he takes me down still further
Now we are truly at the bottom of the Inferno.
There are no flames here.
We walk across ice.
My feet skate over the ice and my attention skates
over the horrors of the bottom level. I think
I know my place.
But Dante nods at me to look downwards
and I look below my feet to see
those frozen below the ground.
It is impossible to speak to these figures,
sealed in ice, their postures distorted.
I open my mouth to ask Dante who they are,
but no words come.
Then I know these are the traitors to their calling.
Here the artists who gave up painting, the poets
who were too busy teaching, are sealed
in their silence.
'Take me away,' I whisper with all the breath I can raise
to my mouth. 'Take me away, I am still alive.'
'Ah, this is the one level of hell where the souls of the living are interred
while their bodies still go through the motions on earth.'
13 Out the other side
The moment stretches to include eternity
like Emily Dickinson moments do.
My heartbeat is an endless dash.
Then time returns to the Inferno and races through dawn to dusk.
Gravity turns inside out, our heads stand where our feet stood,
and our feet are already walking down a hidden road.
Dante moves on and I move on close behind
till we see a seamless hole ahead of us,
and through the hole I see the earth holding the sky
and the sky holding tight to the stars.
Paradiso
Returning to the journey through my life
I saw my family far ahead in the dark wood,
though my own self was obscured
as if I saw myself through eyelashes.
Simon, Johnny, Elvira and Rose
were each as clear as prose.
I ran to catch us up.
On the long car ride home
on the straight road to Auckland
I sat on one side of Elvira
and Rose sat on the other,
and Johnny and Simon sat in front.
We were a would of selves.
We were a family.
In the kitchen at our house
we ate hot buttered toast
and it might have been the bread of angels.
Rose read Where The Wild Things Are
to Johnny, and I called, 'Rufy, Rufy.'
And there was our cat.
Johnny calls her our panther.
Breakfast with Rufy
Rose has been sending me Frida Kahlo postcards.
I have lined them up above my desk. Frida stares
at me in quintuplicate, her eyebrows linked like the brows
of my estranged sister, her hair pinned back with butterflies
like the butterfly clips at Sportsgirl. In one portrait
a monkey perches on her left shoulder, looking as exotic
and familiar as my children. She wears a dead bird
around her neck as our lawn does, and a black cat creeps
towards her right shoulder. It looks exactly like our cat Rufy
and exactly like a panther, far more unlikely than a monkey.
How as astonishing it is when out of our suburban garden
Rufy stalks, exactly like a panther, and meows to me
as if I were her mother. How can she think we are kin?
She might as well have jumped down out of a postcard.
I feed Rufy her meat and call it her breakfast, then she's off,
our lawn for a moment dressed in a black fur stole.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Long Road to Teatime by Anna Jackson. Copyright © 2000 Anna Jackson. Excerpted by permission of Auckland University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Dedication,
16 Pakeha Waka,
The Long Road to Teatime,
Breakfast with Rufy,
Mealtimes at the Bookhouse,
Teatime with the Timorese,
8 Days in my Mother's City,
Copyright,