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Overview
Arranged in four acts, this collection of poems merrily experiments with voice, performance, and medium, exploring the craft through monologues, dialogues, choruses, songs, scene sets, and storyboards. Filled with experimental and stirring language, this anthology includes a piece confronting global warming as well as dramatic and satiric verse arranged with swagger and aplomb, citing surprising and surreal moments such as a seal reciting the poetry of R. A. K. Mason and a goat tied to a theater door. An array of serious and calm lyric poems balance out this assortment, creating a diverse miscellany that is as playful as it is profound.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781775582380 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Auckland University Press |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 72 |
| File size: | 501 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Walls to Kick and Hills to Sing From
A Comedy with Interruptions
By Murray Edmond
Auckland University Press
Copyright © 2010 Murray EdmondAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77558-238-0
CHAPTER 1
Exposition
she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily study
–Jane Austen, Persuasion
Setting the seal on NZ poetry
ACT ONE
A wharf.
A Young Man comes with a bundle of books under his arm.
He stops at the end of the wharf.
He drops the bundle of books into the water.
Young Man: Not a single copy sold.
ACT TWO
The same wharf, some years later.
A Young Woman comes to the end of the wharf.
Young Woman: When I was young and very wise ...
She jumps off the end of the wharf.
ACT THREE
Under the water beneath the wharf the Young Woman has found a copy of the Young Man's book and is reading it.
Young Woman: If I had known about this book, I never would have jumped.
ACT FOUR
The Young Man, no longer now a young man, has returned to the wharf where he threw away his unsold books.
Young Man no Longer Young: One reader would have been enough.
He jumps.
ACT FIVE
A Seal clambers up the side of the wharf and flops onto the planks.
Seal: My body bedded in sea-midmost wave after drear days I felt again the sun
The Young Man (young again!) and the Young Woman (forever young) are seen walking together and reading a book on the wharf behind the Seal, who does not see them there.
Young Woman: Did you hear a seal bark?
CURTAIN
Nice hollow you've got
Fine comb. Cows in surf. Powdered ships close by. The cosmetics were shut or lost or transported. There were no delights, there was no throwing, no one spoke, and the surfaces resounded through an empty universe. Ha. Ha. The bicycle plunged through the night without lights, taking corners at breakneck speed. The bottle smashed in a deep pool. The inert wreckage bent. We camped out for a long time wreaking havoc on an already stressed environment. Music played, men wore dresses and butch ladies turned up decked out in fine linen, trou and waistcoats, that kind of gear, stovepipes, all the rage, eyeing up the clientele through a blue haze. Afternoon wore on into evening, patrons settling down for a night of it. The interviews went on and on. Candidates lay about in the corridor. It was political in the sense of eradicating the middle ground. Took passage and fled. What else could a woman do? So, the seaweed closed over her face — but what colour was that face? The trick question. And the same cows were grazing a second year. Oh yes, they took us through it, through it and through it, turning the consequences over to more formidable interrogators. Such a mess. Remember the swagger with which she emerged from the sea only to confront yet another inspection. Start again. There were tears and they were your tears as you spoke those words. Get a big gin inside you and go home to bed. Better that way than trapped in that utopia. Those old ships are the best ships. Those old universes the most empty.
The passing of the forest
I have lately repeopled my mind with nature — BYRON
The forest passes as we pass
moss-encrusted ancient stately
(the forest that is)
in Domett's words
humid dull with cloud
(not Domett)
through which the Mitsubishi
makes exit and entrance
avoiding the possum voiding
its guts in splendour
slowing at the exclamation mark
!
(black on orange)
after the iconic kiwi silhouette
(black on yellow)
where the road has fallen
psychedelic wire-netting
all glory cannot vanish from the hills
(Reeves)
entreating voice unheard
22,500 acres
created in the year of my birth
pass and are passed and past
macrocarpas perplexed cattle
replace that labyrinth of life
(Reeves again) that corrugated
iron shed looks pretty
natural digging into the river
bend for a long stay
Waipoua Forest, February 2004
A social and poetic chorus
Agricultural Worker: Please eat the peaches and cream.
Member of the Board of Trustees: We need to clean these green heaters.
Watchman: Charles' heart was far harder than Mark's.
Insurance Agent: Walk to the door in the north porch.
Company Director: Draw the stork with the chalk on the board.
Demonstrator: Do choose the soup then goose for two.
Drover: Hugh was well groomed but moody and aloof.
Examiner: This is an interesting index system.
Forestry Worker: Bill-sticking is prohibited in this English city.
Freelance Photographer: Fetch ten eggs from the red hen's nest.
Gardener: Mend the fence when the weather is better.
Jockey: The sunflowers are covered in butterflies.
Labourer: Don't rush the hut unless you love slugs.
Milk Deliverer: He got a lot of copies of the longer song.
Model: The hot dog wandered through the foggy docks.
Entertainer: Harry was standing by the back taxi rank.
Construction Contractor: Grab the ladder and hang up the banned banners.
Sportsperson: Gee!
Vegetable Gatherers: Calm arm, large barn.
Eel Seller: Warm order! Warm order!
Sharefisher: Cool moon, loser.
Shearer: Wishes — city, dinner, miss, mirror, big sin.
Wholesale Sphagnum Moss Seller: Feather bed spells treasure.
Street Cleaner: Onion — rubber — love — dumb result.
Television Producer: Sombre profit. Bog knowledge. Sob.
Theatrical Performer: Fatter bad man shall hammer. Wrap.
A ballad dreaming of home ...
it was Easter Saturday in Glen Eden and
God was dead
McCahon had painted white on black
BREAD 90c on a sign outside the dairy
and sitting in their car oy oy
the boys were hanging out their arms
drooping penises lolling like the tongues
of dogs oy oy wanker
the world is just a room
with four thin corners in which we're trapped and though
the morepork mope and the cricket stridulate
a man alone will still sniff his knickers
when suddenly a splash broke
through the din
the sound of Lord Buddha
leaping in his swimming pool
down at No. 9
but no frog began to croak
only the simple sound of pasta falling
being used to throw the I Ching
ker-chung ker-chung
the dead duck at the gate
already croaked sits up and sings
hear our voices tweet tweet tweet
Tender validation
there isn't a poem which couldn't have been otherwise
than it is finite but unbounded as the universe
could well be this is the tender validation
of endeavour which might be found when they
come to the terminal exchange to check out
and to be checked
where they will be offered the choice
to suicide for the PR value ensuing
or to increase their market value
or to remain steadfastly as they are as the waves
wash over their heads
those seeking perfect rehabilitation
will be shown a photo of a gazelle kicking in midair
before its slaughter and asked to describe it
in any words they choose —
that's the trick
choose
seeking soft returns they come again and again to the beginning of
the task until ragged, righteous, unjustified
they are broken open and their spaces filled
with what has been called the little of of of
by means of which its plenitude wearies them
their very lack grows needful
and a symptom of poor maimed suffering
is read as ecstasy
and before long this photograph of love
is what connects them to us
we find it is they who have given
The goat in Auckland
for Anna Hofmann and Daniel Batten
When he came to the theatre
the door was locked with a chain
and a goat was tied to the handle:
a tragedy had occurred within
the board had locked their own door
against the public wanting to come in —
it was money of course, what it cost
to sell being more than what it cost
to buy. The goat had no idea.
It was part of the cast, something
Tennessee Williams wrote, but the rest
of the thespians had gone home or
sought watering-holes in which to
soften their loss. Only the goat
remained waiting for whoever.
Some say the theatre god is
Dionysus who brings ecstasy
but not this night; others have
chosen Mercury, of thieves, of trade,
of skill, the messenger, the metic,
the quick-change boy. The goat
did not offer an opinion.
There was another goat, black,
led by a young woman from
a Russian novel, deported from
Australia; together they
walked Friday nights down
Queen St. Now that was theatre.
Ecstasy: a short film
Helicopter Shot: The land rushes up to meet me, the beautiful land, the holy land, the fields and the farms, the fortunes and the failures —
Crane Shot: Deep suspension holds me just as I hold you, we hover together like birds of a feather —
Ditch Shot: Mine are the eyes which look out from the mouth of the cave, mine are the eyes 100% pure, the smiling mask of the mystery —
Helicopter Shot: Dropping dropping dropping
Crane Shot: Swoop swoop — whoop — weep — the yes of the farmer who stands at the mouth of the cave —
Ditch Shot: My eyes, my cave, my farmer —
Helicopter Shot: The farmer's hand switches on the light in the cave where he has rigged his battery-powered electricity system —
Following Camera: The back of the farmer's neck is red and sweaty, his skin creases where the sun has folded it over like pancakes in a pile. He walks in, we walk in.
Shot from Rear of Cave: Against the light, the upraised cock, the solid lumps of testicles, carved in sandstone, commanding a view of the valley below, the silhouette of the farmer small as a structure of sticks as he gazes in on his own creation, sculpture for one, solitary guest in his own gallery, the man who gazes on himself.
CHAPTER 2Complication
Dusk fell. The winter day – the like of which would never occur again, unless Nietzsche was right in his theory of perpetual repetition – flickered out like a candle.
– Isaac Bashevis Singer, Shosha
Suburban nature morte
Someone from above is looking down
might be a goat god who enjoys a joke
or Nietzsche's over-optimistic shade
on someone, even as this
someone looked down on
is looking down
lackadaisical fetishist at open evening window
on a third someone whose instantiate oblivion
includes the unconscious horse and
the woman with a whip
if they were to look up all three might see
the sickle moon snagged by a tree, but no
one is doubled with metaphysic cramps
the second's withered hand shades his face
and peeps, the third has bent
himself almost in two as he performs
his yoga on his patio in tigers
and panthers yoked with flowers
on his Dionysian dressing gown
which is open to interpretation
Album of the hour
'Spawn of a circus rat'
A gigantic four-foot-long rat escapes from a research laboratory which has disguised itself as a circus so as not to create panic in the family-oriented middle-class neighbourhood where it is situated. The scientists all wear red noses and funny make-up and when they go door-knocking no one believes them — about the rat — (it's Halloween of course) — and people just tell them to grow up or get a life or something, so when the rat strikes no one is ready and the killing goes on ... the lyricist remembers his own closeted, mollycoddled upbringing ... the rat finally mates with a human female, mother of three, producing ferociously violent midget humans covered in pure white fur.
'A handbag is for hitting with'
A conceptual sound collage built from a sample of lips smacking. Based on a theatre performance featuring comic handbag fighting, the situation has been transformed to passionate interaction between all people regardless of who they are or what they want ... 'if you can kiss me there's a good chance I won't hit you with my handbag' was what the lyrics originally said but no words can be heard distinctly in the final mix ...
'Epsilon Male meets Delta Female'
Quotational devotional pseudo-erotic metro-situational post -parodic techno-evocational psycho-landscape social intelligence primer.
'Why not say it even if you don't mean it'
Saying and meaning, meaning and saying: is a song a performative speech act in the sense it says that the singer is singing and everything that follows will be of the singing until the singing stops, so from the first sound the song says I am song and means you will now read me as song so the singing is always its own subject.
'I never loved an animal like you'
Crossing the boundaries of bestiality nevertheless a realm of quiet passion and 'true love' (as the old pop songs call it) is established in a mode which is tender and modern; this is finally a plea for the taboos to be re-tabooed in the name of erotic resonance. A delight.
'Goo goo goo good-bye'
A barnyard of onomatopoeia in which woof arf oink moo neigh hee haw bow baa etc. emerge in post-production as strange, metallic, distant, as if the ark of Noah had become an alien ship landing on planet earth and opening its doors to a poignant menagerie of first encounter.
'Perfection detection is my predilection'
The rats are back and they're plaguing the ship. Who will be the hero of the time? Who will rescue us from this plague? The ghost of Oedipus is here, the shadow of Artaud, but also the modern detective story played out in an existential ballad sung to blurring guitars and a rapturous finale of pure breathing looped back on itself — until, when the breathing stops, the 'song' continues into the silence between tracks. The album's masterpiece in terms of bringing sound and lyric, the semiotic and the phenomenological, into harmonic dialectic.
'Excuse me it was me who was bleeding in your diary'
The cult of life writing is not spared in this vicious muddle of identities. Why do we want to hear about your life, your dreams, your bad emotions, your weak visions? Send us noise instead. That at least contains delight. And feels like thunder overhead.
'Red rose nose job'
The face you're born with or the one the surgeon draws in the private clinic? Implant or infusion? Flesh becomes like water in this theatre of reconstruction. Why not get the cat done as well — she's an ugly brute? Finally mortality and shame emerge as the themes of this tacky tale, beautifully set to an orchestral fullness of sound. As the knife cuts the strings swell.
'My little black book is turning blue'
Where do the secret police go when the dictatorship is over — to some furnace where they can throw the most damning evidence in before they take some record to the archive for form's sake? Was it their fault or were they just making a bad system barely bearable? The monotony of the one note used in this composition is irritating, boring, funny, and finally chilling as it just goes on and on against a background of files being read, reports enunciated, codes recited etc.
A translation of one of the sonnets of the importunate
They brought those fêted seals in bells and hats
and leis by fated sails from ocean bowers
with cargo load of sated foals and gold
crew of fetid souls — white warlock on the bridge
our failed ships drooped before this armada
lagoon spilled shells and pestilence of coral
so that we took forced spoils and chopped them up
in slithers speech degrades — swathed fools
worked days of filched sleeps and broken skin
slipped our secret saviours feasts of scraps —
those zealots who sequestered skeins of poison —
lovers searching under sheets for signs of solace
swift wealth consumes our livers' breath
sweet succubus send annihilation of the goat
This one that one
Is it this? Is this it? Is it? Is it? Is it? That there? This. This. This. This? That. It is. This is it. There it is. That's it there. This that? That that. This is that there. It is this that there. That's it. Is it? This? That? There.
Is there ever really any body there? In the beginning you unrolled yourself like a sleeping bag, a body bag to hold you, to hold your body in. You didn't want to lose this one, after all, you'd only just got it. You won't get another. That's what was said, though you didn't then understand. Nothing. Not a thing.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Walls to Kick and Hills to Sing From by Murray Edmond. Copyright © 2010 Murray Edmond. 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,Epigraph,
1. Exposition,
Setting the seal on NZ poetry,
Nice hollow you've got,
The passing of the forest,
A social and poetic chorus,
A ballad dreaming of home ...,
Tender validation,
The goat in Auckland,
Ecstasy: a short film,
2. Complication,
Suburban nature morte,
Album of the hour,
A translation of one of the sonnets of the importunate,
This one that one,
Miniature,
3. Revelation,
Leaping Malinowski,
The animals of the bed,
Folk song,
Galah,
Rhapsody in pink,
Old Good Friday,
Whose say-so says so?,
Never enough,
That afternoon,
4. Peripety,
The first of the first,
Last caravanserai,
A name,
The ballad of incommensurate space,
You all do know this mantle,
Of the nature of nature,
5. Catastrophe,
Small interior,
Man alone,
The Borgesian instance,
How the rats of knowledge stayed on board to see the show,
18/4/1986 — 18/4/2006,
6. Dénouement,
Four little new year songs,
Narrow roads to the east,
Global whispers: a chorus,
The Gates of Paradise,
Notes,
Copyright,