O LITTLE TOWN OF LYTTELTON


For Anke Richter

Well of souls chaliced in
its gothic rampart of hills
fit for Walpurgisnacht
when the pewter
lid comes down.
Weatherboard villas,
limpet shacks,
occasional modernist intruders,
lean-to kitchens
and vertical driveways
in some impossible,
gravity-defying
Escher woodcut,
while down in the crater
shipping crates perform
like Georgian dancers
to a diesel thrum
and heated conversations
in Russian and Korean.

A port is welcome,
passive and receptive,
a Narnia at the back of
Christchurch’s wardrobe.

A port is glasnost,
our diplomatic
accommodation
with the coastline-

chewing sea.


Previously published in Quietus: Observations of an Altered City, Analogue House, 2012.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE DEATH OF MARION DU FRESNE AT THE BAY OF ISLANDS, NEW ZEALAND, 12 JUNE 1772, BY CHARLES MÉRYON (1846-1848)

Image
Charles Meryon, The Death of Marion du Fresne at the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, 12 June 1772, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington (1846-1848) I Sometime between 1846 and 1848 drew the scene en graiselle in pencil and crayon, heightened with chalk. It’s a largish work, one metre by two metres – a heroic scale for a “heroic” subject, executed by the French artist Charles Méryon (1821-1868) and exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1848. Thence it passed on to the artist’s closest friend, Antoine-Édouard Foleÿ (the two were stationed together at the French naval base in Akaroa on Banks’ Peninsula), a member of the Paris Positivist circle of the philosopher Auguste Comte, who left it to his son. The drawing was purchased in Paris by New Zealand-born British art collector Rex Nan Kivell, who smuggled it back to London, rolled up in the leg of his trousers, as the Second World War broke out. Eventually this magnificent curiosity entered the National Library of Australia as part of t
Read more

THINKING ABOUT LUKE WILLIS THOMPSON

This online article criticising Luke Willis Thompson 2018 Turner Prize-nominated work for essentially being appropriation because he has light skin and, in the author’s estimation, “passes” for “white” has recently provoked discussion on social media. It has raised some interesting points, but (acknowledging I really can’t speak to the indigenous perspective and don’t claim to) notions of a melanin pantone chart being applied to indigenous people in colonised places is spectacularly grotesque. Putting aside the quite natural variations in complexion among Polynesian and Melanesian peoples, Thompson’s indigeneity is inalienable from his genealogy/whakapapa and his being raised as iTaukei. This sort of discourse has been insinuating itself in postcolonial discourse in New Zealand lately. It has been very popular with neocolonialists seeking to alienate indigenous people from their identity, and more disconcertingly, turns up in internal Māori and Pasifika politics (shades of Deleu
Read more

NOT EVERYONE LOVES JOJO RABBIT: A LIST OF LINKS

Given the tendency of the New Zealand media to be relentlessly jingoistic to the point of sycophancy when it comes to our film-makers in Hollywood, by way of counterpoint and because you are highly unlikely to see attention drawn to them elsewhere, I have compiled a list of less than glowing reviews of Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit , concentrating on the ones that raise interesting points rather than merely being snarky. In no particular order: Richard Brody, "Springtime for Nazis: How the Satire of "Jojo Rabbit" Backfires, The New Yorker , 22 October 2019. Peter Sobczynski, "Jojo Rabbit", eFilm Critic , 23 October 2019. Nick Schager, "Jojo Rabbit": Taika Waititi's Nazi Satire Tries and Fails to Find the Funny in Fascism", The Daily Beast , 19 October 2019. Adam Nayman, "Jojo Rabbit" and Taika Waititi's Childish Approach to Nazism", The Ringer, 18 October 2019. Jonathon Romney, "Film of the Week: Jojo Rabbit&
Read more