Landfall Submission

Wish me luck!

Vignettes

The Meandering Series

I

If Aoraki was personified

who could be more of a ‘cloud piercer’

than our Kiri?  (Her figure is less formidable of course).

I’ve seen clouds disperse

and felt the bluest of clear skies above me

several times

as her voice picked up the updraught

delicately

my soul caught on the wing.

II

The best places to explore

are off the track

those spots

that no-one seems to have beaten you to.

Lilburn,

Knox,

Nathan Haines

each leads the weary musical tourist

stick/Casiotone/sax in hand

towards that cove

you never knew existed

with so few human traces

it could be considered virginal.

Who knew there were so many hidden caves

to wonder in?

Like the west coast Crooked River,

from the Southern Alps

to Lake Brunner,

Phil Dadson

starts from scratch

twisting erratically

then meandering

to forge his own paths.

III

Hirini Melbourne

and Richard Nunns

found the rain and the wind again.

(Have you ever heard the Hue Puruwai?)

Beachcombers

would delight

in the carved albatross wing bone

half-buried in the cultural sands

for all those years.

Melbourne and Nunns

blew the sand

off the rei*

and opened their ketes

filled with all number of national treasures.

If you listen carefully

you might hear

the melodic sobs of a whale again

from the Putatara

held to ancient lips.

*cherished posession

IV

We inhabit the bach house

in summer

familiar and sturdy

as a Jordan Luck

or a Dobbyn anthem.

We laze under clear sky sun

then it’s back to legoland

under the long grey cloud

of top 40 radio pollution.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

I am currently working on a submission of poetry for the Landfall literary journal. The theme is music, and I started thinking about Chris Knox, an iconic kiwi musician who recently suffered a stroke. This then led me to think about the phrase ‘a stroke of genius’. What exactly defines genius? Of course, I turned to that much-too-trusted online tome, Wikipedia. 

‘…genius is associated with achievement of insight which has transformational power. A work of genius fundamentally alters the expectations of its audience.’

When I read this, I realised that creativity and genius go hand in hand.  It’s not about IQ, which has been superceded by many other types of Q, such as EQ and SQ anyway. It’s about re-creation, or transformation. I think the phrase ‘…nothing new under the sun.’ is true, therefore, genius is about bringing enlightenment or understanding of something, over and above the norm. Granted, superior intellect in an area, or possessing a rare talent can lead to genius, but not always. For example, Charlie Chaplin was more than talented or intelligent, he exceeded the expectations of the audience and pushed his art form to new heights.

Sometimes a piece of work or art is labelled ‘genius’ because it exists way outside of the norm of what we know. But more often than not, genius is what we know, plus. It takes what is common and then stretches, modifies, explains or transforms it into something new. It’s often building on a foundation of the familiar but with that little something extra, that makes us call something genius. We may not realise genius when we see it if it is too far outside the square of our experience, or we might label it that because of the fact.

Chris Knox has definitely transformed the music scene in NZ and has also been influential overseas. I think that there can be no genius without pushing existing boundaries somewhere.

Now, back to that Landfall submission. No pressure or anything.