- from Family Plot (2016):
- A Traveller on the Road to Emmaus (2/1-29/8/16)
- Drying Out the Bach (3/1/16-1/1/17)
- Bowie at Slane (12/1/16-13/7/17)
- A boy was drowned (13/1/16-13/7/17)
- 3,000 unopened emails (17/1/16-22/10/17)
- New Year (19/1/16-19/10/17)
- Gettysburg (20/1/16-22/10/17)
- Faith Hill (22/1/16-3/9/21)
- Time for an outing (23/1/16-19/10/17)
- We used some (24/1/16-22/10/17)
- Trump said (25/1/16-20/1/17)
- The new laptop (26/1/16-7/5/17)
- Last night the heat got (28/1/16-7/5/17)
- from Canberra Tales (2016)
- Terrorist or theorist? (16/9-4/12/16)
- The President of the Philippines (30/10-24/11/16)
- Grenfell Tower Block Fire (15-21/6/17)
- Feet splayed (6/7-19/10/17)
- Christchurch, 15th March 2019 (19/3-14/4/19)
- Just Like the Others (27-28/10/20)
- Scurvy Grass (6/2-22/7/21)
- The Gulf (for Michele) (25/3-4/9/21)
- Stormy Weather (6/6-27/8/21)
- Bus lanes (12/5-11/8/22)
- No time but the present (for Paula Green) (24/5-7/10/22)
- Insomnia. Homer. Reefed sails ... (after Mandelstam) (24-27/12/22)
Family Plot
(2016)
And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he
made as though he would have gone further. But they constrained
him, saying, ‘Abide with us: for it is towards evening, and the
day is far spent’. And he went in to tarry with them.
– Luke 24: 13-15.
Wars and rumours of wars
even the sparrows look shell-shocked
as they huddle on the clothesline
seeing the New Year in
with beating rain and wind
the kitten steals the warm spot on the duvet
when I get up for a moment
treatises on how best to treat your slaves
from ISIS
shock when an All-Black
tweets corpse-snaps
from a refugee village
it should have come with a warning
prates some Tom Fool
so should the world
come in and tarry with us
even though I don’t believe in you
doubt that you ever existed
I like to think of that dusty road
that traveller joining the others
making as though he would have gone further
tarry with us a while
and bring a friend
(2/1-29/8/16)
Publications:
- Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2021 [Issue #55]. Ed. Tracey Slaughter. ISBN 978-0-9951354-2-0. Auckland: Massey University Press, 2021: 245-49.
- "The Zero Suite." Papyri (2/5/23)
Notes:
- The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].
•
Ever since we learned the leaks around the windows couldn’t be fixed by pulling out rusty nails we’ve known it needed a new roof in the meantime a three-day rainstorm means towels round the sills bed on its back books on high alert and now the morning after airing out the place wringing out soaked linen sensing the return of sweat in the form of duty work in the name of peace Tim Powers put it best in The Anubis Gates dark solidifies to crystal rain to residual silt
(3/1/16-1/1/17)
Notes:
- The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].
•
It was 1987 driving around Ireland in my beat-up Ford with a friend Mike Dean and every five minutes a bit of a song would come on the radio part of a contest for tickets to Bowie’s live concert at Slane and Mike’d shout out Diamond Dogs Ashes to Ashes since it turned out he knew not only the words to everything the Thin White Duke had done to date but all the riffs he tried at one point to explain the greatness of the man I think à propos of the song We built this City no we didn’t he’d shout we didn’t build this city on rock’n’roll no bullshit that’s what it came down to no lies or not such obvious ones in Bowie’s songs which makes me feel sad to read the ridiculous crap in the guise of tributes on the news this morning for someone who was something out of the box not just another exchangeable name It’s a dirty job but someone had to do it as he said one time
(12/1/16-13/7/17)
Publications:
- Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2022 [Issue #56]. Ed. Tracey Slaughter. ISBN 978-1-991151-11-7. Auckland: Massey University Press, 2022: 207-08.
Notes:
- The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].
•
sneaking across the river to Slane to listen to David Bowie no matter how good a time everyone had the fact remains a boy was drowned he died doing what he loved cold comfort served up on the news night after night while as for us we drove blithely past the guard towers down the verdant lanes so-and-so was shot over there and this is where they blew up our factory safe as houses tourists in a war-zone just once or twice with a twinge of anxiety my car had GB plates and people did stare can we park here? by the wharf? I’m sure not a problem in the world
(13/1/16-13/7/17)
Notes:
- The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].
•
Driving back from Timaru
he was feeling okay
went to the fair
and bought some books
woke up to hear his car
grinding along
the median barrier
and then last night
he managed to stab himself
on a stray tack in the floor
had to lie down
with his foot in the air
for me to put a plaster
on the puncture
the vital importance of
due process
Health & Safety
needs to get involved
everyone
should get involved
talk it all through
have a preliminary
discussion
before thrashing it out
in full caucus
the subject
our inheritance
obstacle
the church
(17/1/16-22/10/17)
•
It takes quite a while for things to crank into their usual chaos no heavy traffic on the road for instance parking places everywhere no replies to emails plaintive cries for rooms to be changed bodies counted classes organised while I sit here typing out old titles from the NZ Poetry Yearbook full of sage reflections on the scandal of Ezra Pound’s Cantos Songs for this that & the other what a lot of singing they did back then the early names of subsequently celebrated writers Jowsey for Ireland I A H Paterson for Alistair and I think to myself that I share this taste for stasis dread to encounter more ghastly bombings what is it with building bombs? when did that become the sine qua non of strong political opinions? but I suppose up lad thews that cumber sunlit pallets never thrive Zero can go back to bed after keeping us up half the night With demands for food and succour but we must endure I’m afraid we must endure
(19/1/16-19/10/17)
Publications:
- "The Zero Suite." Papyri (2/5/23)
Notes:
- The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].
•
The worst fake beards in the history of cinema Tom Berenger in particular looked like the pirate king in panto but more to the point I never realized so many Confederates detested slavery regretted it hadn’t already been abolished what they were fighting for was liberty of conscience independence pushing back Northern invaders (by invading the North) nor did I know Robert E. Lee had never abandoned a battlefield in the face of the enemy Antietam? so the whole thing was just a ghastly mistake where the Northerners took advantage of their nobler opponents in their mechanistic way In Gods and Generals the prequel we further learn that not only did Jackson too hate slavery but that he used to prance round playing horsey with five-year-old girls and weeping buckets when the latter died he’s crying for all of us for the whole war said an awestruck aide I knew just how he felt
(19/1/16-19/10/17)
Notes:
- The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].
•
I remember hearing her belting out
some anthem
looking staunch
yet somehow soft and nurturing
like a supersonic
Delta Goodrem
and thinking
what an ideal name
Faith
then Hill
solid realities
but also (I suppose)
that stuff from “Dover Beach”
the sea of faith
and down the vast edges drear
and felt a little better placed
to stare
out over those
naked shingles of the world
(22/1/16-3/9/21)
Publications:
- Titirangi Poets Ezine 11. Ed. Piers Davies (September 2021)
- From the Fringe of Heaven: Titirangi Poets. Ed. Piers Davies, Ron Riddell, Amanda Eason, & Gretchen Carroll. Auckland: Printable Reality, 2022. 103.
Notes:
- The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].
•
for the boys to monkey island by way of the sea of pillow cases wooden junks plying their trade between the great birds of the mainland and the tiny animalculae so sedulously collected from Browns Bay market until the Gran who knitted up their pipe-cleaner bodies each brandishing a banana above the head to the lips held out to make a point collapsed in harness leaving the owls and caterpillars to mourn
(23/1/16-19/10/17)
Publications:
- Time for an outing. Poem by Jack Ross. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd. Auckland: Pania Press, 2017.
- Poetry Specials. Mosehouse Studio (28/12/2017)
•
concrete blocks the hollow kind that let the grass grow through to make a carport then took a few out back to plant a herb garden parsley thyme used to step out mid-dish to snip off fronds till it all went to seed now my mother’s not been out the back door in more than a year they’ve grown into massive aberrant plants to match the trampolines around the flats on either side
(24/1/16-22/10/17)
Publications:
- Poetry Shelf Theme Season: Thirteen poems about home. Paula Green, ed.: NZ Poetry Shelf: a poetry page with reviews, interviews & other things (24/6/21)
•
… and the Republic summons Ike, the mausoleum in her heart. – Robert Lowell, ‘Inauguration Day: January 1953’that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and not lose any voters it’s, like, incredible! what he was touching on was the phenomenon of fandom and it was no mirage there really were sufficient boneheads dumb enough to vote for that buffoon no matter how outrageously he talked how stupid his ideas we used to laugh at countries where soap opera stars could win a seat in parliament because they loved them so who’s laughing now?
(25/1/16-20/1/17)
Publications:
- Inauguration Day: January 2017. The Imaginary Museum (20/1/2017)
•
won’t work of course because I didn’t have the brains to add the software to all that hardware even though I seemed to be buying half the shop Super-drive Bluetooth mouse and all mod cons I can’t say no swearing went into the installation but what with the new roof on the bach out back the new front porch across the way one gets a slight sense of exposure to the winds of the world to the ‘Oceanic feeling’ teleology
(26/1/16-7/5/17)
•
so extreme
we dragged our mattress
into the living room
under the heat pump
turned to maximum cold
even that didn’t work
because the cat
confused by the new arrangements
meowed all night
and kept us up
my mother’s memory
is quite defective
ever since the events of 2012
a migraine
said the doctors
the aphasia did wear off
but now she can’t
kickstart her memory
she often gets it if reminded
but seldom admits to knowing anything
it’s hard to explain what it’s like
she tells us
I believe her
what can it feel like
to wander in a haze
making decisions you go back on
five minutes later
no longer knowing
who your childhood stories
happened to?
perhaps it’s like
these humid nights
wrapped in a sweat sheet
unable to bear the covers
ticking away the time
in shapeless fog?
(28/1/16-7/5/17)
Publications:
- "The Zero Suite." Papyri (2/5/23)
My father and my grandmother crossed the Tasman in a flying boat for my uncle’s graduation from Duntroon they took off from Mechanics Bay my father said of Canberra there was only tenuously a city there even by Auckland standards a building trees and fields far off another building like Brasilia
(25/3-4/12/16)
Publications:
- Dianne Firth. Poetry and Place: Catalogue for the Poetry and Place Exhibition, Belconnen Art Centre, 25 August – 17 September 2017. ISBN 978-1-74088-460-0. Canberra: University of Canberra, 2017: 10.
•
They held a faculty reception at ANU for the visiting professor Frank Kermode said my buddy Claire and somehow she got seated next to him she asked d’you see that mountain over there? he allowed he did I just ran up and down it seven times really? why? to become iron woman! bemused look no doubt a story for High Table back in the real world
(24/3-4/12/16)
Publications:
- Dianne Firth. Poetry and Place: Catalogue for the Poetry and Place Exhibition, Belconnen Art Centre, 25 August – 17 September 2017. ISBN 978-1-74088-460-0. Canberra: University of Canberra, 2017: 10.
•
Somebody snaffled my cab that first morning at the Premier Hotel I’d rung up to order it half an hour before But after sitting stumm in the lounge I just had to ask it’s coming any moment now said the man on the desk (hastily ordering it) but when it did turn up the cab-driver wouldn’t let me in it was reserved for Paul he said (who turned out to be the guy on the desk) he’d got into trouble that way before at one of the bigger hotels two punters both with the number seven that one turned quite nasty he said
(16/9-4/12/16)
Publications:
- Dianne Firth. Poetry and Place: Catalogue for the Poetry and Place Exhibition, Belconnen Art Centre, 25 August – 17 September 2017. ISBN 978-1-74088-460-0. Canberra: University of Canberra, 2017: 10.
•
Never write for anyone stupider than yourself – Discuss
– Simon Armitage, University of Canberra (2016)
The first anxiety
is the taxi
how to approach again
the man at the desk
to order me a cab
when I glared at him
so much
the other day
•
Exposing my ignorance
to the visiting writer
only took seconds
when I revealed
that I hadn’t understood
the poem by Paul Muldoon
that ended with
a man sawing a woman in half
I’d always assumed
it was just that
a conjuror practising
for the Big Top
but no
it was a man
and a woman doing it
he said
•
are these rules for your own benefit
asked the man at the q-&-a
or does anyone else
agree with them?
for myself
I admitted
then
that I’d meant them to be
just a teeny bit controversial
above all
the one about letting THEORY
into my poetry mag
•
I already have one at home
said the little boy
when the visiting team
tried to give him
a rugby ball
but don’t you want another one?
asked the footy star
no he replied
what for?
(16/9-4/12/16)
Publications:
- Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2021 [Issue #55]. Ed. Tracey Slaughter. ISBN 978-0-9951354-2-0. Auckland: Massey University Press, 2021: 245-49.
- Poetry Shelf celebrates new books with readings: Ten poets read from Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2021. Paula Green, ed.: NZ Poetry Shelf: a poetry page with reviews, interviews & other things (14/4/21)
Notes:
- Simon Armitage, UK Poet Laureate 2019-?, was invited to judge the Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize at the Poetry on the Move: Poetry Adventures on and off the page Festival at the University of Canberra, 6-16 September 2016. As one of three longlist judges, I was invited to join him at a reading. He seems like a very nice man.
•
told us his vision last night on the evening news he was in a plane flying back from Japan when he heard a voice who are you? he said it was God I want you to stop using bad language said God so no more slang no more cuss words you could see the reporters wanted to laugh at first but they sobered up fast that morning ten men were shot dead in the street the mayor of a town and all his staff involved in the drug trade they said no cuss words now the doors are open something that used to live out in the cold is shouldering in
(30/10-24/11/16)
Publications:
- The President of the Philippines". The Imaginary Museum (30/10/2016)
•
Waving two children onto the ride ahead of you it crashes what does that say about divine mercy or coincidence? they heard them calling out from the upper floors as the flames rose someone threw out a baby someone else caught it the others died
(15-21/6/17)
Publications:
- Grenfell Tower. The Imaginary Museum (19/6/2017).
•
apart
lightning strikes
at
the Earth Mother
she awakes
bedspread
turned back
on its axis
arches
bridges
clouds
fall
into creases
something
breaking through
the sky
is overhead
no roof to it
Malinche dreams
of Cortés’ son’s
return
(6/7-19/10/17)
Publications:
- Malinche Dreams. Poem by Jack Ross. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd. Auckland: Pania Press, 2018.
•
Du mußt dein Leben ändern – Rainer Maria RilkeDo we have to feel that pixilated head burning behind our eyes? the media keep broadcasting a manacled muscular torso signalling triumph over the dead his fingers cocked to a smirk the score perhaps Jacinda Ardern’s noble face caught in a rictus of grief can’t quite displace the bluntness of his semaphore on this darkest of days it feels like our worst fears were always justified our impotence out in the open for all to see our pain trumped by the old familiar reptile brain but scrolling down those flowers those faces those tears I can’t see them as nothing aren’t they us?
(19/3-14/4/19)
Publications:
- Three Versions from Rilke (2019). Papyri (21/4/19).
•
All you have to learn is how to be alone my Dad wrote Admit nothing in his diary in the retirement home I used to duck inside the library at school to foil the wolfpacks go undercover if your earbuds secretly connect to nothing broadcasting silence smile disguise it with a whistle eventually you’ll find the one who shows the sign you need received and understood
(27-28/10/20)
Publications:
- Singlets, Briefs & Shorts: An Anthology of Poems from the Show Me Shorts! New Zealand Short Film Festival 2020. Ed. Trevor M. Landers. PMT Press in association with 99% Press. Auckland: Lasavia Publishing Ltd., 2021. 88-89.
•
Lepidium Oleraceum (Scurvy Grass)(for Bronwyn)The other place I landed at was the north point of the Bay where I got as much Sellery and Scurvy grass as loaded the Boat – Captain James Cook (27/10/1769)It’s quite a ways from Napier over the worst of roads but a trip to Tolaga Bay must have seemed something for kids who’d never been there on arrival at the campground Dad went out there may not be much but there is a pub hours later he came back with two velvet paintings he’d blued all their money on we stopped there a year or so ago on a road trip around East Cape the immense beach choked with driftwood the epic wooden pier there were organised walks we didn’t join in a lack of seabird habitats is blamed for the decline in this native plant the rich environments they need no longer plentiful enough
(6/2-22/7/21)
Publications:
- Scurvy Grass. Poem by Jack Ross. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd. Auckland, 2022.
Notes:
- While visiting Tolaga Bay in New Zealand on his first voyage, Cook noted in his journal on 27 October 1769: "the other place I landed at was the north point of the Bay where I got as much Sellery and Scurvy grass as loaded the Boat." - P. J. Lange & D.A. Norton (1996). "To what New Zealand plant does the vernacular 'scurvy grass' refer?". New Zealand Journal of Botany. 34 (3): 417–420.
- Written for: A Mike Johnson Festschrift. Ed. Trevor M. Landers (2021).
•
(for Michele Leggott)
There was a moment
just a moment
in The Gulf
when I found myself
able to believe
that the head-down cop
in her bullet-proof vest
holding her arms out
like a bear
was willing to die
to save the child
she’d freed
from her Dad
and that I
might just be
too
(25/3-4/9/21)
Publications:
- Michele 2021: A Birthday Festschrift for Michele Joy Leggott (18/10/21)
Notes:
- The reference is to episode 3, season 1, of NZ TV series The Gulf (2019).
•
Do I have your permission to dress you? After you lose the weight? I suppose it comes down to the choice between Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway those were the stakes in Edinburgh some thirty years ago when I went to the Filmhouse daily On the one hand Jarman’s Tempest I wanted to hear them sing Stormy Weather that’s why I made the film On the other Prospero’s Books a torrent of images books being drowned in the sea legions of nude extras playing chess with their bodies On one side The Last of England an old ripped t-shirt and a boy choking down raw cabbage on the other The Draughtman’s Contract inexplicable alphabets of symbolism a mind-numbing tour-de-force it’s what got me here (wherever here is) I’m very excited about the brooches I like to see you in that peacock shirt
(6/6-27/8/21)
Publications:
- Stormy Weather. Live Encounters Aotearoa New Zealand Poets & Writers Special Edition. Guest Ed. Lincoln Jaques. Live Encounters: Free Online Magazine from Planet Earth. Ed. Mark Ulyseas (April 2023).
•
are fucking brilliant slipping you past all the stalled traffic out in Otherworld likewise that looming skyline hypodermic poised to vaccinate a queasy sky is it wrong this ease of access V.I.P. entry? better than the half-hour in the café yesterday knowing we’d ordered lunch not knowing they’d forgotten the kitchen printer had run dry
(12/5-11/8/22)
Publications:
- Stormy Weather. Live Encounters Aotearoa New Zealand Poets & Writers Special Edition. Guest Ed. Lincoln Jaques. Live Encounters: Free Online Magazine from Planet Earth. Ed. Mark Ulyseas (April 2023).
•
(for Paula Green) No time but the present. That’s not quite it, is it? No time like the present is the usual phrase. Do it now, in other words – don’t put it off. But, as H. G. Wells’s Time Traveller explains so clearly in the story, there’s no such thing as an instantaneous object: it must have duration, as well as height, length and breadth, in order to be perceived (let alone possessed) by us. Now is a moment which is over so quickly that it’s only perceptible in the rearview mirror, as a part of the long spool of experience unwinding behind us. So all we really have is the past – that is to say, the memory of what is already done and dusted. But do we have that, even? It’s no longer with us, so I’d have to say no – all we have, then, is that quavering moment, poised on “Time’s toppling wave,” in W. H. Auden’s phrase. But since we can’t perceive it till it’s over, you could argue that all we have is anticipation: the prospect of what the next moment will bring. You’d think that might make us a bit less greedy: less determined to collect the leavings of all these moments, past and to come, and more prepared to enjoy them to the uttermost. We’re only conscious for a small part of the time allotted to us: there’ll never be any more of it, so let’s dance.
(24/5-7/10/22)
Publications:
- Poetry Shelf Occasional Poems. Paula Green, ed.: NZ Poetry Shelf: a poetry page with reviews, interviews, and other things (7/10/22)
•
Бессоница, Гомер, тугие паруса ... Бессоница, Гомер, тугие паруса. Я список кораблей прочел до середины ... Сей длинный выводок, сей поезд журавлиный, Что над Элладою когда-то поднялся. Как журавлиный клин в чужие рубежи На головаx царей божественная пена ... Куда плывете вы? Когда бы не Элена, Что Троя вам одна, аxейские мужи?? И море и Гомер все движимо любовью.. Куда же деться мне? И вот, Гомер молчит.. И море Черное витийствуя шумит И с страшным гроxотом подxодит к изголовью ... - Осип Мандельштам (1915)• Insomnia. Homer. Reefed sails. I've read halfway through the ship catalogue; this inbred tribe, this siege of cranes which once took flight from Hellas. A wedge of cranes into foreign shores drenching your kings with spray ... Where are you going? If not for Helen, what would Troy matter to you, men of Achaea? The sea and Homer are moved by love. Where should I turn? Homer is silent. The Black Sea roars, booms up the beach to my bed.
(24-27/12/22)
Publications:
- Acquisitions (82): Homer. A Gentle Madness (18/12/2022)
•
