Noticed this as we drove through a Richmond intersection en route to Nelson. Apologies to The Scrapbook Store - that lamppost has a lot to answer for!
(Looks like a good shop actually.)
Further up the road is the recently-voted top provincial bookshop in the South Island, Nelson’s independent Page and Blackmore.
One of the owners, Peter Rigg, was at the For the Love of Words book launch event and liked what he heard, so is going to push my book.
Writing rhymes with a twist in the tail can be a maddening pastime.
I like to get the scans just right, and often the words won’t come. Then the poem has to be abandoned.
Sometimes a poem will take on a life of its own, and you don’t know when it’s going to end.
Two in my book (In Defence of Egyptian Daddies and A Lake in Massachusetts - about the longest place name in America, Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagunggamaugg) took four months each to write.
But it’s all worth it when you get comments like this one that arrived today:
John’s poetry is a powerful antidote for pain, which I can personally vouch for.
I recently attended a poetry evening at Nelson Library at which John was performing. I was in intense pain due to my rheumatoid arthritis, and was considering having to leave.
The pain was so bad I had beads of sweat on my forehead, and didn’t know how I was going to cope. I had an overwhelming urge to dig my nails into my friend’s leg to relieve some of the pain.
However, once John started telling his funny stories about the English language and reading his hilarious poetry, I began laughing so much that I had a huge reduction in my pain level, which was amazing and wonderful.
“Poetry for the people, poetry for the pain.”
Margaret A. Fearn, Nelson
I rang Margaret to thank her. She’s had rheumatoid arthritis for 47 years.
It’s in her bones, lungs, joints, muscles – everywhere. Yet she has an extremely positive attitude to life – and writes poetry!
It’s a great feeling knowing I made a difference to her, even if just for a short time.
Dear John,
I think you see yourself as a principled wordsmith so I hope you will leave this reply on your site so others can judge whether I really misrepresented your poem.
I do, I will, and they can.
Below is my full introduction to your poem from chapter 12 of The Hollow Men. Readers will see that I did not in the slightest suggest it was you writing about Don Brash.
I would have thought “Four verses can serve as a tribute to Brash’s years as National Party leader. It is fitting that Ansell, who nearly got him into power, provides a well-crafted epitaph.” was more than a slight suggestion.
I explained it was part of a poem written generally about politicians from before you began working for Brash (note the “can serve as”, not “was written as”).
A fine legal distinction that Winston would be proud of.
Also, as anyone can read, I explained that it was part of fourteen-verse poem.
Yes you did.
I did not pretend that the four verses were a consecutive whole.
You printed them consecutively!
That’s all you needed to do to create your desired false impression. Who would assume they were not consecutive?
A ‘principled wordsmith’ would have inserted dots or a footnote to make it clear they were not consecutive in the original.
Here it is:
“A month before Ansell decided to return to advertising to help Brash, he published a book of poetry including a long fourteen-verse poem about politicians called “Political careering”. Four verses can serve as a tribute to Brash’s years as National Party leader. It is fitting that Ansell, who nearly got him into power, provides a well-crafted epitaph.”
Yes, it was cheeky to use your words to write about Brash.
I don’t mind a bit of cheek directed my way. (How could I with my track record?!)
But I did not misrepresent what I was doing nor misrepresent what your poem is about.
Didn’t you?
Well, let’s see…
