September 2014 – Tim Jones

Coming Up At Wairarapa Word: October-December 2014

Posted on September 25, 2014

Madeleine Slavick & co do a great job running the monthly Wairarapa Word. Check out what’s coming up during the remainder of 2014 and get to one or more of these events if you can!

5 OCTOBER – Stories of our Landscape – with Gaye Sutton & Joseph Potangaroa at the Tarragon Cafe, Carterton. Suitable for all ages. KOHA.

Joseph Potangaroa works to preserve stories and knowledge about our landscape and history – his book on the life cycle of the tūna/eel, for instance, is an important resource. Joe is currently writing eight books of children’s stories set in the Wairarapa on flora, fauna, and the landscape. His presentation of the bilingual stories has been assisted by Gaye Sutton, a Carterton resident who has been telling stories ever since her two beautiful children were born. In her work as a storyteller, she has travelled from Norway to Northland and places in between. Along the way, she has published short stories, a chapbook of poems, and has written a novel which she hopes may be published. Joe has lived all but five months of his 43 years around Masterton and is a kaituhituhi of the Ngāti Hamua hapū of Rangitāne o Wairarapa – Kaituhituhi are trained to understand and then share knowledge on relationships between people and with the rest of the world. Join us for an afternoon of spiritual and historical stories that surround us here in the Wairarapa. Suitable for all ages. (This event supported by Carterton District Creative Communities Scheme.)

2 NOVEMBER – Rhondda Greig – at Almo’s Books, Carterton. KOHA.

Rhondda Greig’s books include Eavesdropping with Angels (poetry), the picture books Matarawa House and Matarawa Cats (a New Zealand classic), and Noa’s Calf, a monochrome picture book without words. She is currently working on a new book of poems tentatively titled Chew the Bright Hysteria. For this session of Wairarapa Word, she will read a selection of her work, and discuss how text and image inform her creative life. A painter, installation artist, poet, children’s book writer, book designer, costume designer, and more, Greig studied at the Auckland School of Architecture before committing herself to a career as a practicing artist. She has held many solo exhibitions across New Zealand and abroad, with permanent installations at the Carterton Events Centre, Masterton Town Hall, and at St Paul’s Cathedral in Wellington, among other locations. She lives in Matarawa. (This event supported by Carterton District Creative Communities Scheme.)

7 DECEMBER – Glenn Colquhoun – at King St. Live, Masterton. KOHA.

Glenn Colquhoun is a medical practitioner and author. His acclaimed books The Art of Walking Upright(poems) and Jumping Ship (essay) are both about Te Tii, a community in the Bay of Islands. Playing God discusses illness and health, from the point of view of the patient and doctor – the book has gone Platinum, with over 10,000 copies sold. He often writes about the extended family. How We Fell – A Love Story is written to his ex-wife about their ten-year relationship, An Explanation of Poetry to My Father is an exploration of why the son of a builder writes poems, and the children’s books Uncle Glenn and Me features a nephew while Uncle Glenn and Me Too a niece. He lives on the Kapiti Coast. (This event supported by Masterton District Creative Communities Scheme.)

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Tuesday Poem: Report, by Sue Wootton

Posted on September 22, 2014

You can’t stopper a volcano with dissidents

though this has been tried. You can’t silence

a street by hustling your critic at gunpoint

into an unmarked police car, though this

has also been tried. Somewhere else

a daughter doesn’t return to the casa;

somewhere else a son goes down

through a scream of space or staggers the stone

stairs blindfold to the soundproof cell.

But you can’t mute what his bones will tell.

And here in the free world, here and near,

over the fence and behind your door,

somebody else or somebody dear is kicked

in the kitchen, punched in the hall; somebody close

is silenced by violence, by lies and denial

and if need be by tears. There’s blood on the walls

of the rich and the poor. Yet recoil, yet speak.

Caught: by pen, by camera, caught in thought –

tried and caught, and tried in court. Some wrongs

must be fought. No one can silence the report.

Credit note: “Report” is published by kind permission of the author, Sue Wootton. It was first published in the Otago Daily Times in 2012.

Tim says:

The Tuesday Poem:

About Sue Wootton

Sue Wootton has won several awards for her poetry and fiction, including both NZ Poetry Society and Takahe international competitions. She held the 2008 Robert Burns Fellowship. In 2013 she shared second prize in the International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine (UK), and won the Cancer Council Victoria Arts Awards (Australia). She has written three collections of poetry, a children’s book called Cloudcatcher, and the e-book short story collection ‘The Happiest Music on Earth’ (rosamirabooks.com).Her most recent publication is Out of Shape, a hand-printed artisan portfolio book of new and selected poems, released by Ampersand Duck, the imprint of Canberra letterpress artist Caren Florance. (See www.outofshape.net for details.)

A former physiotherapist, Sue has a long-standing interest in the intersection of science and the humanities generally, and poetry and medicine in particular. She is currently writing a novel and completing a Masters in Creative Writing through Massey University, examining the portrayal in contemporary American literature of changes in the doctor-patient relationship since the 1950s.

Further information about Sue is available at suewootton.com

Why I Won’t Be Voting National – And Why I Will Be Voting Green

Posted on September 15, 2014

I live in the Wellington Central electorate. This election, I intend to give my party vote to the Green Party and my electorate vote to the Labour Party’s Wellington Central MP, Grant Robertson. Here’s why.

Why I Won’t Be Voting National

Funnily enough, it isn’t primarily because of the corruption and collusion revealed in Nicky Hager’s Dirty Politics, or because of John Key’s collusion with Warner Brothers (maybe over Kim Dotcom’s extradition, but definitely over de-unionising the film industry), or because of NZ’s participation in the “Five Eyes” spy ring – even though all of those reveal a contempt for democracy which reminds me strongly of Robert Muldoon era. (John Key is Muldoon with a nicer smile.)

It’s because National’s policies in areas I care about are very bad. There are many examples, but I’m going to focus on two:

Climate change and the environment: Everything we value as a country – including our economy, with its strong dependence on primary production – in turn depends on the quality of our phyiscal environment, and on a stable climate. Yet both are under threat from climate change, primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels – with a substantial assist in New Zealand from the intensification of dairy farming.

The 1999-2008 Labour-led Government took some steps – inadequate steps, overcautious steps, but steps nevertheless – to address climate change and to better protect the environment. Among the first actions of John Key’s incoming National Government was to strip away these protections, including weakening Labour’s Emissions Trading Scheme so that it became entirely useless rather than merely inadequate.

And as National started, so they have carried on: bending over backwards to encourage coal mining, oil drilling, fracking, and seabed mining; opening conservation lands to mining – even when the Minister in question doesn’t even know where they are; and meanwhile failing to take action on climate change at home, and serving as a roadblock to meaningful actions abroad.

And for what? As I have posted elsewhere, this recent quote from the mining industry journal NZ Resources sums up what the Government’s pro-mining policy has achieved:

The National-led Government’s ambition to have the mining, and separate oil and gas sector, underpin economic recovery has borne little long term gains in its past two terms.

There are other, better ways to create jobs – ways that do not place our environment,. and the climate, under further stress. But National, acting on the behest of its donors and its corporate masters, is either unable or unwilling to change its approach.

Domestic and sexual violence: Both are at epidemic levels in this country. National’s response has been to cut funding to Women’s Refuges and allow Rape Crisis centres to close. This is an area where interventions can make a huge difference, yet National would rather waste money on motorways than make the necessary funding available.

I joined the march to Parliament on Monday calling for action on these issues. If you doubt how serious these issues are, check out the statistics at the end of this article.

Just above that, you’ll find the amazing statue of Kate Sheppard. It was designed and constructed to stand at Parliament for three months – until the Speaker, National’s David Carter, refused permission, apparently because it would make Parliament’s precincts too cluttered. While the absence of this statue in itself is not a matter of life and death, this decision typifies the cloth ear and blind eye National has turned to cries for help from the abused, the poor, and the vulnerable.

Why I’ll Be Giving My Party Vote To The Green Party

I don’t intend to vote for National or for any party likely to provide support a National-led Government. That means there are three parties I’ve considered giving my party vote this election: Labour, Internet Mana, and the Greens. I’ve decided to give my electorate vote to Grant Robertson, the Wellington Central MP, who in my view has done an excellent job as an electorate MP and is an asset to the Labour Party.

I would like to see a Labour-led Government after this General Election – or, to be more precise, I would like to see a Greens-led Government, but that is less likely. However, in my view, Labour is still badly compromised in several areas. One is the influence of its Rogernomics-era holdovers on aspects such as its refusal to oppose the potentially disastrous TPPA. Another is its continued links with the oil, gas and coal industries. The stronger the Greens are, the more confident I’ll be that a Labour-led Government would take serious, meaningful action on climate change and other environmental issues, not to mention other important social and political issues.

I have conflicting feelings about Internet-Mana. There are some very good candidates in both parties, with policies I support, but I’m not a huge fan of Kim Dotcom’s disproportionate influence on New Zealand politics – even though I’m very grateful for the work he’d done on exposing the GCSB and its actions – and, given that the race for Te Tai Tokerua looks very close at the time of writing, it’s not a given that Internet-Mana will end up with any MPs if it does not reach the 5% party vote threshold. I hope they do, and I hope their efforts to get young voters out to vote are successful, but I’d hate to see those votes go to waste.

Of all the parties, the Greens are closest to my own views. They have a track record of saying they’ll do things and then achieving them, even in opposition; they have excellent MPs and some outstanding candidates, such as Marama Davidson, who need a good showing for the Greens to get into Parliament; and they would contribute high-quality Ministers, such as Julie Anne Genter, to a Labour-Greens Government. That’s why I plan to give my party vote to the Greens.