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| Rimutaka Hill. Image credit: Michal Vitásek |
Another of my poems has been published on the Talk Wellington blog, which specialises in covering transport and infrastructure issues around the Wellington region. This one describes a car journey I took through the Wairarapa on my way back to Wellington from being the guest reader at a Hawke’s Bay Live Poetry Society meeting a few years ago:
The Final Lap
The Wairarapa strings moments on the tracks of afternoon,
accelerations, plains spreading southwards from Pūkaha,
where a solitary ferret stalks the wind.
This is the journey warned against by roadside signs,
long straights developing their own momentum,
desire for home outweighing caution,
eyelids drooping as the land’s horizons widen…
Read the rest of “The Final Lap” at Talk Wellington, or in my latest poetry collection, New Sea Land.
What I’ve been reading
I’ve recently completed reading two fine poetry collections, No One Home by Keith Westwater and My Wide White Bed by Trish Harris. I hope to have more about these collections for you soon, but in the meantime, I published Keith’s poem Learning to ride as my “Poem of the month” in April.
Coming up
I’ll be reading poems from New Sea Land, plus some newer poetry, at these upcoming poetry events:
Friday 24 August, 1-3.30pm: National Poetry Day event, Wellington Central Library. (I’ll put up a separate post about this event – which features poets published by three local presses.)
Sunday 16 September, 4-6pm, Fringe Bar, 26-32 Allen St, Wellington: I’m the guest reader at the monthly Fringe Bar reading
Saturday 27 October and Sunday 28 October: East-West Poetry Fest, Palmerston North City Library.
I don't think of new Zealand as having long straight roads, Tim, so this was educational as well as being good poetry
Thanks, Penelope! For the record, many of our longer roads are extremely heteronormative.