poems – Tim Jones

“Swings and Roundabouts: Poems On Parenthood” Revisited

Posted on January 25, 2009

Shortly after the publication of Swings and Roundabouts: Poems on Parenthood (which you can buy online from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad), I gave my initial thoughts on the book, but said that I wouldn’t review it because I have a poem in it.

Well, I changed my mind. I’ve completed reading Swings and Roundabouts over the past two weeks, and though I’ll leave my own poem Coverage to speak for itself, I want to reiterate what a good book this is.

It’s true that Swings and Roundabouts is likely to speak most strongly to parents, but these poems are strong as poems, not just as aspects of parenthood. After an excellent introduction by editor (and parent) Emma Neale, the book is organised in chronological order, starting with pregnancy and ending with the deaths of children and parents – though the tone of this final section is not morbid. The poems are interspersed with quirky and enjoyable photos by Mark Smith.

This is predominantly an Australasian anthology, but it also includes poems by Sylvia Plath, Sharon Olds and Louise Glück. In her introduction, Emma Neale suggests that Lauris Edmond could be regarded as the local poet laureate of childhood, and she has five poems here. Many well-known New Zealand poets are represented.

There are hardly any poems I don’t like, but poems that especially stand out include “Helpless” and “Yellow Plastic Ducks” by Graham Lindsay, “The Vending Machine” by Anna Jackson, “35/10” by Sharon Olds, “Your Secret Life” and “Your Secret Life 2” by Harry Ricketts, “It Allows a Portrait in Line Scan at Fifteen” by Les Murray (and yes, the title does make perfect sense, and is very moving, in the context of the poem), “Festive Lentils” by James Norcliffe, “Stay in Touch” by Laurice Gilbert, and “The Names” by Lauris Edmond.

But if I had to choose just one poem from this book, it would be “Child” by Sylvia Plath: small, vivid, memorable.

Like a child, like this book.

Coverage and The Season

Posted on July 2, 2008

It’s blowing a gale outside. Here are two poems united by the wind. Both were first published in North & South magazine.

Coverage

He went south with the housing market
to a cottage facing the sea,

spent his last pay cheque
on Swannis and draught excluders.

Coverage was minimal.
He called his children

from the top of a nearby hill,
struggling through gorse, matagouri —
the visible teeth of the wind.
He got through at last

and begged until she put them on.
Given the chance, the kids talked

and talked: sports, school, when
they could fly down to see him.

That depends, he said, and then
they were breaking up —

fugitive crackles, then silence
under a polar sky.

Coverage was first published in North & South (May 2007) and is included in Swings and Roundabouts: Poems on Parenthood (Random House, 2008), edited by Emma Neale.

The Season

The mountains reconvene.
An avalanche of voices
thrums the heavy ground.

Precise, confidential,
the wind reports the news
it gleans from pavement tables:

the All Black’s private pain,
the public intellectual’s
ceaseless quest for vengeance.

The mountains shake their balding heads.
The culture of celebrity
has pushed them to the margins –

there are no peaks on the social pages.
Aspiring no longer, they allow the wind
to hustle away with the clouds.

Eroding, reminiscing, the mountains shake their
heads. Snow falls, forgotten dandruff,
through the ever-warming air.

The Season was first published in North & South (August 2007)

These are not the first poems I’ve written on the topic! The Weather and Wind Walks the Hand are other examples. Many of them seem to combine the wind with parenting: perhaps that’s because, the night my son was born at Wellington Hospital, there was a southerly snap and a power failure. The backup generators came on to power essential services, such as the incubator Gareth was placed in for a day or so. I remember standing by the end of Kay’s bed, feeling the cold and watching snowflakes swirl past the window. That sort of thing leaves an impression.

PS: I’ll be taking part in Montana Poetry Day events in Upper Hutt on Friday 18 July. The full schedule of events in Upper Hutt is available.

More Poems on Being a Parent

Posted on May 19, 2008

My son turns 12 soon. That, and the recent publication of Swings and Roundabouts: Poems on Parenthood, Emma Neale’s anthology of parenting poems, made me want to put up some of the poems I wrote while he was growing up. (My poem “Coverage” in Swings and Roundabouts is about an imagined father.). So here are four such poems, written from 1996 to 2002.

Publication note: “The Weather”, “At the Gate” and “Action Man Is Sleeping” appear in my first poetry collection, Boat People (HeadworX, 2002). Copies are available from me – please email timjones (at) actrix.co.nz for more information, or see my website orders page.

“Elfland” appears in my second collection, All Blacks Kitchen Gardens (which you can buy online), published in 2007.

The Weather

The weather is a matter of cultural safety
for us white Englishmen.

I talk about it with my father:
it’s fine up here, Dad, not a breath of wind
(so rare for Wellington)
how’s it with you?

Cloudy, he replies, and raining
wind from the south-west
I can’t get the garden done.
In his voice is the gloomy assurance
that more is on the way.

I talk about it with the barber.
We agree it’s
not such a bad day
for this time of the year.

We’re talking the prices of houses.
I tell him I’ll be a father come June.
I don’t tell him, the child will be born in winter
as the wind and the rain prowl outside.

I don’t tell him, we will carry the infant
back to our wooden house
shaken by the gale.

I do say, I’ll have to check the gutters
come spring.

At the Gate

This morning
at the kindergarten gate
my son said “You stop there!”

He didn’t want me to come in
He would place his bag
on Hook 22
put his nametag on the chart
go in to mat-time by himself

He opened the gate, turned, and waved goodbye
I waved back proudly
and started down the path
close to tears

He was so tiny once
that I could hold him in the palm of one hand
He starts school in two weeks’ time
His bag will fill with books
his heart with other friends.
Smiling and crying, I take the long road home.

Action Man Is Sleeping

Action Man is sleeping
wearing his yellow bobble hat
(taken from a fluffy bunny who won’t be needing it again)
blue underpants which keep him rated G
and two cloth nappies which serve him well as sheets.

His bed is a wheeled wooden trolley.
My son, who’s sleeping too, said Action Man should have
a bed with legs, like him — but Action Man
must always be ready for action
even in his jut-jawed dreams.

He (my son, that is — I wouldn’t
want you to get confused) has decided
he should not be kissed or hugged.
“Not by you — not by anyone!”
We blamed Action Man at first

but now the boy’s relented —
he can kiss us
we just can’t kiss him.

Elfland

Outside, the world is growing darker
counters clicking downwards to perdition.

Inside, the children bring me
cup-cakes, pizza, new and better clothes

all made from pure cheek
and six-year-old imagination.

I’m story-writing helper for today.
It’s not too hard:

“What’s that word? Let’s sound it out.”
“Nothing to write about? Let’s see …

what will you do tomorrow? What
would you rather do today?”

At the end we’re smiling: a whole page written!
Teacher, give these children praise.

As they start on Printing
I’m taking my leave, walking

out of the enchanted wood
back to the world’s long darkness.

Swings and Roundabouts: Poems on Parenthood

Posted on May 6, 2008

On Monday, I received a contributors’ copy of Swings and Roundabouts: Poems on Parenthood, edited by Emma Neale, with photography by Mark Smith. As I am a contributor, I’m not going to review it, and indeed I’ve read only about a quarter of it so far: but here are four first impressions.

First, the book looks really good, and feels good in the hand.

Second, it doesn’t just contain New Zealand poems: there are a number of Australian poets represented, as well as international heavy hitters (NB: not in the smacking sense!) such as Sylvia Plath and Seamus Heaney.

Third, although being a parent isn’t always lovely, there are some poems in the book that radiate parental love – and others that don’t flinch from the difficulties.

Fourth, what a great idea for a book! I think a lot of people are going to love it. I think I will be among them.