Literature

I almost slept with Don Binney

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So said a woman in Nelson at a talk

by Gregory O’Brien, or so he tells us

At his talk at Featherston Booktown






Almost slept, the words fill the air





in the Anzac Hall. All those military





men gazing down in disapproval










There must be millions of us, who





‘almost’ slept with someone and





that doesn’t even include fucking










I recall a US sailor off an Icebreaker





at my flat in Hataitai… we slept





together but we didn’t, you know










I was saving myself at the time





stocking my glory box with Irish





linen and pearl handled cutlery










So, I’m distracted, as Grego describes





two bold birds mating, the print his





parents gave him for his 8th birthday










two birds (God knows what sort of birds)





mating but it took Greg several years





to know this fact… Steve Braunias in










an altogether different session in





the Kiwi Hall tell us you need at least 70





facts in a piece of non-fiction










(I see writers scribbling this gem or





committing it to memory)










Almost slept could well be a fact but





could be easily misunderstood





I’m still thinking about it










The whole idea that this woman and I’ve





no idea how old she was when she said





this, wanted us to know










I almost slept with Don Binney










Greg is eloquent, passionate, he’s a man





to whom the letter P applies, a poet and





a painter, inspired by Binney’s mating birds










But it’s the woman who almost slept with





Binney, who holds us, riveted, her voice





unheard, fills the Anzac Hall






			

	
		
	


			
				


			
				


	

		
Welly, Me and Katherine Mansfield

		
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Oh Welly, you shining star
Today you were my heartbeat
as I walked your streets
to Te Papa to listen to
a conversation about 
a very modern woman
our Katherine Mansfield
100 years since she died
Oh Welly, what would she
think of you today...
Wouldn't she be surprised

The things she might have said
about the dreaded cruise ships
parked on the sea, disgorging
elderly tourists into Lambton Quay
imagine the parody...

Oh Welly, you sure turned it on
today, and I listened in thrall
to talk of our Colonial girl
so ahead of her time

I found you waiting for me
in your dress of words
and I took your hand
for a brief moment
just you and me babe
you and me

until an elderly tourist
offered to take my photo
Oh I know you'd love the
irony.






			

	
		
	


			
				


	

		
Saintly Passions

		
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Saintly Passions


They say she biked in her ballgown

possibly in a brace, and her with just

one kidney and a ciggie dangling from

the corner of her marvellous mouth


The black sheep of the family, we

thought, a scandal for daring to dance

but then it turned out, her quiet older

sister had a baby out of wedlock


The lock on wed is worth scrutiny in

retrospect, possibly related to the

Death do us part people mentioned

when marrying back then


Another sibling, a younger brother

managed to impregnate a married

woman twice, before she died in

childbirth and he married another


Thank God for adoption everyone

thought back then, and the locals

conspired to contain the secrets

known as the fabric of society


We think of weaving, stitching and

the spinning of yarns, and that’s

just what they did, they hid knots

it was all more warp than weft


And we were left to unpick the

pieces, years later when grown

men arrived in the image of once

unknown fathers to surprise us 


Including the girl whose family

won the Golden Kiwi and who

grew to look remarkably like

the Parish Priest who relocated


Where documentation fails, we

have our own imaginations, on-line

DNA matching and curiosity to

rewrite our family histories


Saintly mothers with secrets

that speak of wild passions to

inspire their granddaughters

			

	
		
	


			
				


	

		
Typewriters

		
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Typewriters


I loved you my Hermes Rocket

Portable in your beautiful case

Those black keys, the clatter

Your smooth black platen

The gentle smack of carriage

Returning… returning…

My unfamiliar fingers practising

For School Cert, in the front

Room on the carpet square

No chair clakkity clakkity clack.


I left you for an Imperial 66

sturdy, upright, dark grey metal

Weighing a ton or more I’m sure

Requiring a new dexterity

Depressing heavy metal keys

Oh what a squeeze it was, each

Internal memo needing six copies

Carbon paper sandwiched in

Between, and how to keep

Each copy clean, clack, clack.


And then you, my flash Corona

With darling cream keys indented

Each finger knew its place upon

Your keyboard both chunky and light

So modern and bright by

Comparison and portable too

I think you were deluxe, but it is

So long ago, I can’t be sure

I know I loved you though

Your softer clakkity-clack.


I learned to type at school

With an apron over the keys

Each finger knew its place

And there was a certain grace

A ballet to the position of the

Fingers, so light and yet so heavy

Too. There was backspace but no

Button for delete. When Twink

Arrived we were surprised, although

Nothing can compete with accuracy


The golf ball electric, was my first

IBM Selectric, and I missed the rise

And fall, the gentle arc of metal

Arms reaching to the platen the

Falling clatter clatten sound and

Now this ceaseless whirring

No ribbons to replace, no keys

To catch each other in a momentary

Embrace, a chance to stop and breathe

With carbon running up my sleeve


It wasn’t long before the typewriter

Got a memory and all my skills of

Pound and pace were lost upon the

pretty face, of lightness and technology



			

	
		
	


			
				


	

		
Daughters of Messene

		
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Daughters of Messene (now in
translation and for sale in Greece)





I’ve talked about this before.  The tricky balance between self-promotion and total modesty. As a writer, total modesty probably no longer does the trick. It’s a shame. It would be amazing if our work stood on its own merit. And indeed, it should. But it also needs a little push/shove along.  The trouble is, if you shout too often, people become averse to your shouting. And if you don’t shout out at all, your writing achievements (however modest in the scheme of things) may not reach all their possible audience.





So, here I am to bask once more in the glow and delight of having my third novel, a story with a strong Greek flavour, that sprang out from a not very well known true story of the migration of young Greek women to New Zealand in the sixties… now translated and on sale in Greece through Kedros Publishers Athens (to whom I am most grateful).





One of the lovely serendipitous moments researching this novel in 2007, I have written about before. It was my lucky encounter with Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor at his splendid home in the Mani on his Name Day. To be there, with the ‘local’s and to share this magical moment, was unforgettable.  On that day, Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, generously signed my copy of his book Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese. I had found and read the book while in Greece and was bedazzled by his magical flights of language and historical observations, the marvellous segues.  He signed my copy of his book with his usual motif of a small flock of flying birds. 










A reader of my blog, Diana Wright, managed to decipher the inscription as I was unable to. It says ‘with all goodness’.  





To my great delight, the cover for the Greek translation of ‘Daughters of Messene’ includes a similar flock of birds.  This is pure coincidence and a lovely one at that. Indeed, my novel includes a moment of migrating birds, so these links are quite perfect.





So, here is the very splendid cover for you to admire and hopefully if you speak and read Greek to tempt you to buy the book.  Plus a picture of Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor’s inscription in my copy of his book.











			

	
		
	


			
				


	

		
‘The Wonder’ (and growing up Catholic in New Zealand in the sixties)

				

			
							
		

		
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My No.1 Book Group chose ‘The Wonder’ by Emma Donoghue for our November read. I hadn’t read ‘Room’ and I was wary of all the hype. But, very quickly, I was immersed in 1860’s Ireland, and astonishingly, recognising so much of my own childhood as a 1960’s Catholic girl. It was confronting. I was wearing my new-age, non-Catholic, 21st century sensibility, but I was also recognising and understanding so much of what was happening. I knew that when book group convened, I would need the one other Catholic in our group to offload to.  Because truly, so much of the crazy cult-like thinking of the times, can only be understood, if you have lived it. What was so shocking for me, was that I understood so clearly what was driving the characters in the story.  I wasn’t surprised by the prayers, by the fatalism, by the unravelling narrative and denouement.  It made perfect sense, in all it’s weird and shocking ramifications and revelations. Most shocking was, that my memories were of 1950’s 1960’s New Zealand and this novel was set in 19th century Ireland.


Emma Donoghue got right under my skin.  She lifted off my skin, and she burrowed right there into my once Catholic soul, the guilt, fear, the superstition. And of course, I thought I’d tossed it all into the bin of yesteryear. But listening to my friends at book group and trying to explain why certain things happened and hearing that they had no understanding, not in the way that these things rang so true for me – I realised that you never truly lose this thinking, this darkly embedded (skewed) world view.  We’ve often said at book group, that you can tell the way an ex Catholic will respond to a narrative.  Indeed, as our book group has been together now for twenty years, we can often guess how all of us will respond to different narratives, our likes and dislikes.  But, ‘The Wonder’ took the lid off my carefully construed and civilised self. I knew how to beat my breast and recite ‘though my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault’, recognising how faulty this really is. I knew the prayer to my guardian angel.  How lovely… I once had one.  What a treat.  I believed. She kept me safe. I’d forgotten all about her. I’ve learned to live on my own without her now, but when fatalism is your creed, back then a guardian angel was a lovely prop.


And then, my non-Catholic friends wanted to know what the holy picture cards were all about. I promised next time, to bring some along. I have cards printed for my mother’s death, my brother’s death, three aunts, and a few extras, such as St Theresa the Little Flower, whose name I took at my confirmation, along with Our Lady of Perpetual Succour… the name of the church we attended. Virginal women reigned supreme.


I understood unequivocally, the need to suffer, so Anna’s brother could be released from purgatory. Of course, I knew how crazy it was, but I understood too. Suffering the road to redemption. I remember my confessions and the need to say penance.   Bless me Father for I have sinned.  It’s four weeks (maybe three weeks), since my last confession. Since then I have:  disobeyed my mother and father, sworn and had impure thoughts… I think this was the extent of my sinning, the impure thoughts consistently pervading my growing pains. Guilt was ever present and of course, you had to have sins to confess.  Possibly I admitted envy now and then, for surely that’s the beast of sins, but usually one we outgrow, or age diminishes the sting of. As for the impure thoughts, I grew to like them.


I was from an ordinary working-class family. I didn’t attend a Catholic school because my parents couldn’t afford the uniform and bus fare into the city. The story goes, we got a Papal dispensation. As part of that dispensation, I was shipped on a bus, in the August school holidays to the convent to be indoctrinated in Catholicism.  The nuns at the convent we attended, told us terrifying stories.


The story that has lingered the longest and never left me, goes like this and bears some resemblance to a tale in ‘The Wonder’… I’m guessing there are many more stories of a similar ilk out there.


…


A young girl dies.  As per the custom of the Church, she is buried in a white coffin, the sign of purity for a child. During her funeral service, there is a knocking sound heard coming from the coffin at the front of the church. The knocking continues. There is nothing else for it, but the priest must open the coffin to see who is knocking. Inside the coffin is the young girl and her tongue is sticking out. Her tongue is black and upon this black tongue lies the host.  As the story goes, this young girl, while still living, had dared to receive Holy Communion while in a state of sin.  The Priest removes the host, the child’s tongue returns to it’s normal colour and the coffin lid is shut again.


…


Can you imagine how terrifying this story must have been?  Add to this, the dilemma of distinguishing between a venial and mortal sin.  Dying with the stain of a mortal sin on your soul, meant going direct to hell.  I can’t recall, but I’m guessing that receiving Holy Communion while not in a ‘state of grace’ as the saying went, would be borderline mortal… anyway, we never found out if the poor child went to heaven, but the story as you can tell, has never left me.


I read a short bio on Emma Donoghue and almost relieved to know she attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin… for where else would she have gained this incredible insight and understanding of the motivation of her characters, her empathy for them in all their blind faith.


This is not a book review. If anyone is confused about the lack of detail and reference to the plot, the parts that the characters play, I apologise.   I am simply moved, to respond to the impact this novel had upon me.


But also, this novel is more than just the things I have responded to. To quote Justine Jordan of The Guardian “Her new book is based on the many cases of “fasting girls” reported across the world from the 16th to the 20th centuries: women and girls, often prepubescent, who claimed to live without food for months or even years.”


And too the desire by the Church for worldly proof that there is another world leading to fabrication and blind faith in the search for such perceived blessings.

			

	
		
	


			
				


	

		
Is it Fiction?

		
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Is it Fiction?


I was confronted with an extract from my second novel recently. The husband of an old friend who recently died, had just read my novel. He noticed a cameo appearance by his wife. We were out to dinner and he presented me with the extract, photocopied onto a plain piece of paper. Alone it stood, a piece of fiction, and he had a quibble with but one word.  I’d used the word ‘hefty’.  She wasn’t hefty, he said with a touch of regret or perhaps chastisement. He looked across at someone else at the table who knew my friend better than me, almost as well as he. She wasn’t hefty, was she, he asked again? No, she wasn’t hefty, and for a moment I had to interrogate myself as a friend, and then as a writer.


What had I done?  I’d written about a femme fatale, a woman who fitted physically (apart from hefty) the deceased wife. I’d also used her Baltic State ethnic origin, so that if you knew her, which most of my readers would not have, you would have known who it was.  The thing is, I was using my friend to disguise a completely different woman, who once again none of my readers would have known.  Indeed, a woman I barely knew myself, but not wishing to use a ‘real’ person, I’d stolen the character and looks (apart from hefty), of an old friend… not ever thinking I’d be held to account.


And there it was, more than ten years after my novel was published, the paragraph or two (a cameo character only), was placed before me, not accusingly as you might think, but with great delight and recognition.  But I was being held to account.  She wasn’t hefty.


How to clarify that I was using my friend, to disguise a woman I hardly knew, to create a fictional character?  Better still, my cameo character’s name seemed far from the name of either my friend or the woman I hardly knew. But that didn’t matter.  Her bereaved husband, decided, that the name was close to the spelling of his wife’s name backwards.  And I looked, and wondered, and perhaps it was… maybe inadvertently I’d done this, without realising. But my memory tells me that I simply googled the Baltic State country my friend had originated from and looked at possible names… attempting to disassociate the actual from the fictional.


The good news is that I haven’t offended anyone, as my friend’s husband loves this description of his wife. The scenario in which she appears is entirely fictional I say. But I realise this isn’t entirely true. It is an event that I have recreated, fictionalised, and reimagined, giving it more weight and intrigue than there ever was in the actual. But the truth is, his wife wasn’t part of this event.  Why this event stayed in my mind from the 1970’s until the new millennium and emerged as a fictional truth, I’ve no idea. But it has reminded me of my first novel, when a neighbour told another friend after reading my novel ‘well, that never happened’… the thing that never happened, was me the author having an illicit sexual encounter with the neighbour…   It seemed hilarious at the time, that the neighbour assumed my protagonist was indeed, myself, the author and another character was… goodness me… himself.  But too, I know an old school friend wrote to my publisher after my first novel came out to say he knew me and many of the characters (oh goodness me) in my novel.  Err… what to say.


After the publication of my third novel ‘Daughters of Messene’, I was stopped in the street by a neighbour who told me ‘I’ve just read your book.’  It was said in an ambiguous tone that implied ‘can you believe it, both that I’ve read your book and that you’ve written one’.  And then the best part. ‘I couldn’t find you anywhere in the novel… you really are a good writer.’


I’ll take the compliment and be glad that he hadn’t found his wife, or himself…


 

			

	
		
	


			
				


	

		
Common girls and empanadas

		
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Common girls and empanadas (or flash pies).


It’s my day off.  I slept late and followed the RoguePOTUS twitter account from my surface pro in bed. I need weaning from this addiction. Lies, lies and more lies from the realDonaldTrump. How very unreal. So, what nicer than to meet a friend for coffee late morning.  I could offload about vertigo to a sympathetic ear, sip my soy latte, and chill in the company of real friendship.


On the way home, I realise, after all that talking, I need food, so I slip into a local café and queue.  Behind me in the queue is a woman of a similar age to myself.  I hear her asking me in a loud voice.


‘Were you a ballet dancer?  I’m only asking because of the way you are standing with your toes pointing.’


I’m flattered of course.  I’d always wanted to be a ballet dancer. I turn towards her and say ‘No, I was a marching girl.’


And, predictably (to me anyway), she responds, ‘Oh, I always wanted to be a marching girl, but my mother wouldn’t let me.’   She goes on ‘My mother told me only common girls marched.’


I’ve heard this many times before. It’s a middle-class cliche.  It’s said with total recognition of the snobbery it implies and yet gives an authority to the very same thing.


‘Yes, that’s me, I was a common girl,’ I say loudly but laughing too at her and myself.  Then shamelessly, I go on…‘There’s a book called About turns written on this very topic. It’s about marching girls and book clubs… are you a reader?’


‘Yes, I read…. Can I get it from the local library?’


‘Yes,’ I said, ‘You can.  I wrote this novel.’


‘What’s your name?’


‘Maggie Rainey-Smith’.


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There’s a chuckle from her friend, who says they will remember it, after all, Maggie Smith is hard to forget.


And then we view the food cabinet together like old friends.  The woman whose mother said only common girls were marchers invites me into their conversation about the food in the cabinet. We’re all looking now at a filled roll really but they want to know how one should say ‘Brie and Cranberry Pide’ – was it Peed or was it Pied?  We all agree, it looks very much like a Panini and wonder why it is called a Pide.  I never do get to hear how to say it because out from the kitchen, steaming and fresh from the oven, comes a plate of Empanadas… looking exactly like a pie or Cornish pastie.


 


empanada-dough


‘Yum,’ I say, loudly, possibly too loudly, possibly overly self consciously and mischievously. ‘I’ll have the pie. We common girls love pies.’


Unperturbed, my new friend asks if I am still marching and I laugh and explain that no, I’m not. And here I have to check myself for my own snobbery, as goodness me, of course I’m not!  Hoist on my own petard so to speak.


My new friend confides…She recently saw a group of older women who were still marching and goodness she tells me confident I will laugh… they were so fat… she jokes that she thought they ought to be marching faster. Followed by a hearty chuckle (both of us – for what else should I do with a new-found friend from the queue by the food cabinet).


I do hope my new friend manages to find the novel About turns in the local library… and that the Librarian realises Maggie Smith didn’t write About turns…. but I do fear, that all those clichés that I tried to gently nudge when writing the novel, might very well float right over my new-found friend’s head.

			

	
		
	


			
				


	

		
Adoption and a Xmas stocking filler story

		
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My friend Robyn Cooper is a born storyteller. She has a quirky way of inhabiting the world that I admire. Whenever I meet up with her, she is bursting with stories that are full of wit, chaos and the joy of being open. She does what most of us try to avoid doing… she allows a kind of chaos to enter her life, instead of plotting and planning to prevent it. It means she keeps an open heart to story and to the people around her.


 


I first met Robyn when I was in Timaru and she was in Days Bay.  I was on my much written about 21-week sojourn to be a writer and Owen Marshall, who had met Robyn, handed me her memoir and suggested I might enjoy reading it – and that I would probably like Robyn seeing as we lived in the same bay.


Her memoir is called ‘Don’t ask her name?’


 


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It is a powerful adoption story from both a mother’s and the adopted children’s experience.  The children’s stories are different, because they are from different birth mothers and these encounters are retold with tact, understanding and absolute affirmation. One of the great joys Robyn has shared with me is being present at the birth of one of her grandchildren with the birth mother of her daughter. Two expectant grandmothers sharing the same unbelievable joy.


Robyn’s own personal story has tragedy and yet it also has beautiful romance.  I am now friends with Robyn and her husband, Roger. Their love story after the death of Robyn’s first husband is truly perfect romance. It is essentially a tribute to the gorgeous quirky open nature of Robyn that this romance happened. She is open to the world and unafraid to take chances. Roger and Robyn travel together, and share a great love of people and a deep sense of enquiry about the world. He is a scientist and she is a story-teller, a rather perfect combination.


I am hopeful that her memoir will soon be an E-book as it is now out of actual print, but available in many local libraries if you would like to go and find it.  For anyone who has adopted children or been adopted it is a warm and life affirming book about this sometimes-difficult journey that is made all the more wonderful by the open heart of the author.


I just found this recommendation on the Wheeler Books website which says the book is no longer available.


This is an “unusual and moving story of adoption in New Zealand (that is unique in its power, scope and warmth. While it is harrowing it is also optimistic, without being sentimental.”


Now, I want to tell you about Robyn’s latest book  ‘Snails, spells, and snazzlepops’ written for children.Robyn now has grandchildren and has always been their ‘storyteller. Over the years, she has made up stories for them whenever they came to stay at her house.  This innate ability has now been transferred to the page.


Snails, spells and snazzlepops 


An absolute Christmas stocking filler.




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I loved it.  I bought it for my granddaughter but I read it first.  What a wonderful romp of a story! Full of verve, energy and wit. A writer who understands children and adults.  The dialogue captures so well the gap between children and adults and how they see the world. It is fast-paced, lightly tripping over big topics like bullying and your mother having a new boyfriend and moves deftly from funny to wise with a dose of magic realism.  There is a fabulous granny character who like the author herself, is open to the imagination of the children and willing to go along with their crazy plans which include (close your eyes or block your ears if you are squeamish), cooking snails, but better than that, sorting out the bully. Also, hats off to Makaro Publisher for the lovely production from cover to lay-out and trailing snail through the chapters.


 


Here is a photo of Robyn Cooper and publisher Mary McCallum at the launch.


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As you can see, the book has a marvelleous cover and has the heads up from the wonderful Barbara Murison in her Around the Bookshops wrap-up and from Bob’s Books blog