Alistair Paterson

Alistair Paterson is a New Zealand poet, editor, critic, and occasional fiction writer. He is the editor of Poetry NZ and has thirty years of literary magazine editing behind him. In 2006 he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature.  

Paterson has published nine books of poetry (five of them long poems) numerous articles on poetic theory, and edited two anthologies He has given readings and promoted New Zealand poetry in Britain and America. In 1993 he won the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award. A selection of his poems is available in Andrew Motion’s on line Poets and Poetry Archive UK.

A former naval officer, adult educationalist, Green Party supporter and parliamentary candidate, he enjoys sailing, camping and family life. He says he has had a lifelong love of poetry and been privileged to support and mentor poets in NZ and elsewhere. He believes New Zealand poetry is among the best in the world and much of it at poetry’s leading edge of innovation and development. His poetry is grounded on his experience and delight in literature and history, and his interest in literary theory and poetics.

‘Selecting the following 13 poems from my work,’ he says, ‘has proven difficult, but it’s given me an opportunity (which I much appreciate) to reflect on and think about continuity, change, and the ebb and flow in other people’s and my own writing.’

Heron Park

Yesterday in Heron Park

I saw young Harry,

with his war proof on, his sword

& buckler at his side–

            a prince indeed

time warped

bemused perhaps & loitering

where he’s never been before

except when imagination’s

             called him up–

& the other unexpected guests

cormorants & molly hawks

thrown into sudden flight   

clamouring through

          the startled air . . .

Hamlet’s father

on shadowy, misnamed Elsinore

crying out from the parapet

his anguish & despair

           ‘Remember me! . . .’

I remember them

& lesser ghosts from other climes

summer dappled seas & skies–

Sam Coleridge

               & Christabel

people met in Singapore

a woman seen on Rousseau’s Isle

‘two girls in silk kimonos

both beautiful,

                one a gazelle’ . .

the swans Yeats saw

on the lake at Coole–& the herons

that once were here, now

long gone, are

         ghosts themselves . . .

Heron Park is a place I’ve visited often, carrying in my head recollections of people from the books I’ve read and know or have  known. There used to be herons in the park but since the Auckland City Council began an upgrade of it, they’ve disappeared. This was written no more than a few days ago and therefore hasn’t previously appeared anywhere at all.

Homage to Leofric

Maeg ic be me sylfum soðgied wrecan . . .

- The Seafarer

The Exeter Book says it, where you’ve

come from; the wanderer, the seafarer

whoever searches for landfall, a planet

          a star, the place where sea

meets sky & massed clouds shimmer

roll overhead so that you ask yourself

did they (the wanderer, the seafarer)

think as others think, as you think–

of the swell, the ocean, the seabed below

        the wind’s howl, the wave’s song

mountains hanging in the mist

above the waterway, the ice-cold sea?

But you follow the sun’s course –  

watch a movie, read a book, wait

for the minutes, the hours, time to pass

         expecting to reach on schedule

your destination – þær gebidan

where people you know will meet you.

And you hope travelling’s a forgetting

a putting aside the dangers of the journey

all thought of vast distances, what

         happens when you least expect it

that no longer needs an accounting

maeg ic be me sylfum soðgied wrecan.

The quotation which can be translated as ‘I can recite a lay of truth about myself’ comes from The Seafarer, found in The Codex Exoniensis, given to the library of Exeter Cathedral in the Tenth Century by Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter.  

from Africa, //Kabbo, Mantis and the Porcupine’s Daughter  

This is the moon


I told you about, that I desired

                     should return–

should come for me,

                    //Kabbo says.

I’ve waited for the shoes

I must put on  

                  strong for the road.

The sun will go along

                         stay with me.

*

I will go with the moon        

                      & the warm sun

while the ground is hot,

along a great road.

                         I shall walk

letting the grass

the flowers become dry

            while I follow the path–

while I go

            with my ancestors . . .

They’re alive, our ancestors

our ancestors are alive

they live through us & yet

         there’s a sense in which

what’s happened seems

      never to have happened . . .

*

The earliest people

were dancers, became

            antelopes, were lions

entered the place

of the Cave Bear, painted

its walls, its over-hangs

                              painted

fish, serpents, the Rain bull

painted themselves as huntesr   

                    as spearmen

those who have died

       who have become spirits

        & now live in rivers . . .

These are the opening sections from Africa, a poem of more than 2,000 lines suggested by Neil Bennun’s The Broken String, Viking, London, 2004–which explores the myths and legends of the vanished bush people of South Africa.

The night before Christmas
 (after Randall Jarrell)

The blue & white of clouds, of sky

the green of grass & willows–

although of course there’s usually

not much grass under willows . . .

It ought to be a quiet place with

the river redolent as it always is in fairy tales,

redolent of so many things: the splintered

fragments of half-forgotten dreams,

the night before the night before Christmas

as Jarrell would have said, actually said,

& the days, all those days after the night

                              before the night . . .

Not that it matters–that nothing’s silent,

nothing at all. The noise of course,

the noise is principally not there

under the willows but in your head:

a clamour of voices, the perpetual sound

of people talking, each somehow striving

to be heard above the rest, to be heard

& understood–so many of them,

So many before and after the night before

                                the night after . . .

your stockings lying under the window

when they should be over the fireplace.

A tinsel twist of lights & coloured paper

drifts round the room beneath the willows.

They’re becoming–the lights & coloured paper,

drifts of tinsel–they’re becoming something

they’re not: the thousand & one nights

of Scheherazade–becoming the fabled hare

& tortoise, a wily fox waiting for the lights

                  to go out in the farmhouse . . .

It’s the night before the night before Christmas

& this is a quiet place–the willows & river

redolent as they are always in fables–

                                 in fairy tales . . .

Written in the 1990s in response to one of Jarrell’s poems in Selected Poems, Atheneum, New York, 1968, the piece above first appeared in my collection Summer on the Cote d’Azur. More recently it was reprinted in the New Zealand section of Andrew Motion’s on Line, Poets and Poetry Archive UK.

a cappela

In the yellow street lights of youth

                         I knew you though we hadn’t met

               you were there where I couldn’t see you

half-hidden behind those sudden rains

                                      that leap across footpaths

                      & roadways, stream down the steep

hills & narrow gullies of childhood.

                        My bones said it, myth & memory

                 confirmed it through a stumbling maze

of false starts & clumsy wanderings

                    & now when your voice comes to me

                                              unexpectedly at noon

or out of the last hour before dawn

                             the words I hear are your words

                                       the face I see is your face

& it seems as though each

                                    & every morning the world

                                          makes a new beginning

that somewhere between myth

                             & history, illusion & subterfuge

                                        there’s truth & meaning.

A cappela is another poem from the 1990s. It first appeared in Summer on the Cote d’Azur, but has since been included in the New Zealand section of Andrew Motion’s Poets and Poetry Archive, UK.

Waiting for the cabbages to grow & keeping them safe

Every morning

after looking at the paper

to see what (if anything)

is happening in the world

I go outside & check the cabbages.

It’s not just the cabbages though–

there’s the potatoes as well

& I’m not certain which of them

concerns me most.

They’re there in the garden

peacefully minding their business

unaware even (well I think

that’s the way it is) that they’re

unaware I’m interested in them

but then, who’s to know

about cabbages, what they think

or whether they think at all?

Then again, my interest

in them is personal–and I care

what happens to them

have an empathy for them

the way (in the case of cabbages)

their leaves crinkle & fold

& the potatoes–in their flowering,

whether it says anything

about tubers & what’s happening

in the earth below.

What they make me think of

is people & everything

that goes wrong . . .

that might go wrong

that usually does & especially

when nobody’s thinking

about it because there’s so much

–more than anyone can imagine–

so much more to think about

that fills in the days, weeks, years

& seems so important

except when the worst happens

as it does so often–

& then it’s too late

to do anything about it . . .

Cabbages was initially published in Summer on the Cote d’Azure, HeadworX, 2003. In 2007 it was anthologised in Harvey McQueen’s the earth’s deep breathing, garden poems by new zealand poets, Random House NZ.

A view of Rangitoto

(for Roland Barthes & Jacques Derrida)

What I’m paid for

is to stare through the office window

& look at clouds:

               the clouds are interrupted by paper

which is brought in

& dropped onto an ‘in’ tray

                                 by ‘Christine’ or ‘Anne’

two women who could be

          from Barcelona, Spain–but more likely

arrived here (yesterday)

from Putaruru or Taihape

                                                          which is

not necessarily ‘the truth of it’

                             but at least–or at the most–

                                a good enough imitation.

The clouds–Anne or Christine–

drift across the horizon

the variegated blue of the sea

                                                        sometimes

‘ride’ over Rangitoto

That mythical (mythos) island

                                          the paper obscures–

& all of it ‘in the course of time’

                                                becomes money

which (by the nature of things)

appears in my bank statement

                           not exactly ‘belonging’ to me

but as a form of transitory accounting

                                             that waxes, wanes

                             independently, ‘of itself’ . . .

And it is ‘independent’

a kind of choreography/dancing–

clouds that are more or less

                                 paper moving over a desk

that is more or less plastic or wood

‘signifying’ as much

                          as anything is ever ‘signified’

the nature of things:

                             Anna or Christine, the wave

of a hand, the slide of a pen

which ‘constitute’

                                 whatever is ‘constituted’:

Christine, Anne , the clouds–

                                particulars made manifest

                                                       realised . . .

A view of Rangitoto  first appeared  in the New Zealand Listener and later in Fire 15, Ed Jeremy Hilton, Field Cottage, Old White Hill, Tackley, Kidlington, Oxon OX5 3AB, 2001.

The Dictionary of Battles

The Dictionary of Battles

covers more than three millennia:

from Thothmes III against the Hittites

(Megiddo Pass–1479 BC)

to the Golan Heights, the Gulf Invasion–

endless bloodshed, constant warfare . . .

I turn the pages–

identify the man next door

people who live on the next block

someone dressed in black

who’s walking towards

an empty house two streets away–

and you my love, and you . . .

In 1099–the 15^th of July–

forty thousand died

when Tancred and Raymond,

Godfrey and Robert (both of them)

scaled the walls

and captured Jerusalem . . .

They’ve worked it out

in the Pentagon, in the Kremlin–

made an estimate of

missiles, tanks, what it will cost

how many Scuds Iraq will be able

to launch against Israel . . .

You take your coffee in Vulcan Lane

walk along Wyndham, Wellesley, Durham

risk your life–

you’re reading The Wealth of Nations:

somewhere near Customs Street East

there’s a man with a knife . . .

and you, my love, and you . . .

This piece, written in the late 1990s, was also include in, Summer on the the Cote d’Azur, 2003.

Cemetery Point

Under

The clean, white sails of childhood

                                                         a boat

moves over still water

& with such certainty, such grace

               one can see the physics behind it:

triangles, hemispheres–

                                 complimentary forces.

It moves

beneath that steep hill

                               where in company with

his fellow townsmen (the last of them)

my grandfather lies under stone–

                                                   lies fugitive

his bones amongst

                                    long forgotten bones.

And soon

There will come a time

                         when no one remembers him

who, living, passed his life

a stranger

                     moving in front of strangers . . .                        

He lies with his fellow townsmen 

                                                in the shadows

of hills

& mountains, lies where

                           morning breaks from silence

a tolling of bells

the far crying of gulls–

                                                      where boats

move over still water, their sails

                                           bent to the sun . . .

This tribute to my grandfather who I had great affection for, formed the last section of the longer poem Odysseus Rex,  Auckland University Press, 1986.

from Qu’appelle             

Today

(which is the present–now)

she sings the sun–

                                   of the day’s begetting

& a morning so bright

it reaches out catching the throat:

a supreme perfection of things

                                                  (particulars)

that have a handiness about them

                                        that could be used.

She could make of this morning

a net or a boat–music–

                                             a wooden bowl

something to fish with

or for travelling–

                                            a scarf or a rug.

She sees that the sun is a climber

ascending the East –a  journey man

                             who’s mastered his trade

& knows how to use brush & ladder.

She is moved by it

                                                    waves to it

as if she knows what’s done well

is not done with ease

                                   & rarely for pleasure:

she recognises a wrestling

a striving

a tension of opposites

                                                        morning

                                           & the sun rising.

This is a representative section from Qu’appelle, Pilgrims South Press, Dunedin, 1982. In 1981 the poem was co-winner of Auckland University’s John Cowie Reid Memorial Award for longer poems.

from The Toledo room

It’s not Spain nor Mexico, but nowhere

no place at all–neither the llano nor

the sierra, neither the plain nor the high

places . . .

and you arrive late, a little nervous

uncertain of yourself, & the room’s empty

as empty as a theatre when the actors look

between the lines & the audience begins

to lose its patience . . .

I make signals to you, reach out to you

but there’s so much noise it’s useless:

everyone talks–is smiling / serious–laughs

& behind the scenes they mark the slates

with chalk . . .

It’s Spanish, at least the arch & grill

are Spanish–the bright blades, the black

cape & matching hat–& it’s logical, it’s

logical enough to make a rough & ready

kind of sense . . .

But it’s not Spain, not Mexico–the llano

And no one can equate what’s being said

with what is being done: haggling & talk

of politics to pirouette, veronica, death

                              in the sun . . .

This is a section from The Toledo Room, a poem for voices illustrated by Terry Stringer, Pilgrims South Press, Dunedin, 1978, performed at Downstage Theatre, Wellington in mime form and later over Radio NZ as a poem for voices.

 Letter to Miss Dickinson

Dear Emily

                                                You say

                          exultation is the going

that you know the way

by mountain and plain

                      from your father’s house

                                out from the inland

down

                                  to the shining sea.

You ask

can the sailor understand

                          the divine intoxication

                                  of the first league

                                  out from the land

and I ponder explanations

of your attitude

                                       half convinced

                     no one’s completely sane.

Thinking of a man

who composed a symphony

he carried in his head          

                                                 who said

                                   all he needed was

              a skilled and sympathetic hand

                                          to set it down

of a woman who thought

immortality

her private possession

                                    and remembering

                      the fisherman who needed

neither line nor hook  

                                              I wonder at

                                                      reality

whether

the narrow circumstance

gives a larger view–

                               and the consequence

                                           if this is true.

Holding little else

                                                   perhaps

                you held more truth than most

being disbursed

of a clamour and clatter

an obligation of days

                               deprived of so much

                       you escaped being crazed

                                                       and if

                                                as you say

                             exultation is the going

the sailor through sailing

loses sight of the land

                           your song be the praise.

Letter to Miss Dickinson is one of my first poems in double margin field form. It was included in the collection Birds Flying, Pegasus Press, Christchurch, 1973.

Horses with children

Horses with children by a green paddock

      stop the car. In a field of silence

      colder than stars, ears pricking

      the great beasts move gently

      through grass–the children follow

      wind-driven, like ungainly flowers.

We watch while the landscape, strangely

      pale, white as the wood

     of weathered rails, and the sky’s

     distant bars bespeak unearthly

     thunder–a struggle of horses

     and men, rain and trampled mud

swept by lightning and coursed

     by flood. Soon the children

     will know that the sky itself

     is the implacable force that throws

     horses and men from a babble

     of fields, the heat of the sun,

that in spite of whatever they say

     or do, there’s nothing can ever

     be changed, nothing at all

     to be done. Disturbed by the engine

     the horses start, though faintly

     they sound, the children laugh.

Horses with children first appeared in Birds Flying, Pegasus Press, Christchurch, 1973. It reappeared in Our Own Kind, 100 poems about animals, ed Siobhan Harvey, Random House NZ, 2009. It arose from stopping in the late 1960s on Auckland’s North Shore so children could view horses there Imagery in it was derived from William Morris’s The Haystack in the Floods (1858), and Shakespeare’s description of the dying Falstaff ‘babbl[ing] of green fields’. The hanging indent comes from R A K Mason.