issue 11 of broadsheet available now

broadsheet, no. 11, May 2013, featuring Cameron La Follette (USA) is available now.

Cameron La Follette to feature in broadsheet 11

The May 2013 issue of broadsheet: new new zealand poetry edited by Wellington poet/publisher Mark Pirie will feature a North American poet from Salem, Oregon.

The poet Cameron La Follette‘s work is currently being archived by Niel Wright in Wellington.

Wright contributes the following comment on her: “Cameron La Follette, environmentalist and poet, in her mid 50s, is a distant relative of the American political dynasty of La Follettes, in her own words ‘Senator Robert Marion La Follette Sr is in my “first cousin” line. His father and my great-great grandfather were brothers.’

Put more simply, before 1850 there were two brothers. From one descends Cameron La Follette poet. From the other descends the USA political dynasty of La Follettes.

Currently she is Australasian editor for RPO (Representative Poetry Online), a University of Toronto library website. Her interest in New Zealand goes back to her childhood in Arizona. She is currently associated with the New Zealand poets Ruth Gilbert, Niel Wright, Mark Pirie, and Michael O’Leary.

She came under the influence of the Australian author, mythologist and poet P L Travers (of Mary Poppins fame) 30 years ago through the Parabola magazine to which P L Travers was a frequent contributor from its founding in 1976.

As such she is part of a wide ranging Pan Pacific English speaking culture, inaugurated by Captain James Cook (deceased in Hawaii in 1779), which also takes in writers Rex Hunter, Mary Barnard, Charles/Mike Doyle and Michele Leggott among many others including Peter Jackson the Tolkien film interpreter.

Her environmental papers and 1000 poems in 2013 were archived in the University of Oregon (an open collection), as also in the past were the papers of Ursula Le Guin. Archival editions of 1,300 poems of hers are currently being published in New Zealand by myself where they are available for purchase from me at PO Box 6637, Te Aro, Wellington 6141, New Zealand. Email: nielwright@xtra.co.nz”

Other contributors include: Richard Berengarten (UK), Michael Duffett (USA), P V Reeves, John O’Connor, Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle, Tony Beyer, John Dennison, and Hawke’s Bay poet Laura Morris.

issue 10 of broadsheet available now

broadsheet, no. 10, November 2012, featuring Mahinarangi Tocker (1955-2008) is available now.

Issue 9 of broadsheet available now

broadsheet, no. 9, May 2012, featuring L E Scott is available now.

Issue 8 of broadsheet available now

broadsheet, no. 8, November 2011, featuring John Gallas is available now.

John Gallas to feature in broadsheet 8

broadsheet is pleased to confirm that UK-based New Zealand poet John Gallas will feature in broadsheet 8 due for publication in November 2011.

Gallas left New Zealand in 1972 to study Old Icelandic and has lived in the UK ever since. He is currently based in Coalville, Leicestershire. 8 of his books have appeared from Carcanet in Manchester and in 2011 he published a trilogy of chapbooks, F***ing Poets, through Roger Hickin’s Cold Hub Press in the South Island of New Zealand.

Other poets confirmed for broadsheet 8 are: Craig Cliff, Michael Duffett (USA), Roger Hickin, Rex Hunter, Cameron La Follette (USA), Chris McCabe (UK), Mary McCallum, Michael O’Leary, Harry Ricketts, Laura Solomon, Yilma Tafere Tasew, Paul Wolffram and F W N (Nielsen) Wright.

Bill Manhire’s song lyric ‘Crime Scene’ in broadsheet 7

Last year New Zealand poet Bill Manhire put out a jazz CD album Buddhist Rain (Rattle Records) in collaboration with musician Norman Meehan. It’s a very enjoyable CD.

This year broadsheet asked Bill to contribute to issue 7 (as he was a friend of the featured poet Anthony Rudolf). One of his song lyrics, ‘Crime Scene’, from The Victims of Lightning (VUP, 2010) was chosen.

Bill’s poetry has always had a strong musical element. It shows in his poetry readings and in much of his work published since the early 1970s. So it seems a natural progression to set Bill’s words to music.

broadsheet was pleased to see music critic Simon Sweetman writing about Bill’s collaboration with Norman in Blog on the Tracks.

Here’s a link to a free download of Bill and Norman’s track ‘Pacific Raft’.