Mike of All Trades

More on Villanelles

2012-02-14T18:49:00.000-08:00

I've talked about Villanelles on this blog before, and included at least one example that I haven't written myself.

I've just come across another, this time by Theodore Roethke. I was reading this poem, courtesy of the daily Writer's Almanac email, and realised within a stanza or so that it was a Villanelle. The title is The Waking, and you can read it here - where they have permission to reproduce it. Here are the first three lines:

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

The first and last line reappear (not always exactly, which is common in this form) throughout the poem. Note the paradoxical theme as well - waking to sleep, learning by going where he has to go. That second idea is something poets often pursue in the course of their writing: writing in order to find out what it is you want to say.

Incarpaliar rock

2012-02-14T18:29:00.000-08:00

Incarpaliar rock

The train cheats through the desert.

My elbow is warmed from its resting on the window.

What a fuss I left behind!

That singing brick, making music to soothe the papoose.

I might as well have a sandwich – so-called –

though the railway doesn’t know what a sandwich is.

Why can’t I sleep on trains?

That would stop me feeling hungry.

It’s worse on a plane – the cramped carpal tunnel.

It’s like your dreams are cheated when you try and sleep

on a plane.

On trains, I doze....

A train has rhythm - (rhythm,

what a stinker of a word to spell). Rhythm. Rhythm.

On trains the rocking motion reminds you of being a papoose

listening to your mother’s music,

warmed up from inside out by her oh-so-familiar voice.

Not the voice that later would say, Get it? Get it??

when plainly I didn’t.

As though she’d seen what sort of a fool she’d brought up.

What a fuss she’d make over it.

No wonder I’m dreaming of being on a train,

streaming through the desert.

cheating her, somehow.

This poem, (not autobiographical, by the way), is the result of working out one of the exercises in The Exercise Book, edited by Bill Manhire and others.

Montezuma’s Revenge

2012-02-10T20:14:00.000-08:00

I got The Exercise Book out of the library yesterday - it's edited by Bill Manhire, amongst others. It's a grab bag of ideas to stimulate your writing, and the poem below is the result of one of these stimulations...this is a first run at it - there may be improved versions still to come.

Montezuma’s Revenge

One of the blankets I hung out to air

was dry when I first hung it out.

It’s now wet from the spitting rain,

so I’ve hung it in the glasshouse

to dry again.

The tomatoes in the glasshouse are a

very few red; the remainder green.

The blanket is child’s blue, green, red, a

child’s blanket kept to cover the dog’s

cage, where he sleeps at night, in the

kitchen, with the curtains closed, to

shut out the extra light.

We’ve been up in the night the

last three nights, letting the dog out

in the dark at least three times a

night – he’s had the backdoor trots,

(our back door rattles in the wind

as I write), Montezuma’s Revenge –

the runs, the summer complaint,

though for eating what I know not what.

Montezuma’s Revenge:why does a

Dutch acappella rock-pop group

name itselfafter a South American

loosening of the guts?

But they did just such.

They’ve called it quits once –

not the loosening, though most would

call quits (including the dog) on that as

quickly as. Three years ago

they quit, but last December

were touring as if detachment never

happened, their Dutch phizogs

bouyant on a poster for

Montezuma’s Revenge

Strikes Back: an acapella

circus.

Google translates therevival:

“It buzzed for a while in the

corridors and it is true! After a

numberof theatres with the

question of Montezuma was

again not what we could do the

headstogether. Such a chance will

notlet you lie...a fall or winter or

summerbreak depression is

nowtime for a spring cleaning.

That sounds like we have met

once the broom by the occupation.”

You can see Montezuma's Revenge's website here.

Lying on one side

2012-02-01T16:49:00.000-08:00

Lying on one side

Half my hair heats against the pillow.

One eyelash, linked to the lid, lies caught in linen.

One nostril breathes less freely than its brother.

One cheek is concave under cranial weight.

Half my chin presses to the pillow.

My left ear is flat beyond flattening.

A shoulder has its flagrant arm flung out, angular.

The other arm, not to be outdone by its brother,

finds a home across my wife’s breasts.

An awkward elbow, fitting nowhere, develops pins andneedles.

Fingers fit as finials, some under, some over.

Some chest rests, with ribs partially crushed.

An arch beneath the bridge from chest to hip

and then the thigh, bastion of the lower half,

curls over, as my joystick, hardened,

postulates the holding up of my frame.

The thigh has that fame, and rolls down towards

the knee locked under the other knee, crossed under,

awkward huggings, impractical when walking.

Ankles, sticklers for the most convenient place to

place themselves, shift shiftily, knobble slips off knobble.

Toes keep pace with the quietly shifting space:

those toes (unlike the ankles) soft and less defined,

grubs of differing heights set as extremities,

shift around each other, nuzzling in amongst each other,

comfort spaces betwixt between, sensuous with each other,

revelling in their sockless, shoeless freedom.

Awake before 6 am

2012-01-18T19:47:00.001-08:00

Awake before 6 am

I’m never sure if the distant roar I hear

is the waves hitting the shore

at St Kilda or St Clair, or

some pre-working-day collective snore

rising from ten thousand or more houses,

people dreaming behind closed doors

of the day gone, or the day before them.

In gardens all around is the pre-dawn

twittering of a thousand birdsongs soaring;

then, sun rising, an end to the outpouring:

a reverence and a waiting awe for

the new day, which to bow before
humans now deplore.

Thanks to Kay Cooke for her helpful suggestion on this poem.

After reading The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker

2012-01-18T19:42:00.000-08:00

Working with rhyme again, and trying to find a way to makes sense as I go along. In his book, The Anthologist, Nicholson Baker makes a strong case for poems that rhyme.

After reading The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker

Your challenge, Nick, is to write a poem

in which the lines have rhymes;

I now invite King Jeroboam –

a man whose various crimes

brought Israel to idolatrous knees –

to help me with this verse.

I wouldn’t have brought in such a sleeze

if ‘poem’ wasn’t such a curse

to rhyme with, as you no doubt know,

having struggled with the form;

but sans alesser-known John Doe

I’m having to perform

with a King whose name just fits the bill –

the only one I’ve found –

and hopefully he’s taken his pill

and doesn’t want to expound

the reason why he led poor Israel off

its proper course of action;

otherwise I’ll have to scoff

to stop him gaining traction

regarding idols, groves and bulls

where worship goes awry,

and a self-centred king who pulls

the wool over everyone’s eye.

The Heaven-born Ploughman

2012-01-17T19:06:00.000-08:00

The results of the 2012 Robert Burns Poetry Competition have just been announced, and since I didn't make the cut, I may as well include my entry here.....

The Heaven-born Ploughman

Remembered in life for his gallavanting,

his getting-with- child of too many women,

he’s remembered in death as a saint of the

people, this impoverished farmer of land

and wealthy farmer of words.

Dubbed the “people’s poet” in Russia:

his Scottish face reproduced on a

Russian postage stamp ten years

before the production of two commemorative

British ones: fourpence & one and threepence.

Further portraiture fame came from the

Clydesdale Bank, on a five-pound note

(the reverse a field mouse and a rose):

the once impoverished poet

more profitable in death than life.

Remembered in places far-flung,

his antipodean statue - seagulls seated on his

head – commands by place its status as

centrepiece to the Writers’ Walk

circumferencing Dunedin’s Octagon.

Like Mozart, like Schubert, like Chopin –

short-lived Masters of musical sound,

Burns was short-lived Master of the verbal:

rhythmic and wry, rustic, sincere, and

spontaneous heaven-born ploughman.

Split Infinitives

2012-01-17T18:26:00.000-08:00

The following is the result of a nonsense conversation on Facebook...

SplitInfinitives – for Matt Scott

The people who reject the rules

and sprinkle their orations

With split infinitives and more

egregious violations ..." Anna Barham

My punctious pal says it’s

an ‘egregious violation

to gamely split infinitives,’

in Facebook conversation.

By ‘gamely’ does he mean in fun,

or doing it with vigour;

taking grammar at a run,

observing it with rigour?

To this the answer I’ve no thought,

but Strunk and White insist,

that split infinitives you ought

not never to dismiss.

No-nonsense Fowler

also works to rule;

considers it a howler

and thinks that you’re a fool.

But Mr Shakespeare, who

re language knew some little,

split infinitives - to show

he cared not a jot or a tittle.

A failure of the imagination

2011-12-11T19:46:00.001-08:00

When it comes to evolution, I seem to have a failure of the imagination. I just can't conceive how certain things could have done without certain other things, in the evolution 'process'. The world seems so full of synchronicity that to imagine A without B just makes my head ache. Hence the poem below, which hopefully won't be too below the belt for most readers....

I so so

So wanna believe in evolution,

but since no one can decide

which arrived first, the

chicken or the egg,

and since the eye has been

discredited as a possible

explanation for design,

being so cleverly designed that

only Evolution with a capital

E could have randomly come

up with it, then I have to con-

clude that when I ask how did the

penis manage to evolve without

the vagina, or the vagina without the

penis, that I’m just a no-hoper on the

scientific front, though not so much of a

no-hoper on the full frontal front.

But boastingly I digress;

what I’m trying to suggest is

that it’s a puzzle how the vagina

decided that it would arrive on the

scene just as the penis came into

prominence – as it were. Or was

there a penis hanging around

(again I use the language somewhat

loosely) knowing in its own random,

evolutionary way, that there would be a

vagina slinking around in the bushes

somewhere, just kind of thinking,

(randomly, evolutionarily) that a

penis might be close by, and

useful.

The tricks of a Sestina

2011-12-07T19:08:00.001-08:00

I mentioned the Sestina in my last post, and gave a graphic version of it, which, when I came to try and use it, wasn't that easy to work with after all. Stephen Fry lays out the ground plan for a Sestina like this:

ABCDEF

FAEBDC

CFDABE

ECBFAD

DEACFB

BDFECA

That is, the word that corresponds in each case to A or B or C, etc, and appears at the end of a line, gets shifted around as the poem winds its way through the spiral. At the end of the six stanzas we have an Envoi, a kind of final greeting to the reader, which uses this pattern BE/DC/FA, squashing up the six key words into three lines.

It's rather difficult to explain, so here's a properly formed example from W H Auden called Paysage Moralisé. In this poem you can see how the key words at the end of the first six lines (valleys, mountains, water etc) wind their way around the poem.

Being keen to have a go at the Sestina, if only to say I've actually tried it, I produced the item below (notice I don't call it a poem). I discovered shortly after I started that I'd begun to rhyme the key words instead of actually re-using them; hence the variations. However I think the scheme is intact, and by the time I got to the envoi the words were back where they belonged again. The metre isn't consistent because it's not easy to concentrate on getting the metre right as well as all the other juggling of words, but since this is only a practice run, I'm not fussing about that too much.

I've written out the key words at the beginning, with their alphabetical symbol beside them. I haven't thoroughly checked but I think they're intact, at least in terms of rhyming with the original. The group of six letters are only at the side to give you an idea of where the key words/rhymes have gone to. I was originally going to use a bunch of words that I came across in relation to trailer hitches, but they proved a bit of an obstacle in the way of getting the Sestina off the ground. And anyway the 'poem' found its own way home.

A. Hitch,B. state, C. more, D. this, E. sans, F. did

To start a poem with a trailer hitch ABCDEF

Seems likely to put me in a state

Of dislocation, and furthermore

I haven’t a clue where I’m going with this

Which makes it a drive in the night sans

Headlights, which my brother-in-law did.

Well, now I’ve the problem that this grid FAEBDC

Called Sestina needs to work one stitch

At a time, like a number of hands

All pulling, as if pulling their weight,

But in fact, pulling that way and this,

Between table and chair, window and door.

And now I’ve made it a chore CFDABE,

Since I should stick to the grid

And not rhyme; howdid I miss

That instruction? Surely some hitch

In my reading. So I’mnow in a state

And reverting to form as a man’s

Wont to do if he just lets his glands ECBFAD

Rule him and acts like a boar

In a china shop throwing his weight

Everywhere, breaking this lid

And this plate, sending every which

Way and that crockery, with a hiss

And a roar, and unlikely to miss DEACFB

Any item he can lay his pig hands

On, or, with a whiskery twitch,

Like his cousin, the Minotaur,

(distant, I know) known to be hid-

den in his labyrinthic state

And rashly inclined to lie in wait BDFECA

For Heroes arriving in a bliss-

ful state of ignorance, fidd-

ling with their sword in their hands,

Relishing a fight and the gore

That would follow without hitch.

I’m sorry to statethe heroes sans

Brains lose on this,and furthermore,

Only Theseus didthe deed without hitch.

Still playing with the Villanelle

2011-11-29T18:18:00.001-08:00

More playing with the Villanelle form - I'm looking at the Sestina and maybe the Ballade next...(blame Stephen Fry)

While all the world around me hoons

And guzzles caffeinated drinks,

I take a nap most afternoons.

The radio croons its ‘Junes and moons;’

My mind it gently sinks and sinks,

While all the world around me hoons.

Siestas are, for Spaniards, boons,

(Accompanied by long, sticky drinks) -

They take a nap most afternoons.

But as a Kiwi, Culture’s tunes

Deflect away from forty winks

While all the world around me hoons.

Far healthier than taking prunes

Or dealing with love handle kinks

Is my quiet nap most afternoons.

Busyness eventually wounds

And proves to be a faithless minx;

While all the world around me hoons

I take a nap most afternoons.

The shape below is a graphical view of the Sestina....looks more complicated than it is!

Villanelle again

2011-11-24T01:15:00.001-08:00

Still working on the Villanelle form; it's difficult but not impossible. Difficult mostly because it's easy (as the following poem demonstrates) to keep to short thoughts without any great ongoing flow. Anyway, this one is probably still a work in progress. See the notes at the bottom for some explanations.

All Governments suck up to the rich

With tax loopholes by the score;

The fat aren’t found dead in a ditch.

Every two years a major bank glitch

With the underpaid caught in the maw;

All Governments suck up to the rich.

A vacuous, empty human witch

Spends with extravagant hiss and roar:

The fat aren’t found dead in a ditch.

Politicians make a strong pitch

For tobacco exemptions in law

All Governments suck up to the rich.

Here’s a somewhat unpleasant hitch:

Pepper spray in the Occupy war;

The fat aren’t found dead in a ditch.

I’m struggling to maintain my pitch:

The affluent versus the constant poor.

Governments suck up to the rich -

The fat aren’t found dead in a ditch.

The pepper spray incident at UC Davis was caught on camera by dozens of people using mobile phones, iPhones and more. The link is to a ten-minute video of the whole event in which riot policeman Lt John Pike stood over a seated row of protesting students and purposely pepper-sprayed them. Though it's not clear on the videos, it was done by other police as well, some of whom forced open students' mouths and sprayed down their throats.

Villanelle

2011-11-18T17:19:00.001-08:00

Reading Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled at the moment, and in particular the chapter on Villanelles.

The Villanelle is a bit akin to a Sudoku, or a Cryptic Crossword: everything has to fit or it falls apart. It's a form, and a quite specific one at that. There are five stanzas of three lines each, and the sixth stanza has an extra line.

The first and third lines of the first stanza get repeated alternately at the end of the subsequent stanzas and then both appear in the last stanza. They have to rhyme. The end word of the middle line in each stanza rhymes (with a different rhyme sound). In the last stanza the first line rhymes with the very first line of the poem, the second line rhymes with the second line of the poem, and then we have the two repeated lines. It sounds more complicated than it is. Dylan Thomas' Do not go gentle into that good night is a well-known poem than many people don't realise is a fine example of a Villanelle.

This wonderful poem by Elizabeth Bishop is also a Villanelle, though by running over the second line in some cases she takes slight liberties with the form. The poem becomes increasingly moving as it goes on; the last line is exceptionally so.

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

From Bishop’s lastbook of poems, Geography III

I've just had a play with the form, and produced the following bit of nonsense....which I'm sure can be improved. It's a start, however! I also play a little with the second repeat line; using rhymes that are similar in sound may not be the wisest move, although it was interesting to do.

Perhaps it’s not the prime of every poet’s dream,

Though I myself am fairly keen

To aspire to a villanellic scheme.

So I won’t wait for the Muse’s beam

But try somehow the rhymes to glean;

Perhaps it’s not the prime of every poet’s dream.

I thought at first that I might seem

To be a Villanelle machine;

As I aspired to a villanelley scheme.

I’d vie with the Cream of the Poetic Team,

Sharpen my tools to the finest sheen;

Perhaps it’s not the prime of every poet’s dream.

Of Villanelles I’d write a ream,

Of Villanelles become the Dean -

Still aspiring to a villanelleful scheme.

While fame and fortune wildly gleam

Villanellistically I’m still green;

Perhaps it’s not the prime of every poet’s dream,

Aspiring to a villanellistic scheme.

Mike Crowl Nov 2011

A new look at an old title

2011-10-24T19:44:00.000-07:00

A new look at an old title

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Well, I ask myself, why not?

The difficulty will be making sure that the

summer’s day is not atypical and therefore an

inordinately awkward day with which to compare

thee.

Thee hast to be compared to something that is

not so overheated we would all prefer to

stay inside, drinking endless cups of tea,

ignoring the weather, avoiding nasty sunburns and

melanomas.

Nor would I be keen to compare thee to

a day starting light and shiny then steadily

clouding over, hinting at rain in the late

afternoon. Such aday has a sense of not

boding well for the evening, leaving a

feeling of if only.

If only I compared thee to the perfect summer’s day,

thee would be satisfied and not at all out of sorts

because of the possibilities of being compared to a

day that turns up on the weather reports as having

been less than satisfactory.

Regrettably, summer days are like any other days –

at least in our part of the world; moody, sulky,

telling lies about themselves, leaning to pretence,

opening dull and heating up, or hiding blue skies

well and truly behind a cover of cloud.

If I compared thee to a winter’s day, then we

might all know what we were getting:

often more than a little cool, occasionally frosty,

once in a while snow-covered, iced-over,

likely to send you toppling if you step

incorrectly, bleak for a week, a

time to stay indoors and sit by the fire...

Shall I compare thee to a winter’s day?

Wrapped up warm, gloves, hats, scarves,

layer on layer over thermal underwear,

bed-snuggled beneath a bevy of

blankets, hot toddied, feet

hot-water bottled, wheat-bagged,

wrapped round each other, legs,

arms, independent parts...

Give me thee in winter more than summer.

Moth

2011-10-22T17:34:00.000-07:00

A poem written a few years ago as part of a larger poem, but which decided it was good enough on its own.

I’ve seen a moth near-drowning

slide across a hot bath, flicker

up and off the surface, onto walls

and ceiling quicker

than my eyes can follow,

seen it smash into the light-bulb,

flash into a mirror, speed from

wall to wall in frenzy, like a

dervish all a-shimmer, settle down

into a corner, flutter briefly,

catch its breath and in a moment

dive its suicidal path towards the

bath and start all over.

Fatherhood

2011-10-22T17:29:00.000-07:00

A recent poem....from just a few weeks ago.

Last time I saw this young man

he was callow, naive, could

put his foot in whatever was

in-put-footable. Now,he holds the

hand of a curly-headed three-year-old boy,

grinning, both of them grinning,

delighted to be in each other’s life,

the ginger-haired, short-cropped father,

the curly-topped lightning-smiling

boy. ‘And we’ve justhad number two,’

says the father, shining. ‘Just

three weeks ago.’

Firstly, Secondly

2011-10-17T23:13:00.000-07:00

Another poem written some time in the last couple of years, and again, somewhat revised....

Firstly, Secondly.

Firstly, in a house full of

paper, I can’t find a scrap

to write on. Thechaos of

carpet-laying has put everything

where it doesn’t belong.

Secondly, reading Billy

Collins writing about

reading Thomas Traherne

I wonder if Billy

will be remembered

300 years from now.

Will he be rediscovered, as

Bach was rediscovered – supposedly –

by Felix Mendelssohn.

Felix was a bit of a

fraud, (though without malice)

since Bach had never been

undiscovered, even when

Felix found some of his

manuscripts being used to wrap

meat in a butcher’s shop,

(so the story goes),

even though Bach’s

Mass in B Minor was

unknown to the English

musical cognoscenti.

So Billy’s Apple that

Discovered Paris,or his

Trouble with Poetrymight

well go out of fashion, but

who’s to say what will survive.

With so much alive and well

on the Net, it’s a probable

bet that Billy and Bach and

Thomas Traherne will

continue their timeless travels -

unless the Net unravels.

In spite of the news

2011-10-17T22:58:00.000-07:00

In spite of the news,

the body got up next morning

continued to

go for a pee,

wash its face,

eat breakfast,

put on clean underwear,

check for holes in the toes of socks,

put one leg into trousers and then the next,

make sure it had a handkerchief,

brush its teeth,

comb its hair,

kiss its wife goodbye

and head off to work.

No one noticed the news on the bus.

The bus driver was cheerful as usual,

the passengers nonchalant, or oblivious,

or listening to their MP3s.

The traffic in general was busy,

checking for red lights,

beeping at drivers cutting in,

whistling along with the pop songs

and, some of them,

talking on their cellphones.

In the office, all was normal,

the news was not remarked upon.

Not even when the body told them.

It barely rippled the surface of their

newspaper, magazine, Codecracker lives.

And the ripples it did make caused

no more than an

Oh. Ah. Sorry.

I wrote this poem on the 29.10.08, and have slightly revised it. I have no idea what the particular 'news' was anymore, and of course, it's not important....

Photo by Olly F

Dog

2011-10-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

Getting inside the head of a non-human creature has been one of the tasks of poets since....well, I don't know since when....

This is yet another attempt.

Dog

Without me, Boss would be at aloss.

I dob in robbers bobbing theirheads over the fence.

I stop plotters lobbing bombson the grass.

Fob me not off, ignore my woof not!

I bark and blot out the wobblinghand,

The desire to mollycoddle –I’m a dog,

For God’s sake! I have no problems

With collywobbles but give mestrong,

Solid assurance I’ve done agood job.

Double ‘good dog, good dog’for my

Trouble. I have no foibles needing

Avoiding, nor rubble in thebowels

Of my cranium needingpsychology:

I’m biologically

Dog.

The statue in the photo is in Budapest - the dog might be after the chicken under the boy's arm, rather than the boy! Photo by gimboland.

Two Dunedin poems

2011-10-12T20:09:00.000-07:00

Two Dunedin poems

A small boy

Turns over each of the

Octagon’s metal chesspieces

With a clang reminiscent of a

Coke can being crushed.

When he has finished,

Having excelled in the

Art of overturning chessmen,

He stands arms akimbo.

There is a man I see everywhere I go;

In fact there are two.

The first always wears a t-shirt over his skivvy, and

Always carries a bag slung over one shoulder.

The other one is always seated drinking coffee,

Always talking intently to at least one other person –

Mostly one other person.

The first man is always alone.

I never know whether the second man’s conversation

Is as intellectual as it looks, or whether he is a fool fullof words.

I know nothing about the first man.

He is always alone.

13 ways of looking at race

2011-09-27T16:02:00.000-07:00

An attempt to write a piece along the lines of Wallace Stevens' Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird ...

13 ways of looking at race

1. Oneway is looking for my pen before I can write.

2. Raceis black, even when it’s brown.

3. Theopposite of black isn’t white.
Sometimes it’s brown.

4. WhiteMichael Jackson.

5. InNew Zealand black is
Maori, Tongan, Fijian, Samoan -
you name it.
Do they all think black?
Do they all look black?
Is that my reflection looking back?

6. DoI see black when I watch
(a) Sione’s Weddding?
(b) Once were Warriors?
(a) No.
(b) Yes.

7. Blackis someone’s anger expressed in
news reports, TV reports, negative reports:

“They always...” “Just what you’d expect....”

8. Blackis our national colour,
but not the colour of most of our

nationals.

9. No,I am not a colonialist.
No, I am not a chauvinist.
No! I am not a white supremacist.
Sometimesthe man in the mirror is.

10. TheDominion Council of the
Returned Services Association
has adopted a recommendation
from its Immigration Committee
to reaffirm the policy of
“a white New Zealand”
and express the opinion
that every obstacle should be
placed in the way of
Asiatics entering the Dominion.
Mr C J Dickie, the MP, in

moving the motion, said it applied,
of course, to Hindus and other
Asiatic British subjects, and it was a
serious problem.
Once they were admitted they would
soon overrun the country.[1]

11. DearGod, don’t let me be like Mr Dickie.
Of course I’d love all people to be white,
just like You are;
was it Your fault You put some
tint in the mix?

12. Ilove Maori people.
What choice do I have?
But I don’t love Muslims.

13. We’reAll Blacks at heart.
Aren’t we?

[1]June 5^th, 1926 Otago Daily Times

Image from Edward Picot's blog.

Two recent haiku

2011-09-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

This blog has been out of action for some time, since the subject matter is no longer top of the pile. So I thought I might utilise it for the odd poem I write...

If you search for #haiku on Twitter, you'll not only come up instantly with a heap of haiku of all shapes and sizes, but even while you're beginning to read those on the screen, another twenty to forty tweets will appear with more haikus in them (if haiku can be pluralised like that....)

It's a simple form that everyone and his/her brother/sister has a go at. Including yours truly...

Cooking silverbeet soup

last year's crop

stalks of gold, red, yellow, green. 23.9.11

curly-headed blonde toddler –

mysteries of genes –

straight-haired ginger-coloured dad 28.9.11

At the moment I'm trying to get the hang of the form itself, in its best-known arrangement.

Alibris comes alive again

2009-01-26T19:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I arrived home to find an email from Alibris telling me that they were charging my credit card US$19.95. I was a bit puzzled about this, as there didn't seem to be any obvious reason why they should be charging me, but an enquiry to them got an answer that this was (of course!) the annual fee.
I haven't had a thing from Alibris over the last year, so in a way it's a bit of a fizzer to be charged that annual fee again.
However, within 24 hours there was another email telling me that a book that's been on there since I first joined up with Alibris has sold. Weird. Things being what they are in the exchange rate at the moment, it's probably a good time to sell to the US. The postage rate they automatically pay us Kiwis is US$10, which at the moment translates to about $18.90. The book price is quite tidy too, though not quite on a par with my last Alibris sale. (My one and only other Alibris sale!)
The book that's just gone was The Book of Books, by Annalee Skarin, one of those strange versions of Christian thinking that seem to intrigue some people. I got it with a bunch of other similar titles from a secondhand dealer, to sell on behalf. It's the first to go in a long time!

Nothing happening

2008-06-21T23:45:00.000-07:00

Nothing happening on here at the moment, because I've stopped selling books for the time being. Just got too busy doing other things, and decided to give it a rest. To be quite honest I make more money more regularly out of doing paid posts on the Net than I do out of Trade Me, even though the latter has its moments. I'll get back to it maybe in the summer when the days are longer (!)

Nearly a month

2008-05-25T01:27:00.000-07:00

It's nearly a month since I posted on here. In part that's because I've been fairly busy with a different aspect of my life, namely rehearsing for a play. Originally I only had a small part, but then circumstances turned out that I've been asked to take over as assistant director, a role which has actually meant that I've done virtually all the directing for the last couple of weeks. And since this quite time consuming at the moment, other things have had to take second place.
To be honest, while I was certainly making money with the bookselling, it wasn't much money, and some books certainly weren't pulling their weight in terms of getting themselves off the shelf quickly.
So for the moment, I'm giving the bookselling a rest. I'll be back, no doubt.

2008-04-30T02:21:00.001-07:00

Well, if I thought I was doing well selling nearly 40 books when I wrote a couple of posts ago, I've now sold 49 for the month. Pretty good going.
My latest was Hitmen, a book about the music industry, which I only put on Trade Me last night. It was gone this morning. I'd had it on Alibris for some time as well, but never got a whiff of a sniff on there. That site's a bit of a dead loss for non-American sellers, I think, since by default the site puts the postage up very high for overseas customers.

Books on the roundabout

2008-04-26T00:38:00.001-07:00

I've probably mentioned here before that I sometimes acquire very good books at the local Rubbish Dump's shop (sorry, it's called the Transfer Station these days!).

Two or three weeks ago I found a box with several books in it and amongst them were the two volumes of Hans-Joachim Kraus' Psalmen (or Psalms, to you non-German speakers). They were in very good condition.

These books came out as part of the Biblischer Kommentar Altes Testament series in the early 70s. The two volumes are in German, otherwise I'd very likely hang onto them myself, but my German isn't up to reading thick tomes with technical language, so I decided to put them on Trade Me, in the unlikely event that someone would buy them. So far no one has, but while I was talking to a friend from church the other day I mentioned these, and he was interested in them - he apparently reads German a good deal better than I do.

So they've found a new home. A slightly different kind of home to the one I expected, but a home, nevertheless.

The state of play

2008-04-25T00:39:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit pushed for time over the last couple of weeks, so notes on this blog have suffered as a result.
It's been a busy patch: I've sold nearly 40 books since the beginning of April, which must a fair record in my terms. Things are still trickling along, but not with the speed they were.
Several things may not be helping: petrol's well and truly up in price; NZ Post altered their prices considerably at the beginning of the month, which affected all the Trade Me sales; a lot of people are edgy over the economy, I suspect, with talk of recession and mortgagee sales (70% more in Auckland this year than last year, when they were comparatively rare. )
On the plus side, I finally took the plunge and signed up for Trade Me' s credit card set-up, where you get paid straight away. I thought the cost of it would outweigh the benefits, but in fact, I've found more people paying by c/card than I expected. So that's been a bonus.

A record week!

2008-04-06T01:23:00.000-07:00

I suspect that this is my best week ever on Trade Me, although I'm not going to say that for definite, as I had some pretty good weeks when I first starting selling on it, a year and a half ago.

Anyway, as of now, the book count is up to 13 and there's a pile of wrapped up books sitting on my floor waiting for the payments to show up in my account. And it hasn't just been the really good stuff that's gone. As I said yesterday books I've had for some time have suddenly decided to move, and today I sold another one I've had for a good while.

I'm not giving up my day job just yet, but at least there's a decent bit of income turning up. Now, of course, with the 31st March just gone, I'm going to have to sit down and work out what I've earned and what's been spent for this financial year. MYOB will help, but it will still need a bit of sorting.

Things Look Up!

2008-04-04T00:37:00.001-07:00

Suddenly it's boom time, on Trade Me - at least as far as I'm concerned. Nine books sold since the beginning of the month. Someone picked up two of the Alistair McLean titles I had; two other people have bought sporting books when I was beginning to wonder if anyone ever did anymore (and one of those books I've had almost since I started back in late 2006); an audio book on CD went (Minette Walters' Devil's Feather); a thriller went, a sci-fi collection, and a hymn book. How's that for a mixed bag?

I'd picked up the hymn book at the recent Regent Theatre non-book sale - it cost me rather more than I really wanted to pay for it - and it was only after I'd begun to advertise it that I discovered that it had a church's name stamped on it. Dear me. Let's hope it wasn't 'borrowed' long term!

Ins and Outs

2008-04-02T01:48:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we took the morning off and went to some garage sales and the St Hilda's School fair. There were some reasonable bits at the garage sales, but the fair was selling off books that were really worth picking up - although at first they were selling them rather too expensively. This must have become evident to them pretty quickly, as the prices went down just while we were there perusing.

Anyway, I got a fair bunch of books, and two of them were onsold before the weekend was out. That's the way I like it!

One of these was a children's book in really good condition (in fact very good condition was the general state of what I picked up), and the other a book on Anatomy for Artists, which went to someone who'd bought off me before - something that doesn't often happen to me on Trade Me.

Theological Sci-Fi

2008-03-22T01:53:00.000-07:00

Sold a Philip Jose Farmer title today: Jesus on Mars.
I have a feeling I read one of Farmer's early novellas, The Lovers in Startling Stories, many years ago. It's about a man who falls in love with an alien parasitic insect that has taken the form of a woman. Certainly that plot idea rings a bell.
Farmer seems to specialise in stories that push the boundaries of sci-fi, especially pushing them in the direction of taking theology way beyond what we normally imagine. (Actually most of us are pretty unimaginative when it comes to things theological; we rely on those who are theologians to tell us stuff, and often they're not the best people to do so.)
I read some of Azimov's early stories a few weeks ago; things in them are already very dated, though the themes themselves are not. No doubt at the time he wrote the stories there was something amazing a computer that could keep track of all the world's data; or scanners that could read hardcopies in the blink of an eye. We now take such things almost for granted.

Things picking up again

2008-03-21T00:25:00.000-07:00

Sold two books to the same customer this week, sold a children's book (Judy and the Volcano) I've had on my shelves for some time - even though it's an excellent book - and finally, today, sold a book to a customer in Australia. Not sure if that's a first - suspect it might be - but it's all good. And the Aussie customer was as keen as mustard to get on with dealing with the sale. She's already paid me by paypal (another first, since Trade Me doesn't normally deal with paypal), and the book will be off to her tomorrow. Being Easter weekend, it's going to take a while to get out of the country, but at least it's moving.
I'm still debating how I can use this site for more than just noting what's happening. In due course I'd like to upgrade it so that it'll become active as a sales site. Whether I can do that with a blog site or not is another question; I might have to go to a 'real' site!

Proportionately

2008-03-16T00:30:00.000-07:00

I was thinking yesterday that it might be worthwhile doing a little Google Adsense ad relating to this site – if I were to include books that could be bought on it, rather than just talking about ones that have already been sold.
But if it took off, I’d probably be struggling to keep up with it as well as my day job. For the time being I might stick with what I’m already doing – which is enough, even though the returns at present aren’t great.
And books, as I’ve found, aren’t necessarily the big seller on these online auction sites. They do sell, but it’s slow, and the returns aren’t always huge. Part of the problem is that each item you list is a one-off. Unlike my daughter’s friend, who sells clothing on Trade Me. She can sell the same sort of thing over and over and she does very well, by her own admission – even employs someone to do the wrapping and email answering. Though it’s still work – there ain’t no easy way of dealing with selling.
When I say the returns aren’t huge, I’m talking proportionately. Many of the books I sell have cost me under a dollar to buy, so virtually anything I get on them is profit, and (proportionately) a big markup. A book that costs me only a dollar and sells for four or five is doing very well in terms of return; it’s just that the actual dollar amount of the return isn’t high.
Now if I was buying books at $100 each and selling them for four or five hundred, things would be rather different!

Slow...

2008-03-15T01:48:00.000-07:00

It’s been a bit of a sluggish week on all of the auction sites. Today I had two sales, the first in four or five days. And both of the books were ones I’m selling on behalf of a Christian Bookshop that deals in secondhand titles. We worked hand in hand a lot when I managed the bookshop, and we came to an agreement after I began selling books on Trade Me that I’d put a number of his books online, and we’d split the profits. Neither of us make much out of it, but at least he gets something, and so do I.
One of the books is an out of the way title called Monarchy in Hawaii. I thought it would never sell, but someone’s decided it’s for them. The other one is a book of NZ poetry – again something that doesn’t go too easily.
I used to say, if you wait long enough, there's a customer for every book. Sometimes the waiting can be a bit too long!

Linking to Alibris

2008-03-07T00:12:00.001-08:00

A reader has just emailed me today to tell me that it is possible to link to my listings on Alibris. Very kind of you, Matthew! (Sorry you couldn't leave a comment here. Hopefully I've repaired that now.)
So, if you were of a mind to do so, just click here and it'll take you to the books I have for sale on that site.
In fact, it's interesting to come into the Alibris site in such a way. It's not a page I've ever seen before. It divides up your product into categories, and gives you a better way to browse. Just goes to show what's available!

Alibris comes through!

2008-03-06T00:11:00.000-08:00

Meant to mention in the last post that I've been paid by Alibris today. The cheque really was in the mail. Unfortunately in the time between selling the book and getting the cheque the exchange rate has altered not in my favour, and I'm about a dollar down. Ah, me.

Gwen Gawith

2008-03-05T23:58:00.001-08:00

One of those rare patches when I've got books sitting waiting because the purchasers haven't given me their address. One of them has paid me, which seems odd. Maybe they just me to hold the book in perpetuity for them!
Sold a copy of Power Learning today. I'd rather thought about keeping this, but it's really covering ground I've covered a number of times before. However, interestingly enough, it's by a New Zealand author, Gwen Gawith, one of whose other books I'm using at work to help me figure out how to get going on a research project.
Just came across a post on another NZ site (one that's more devoted to tech stuff than online auctions) in which he rather berates the validity of Zillion. I agree it isn't up there with Trade Me, but then Trade Me was first out of the bag and did very well for itself from day one. Anything else is a competitor with some catching up to do.

Updating

2008-03-04T23:25:00.000-08:00

Quiet couple of days on the selling front, but that's been just as well, as I've had to get the shelves in order. Finding books I'd forgotten about, and ones that I advertised when I first started on Trade Me, and which haven't ever sold. Between packing the shelves, I'm putting the odd book on one or other of the auction sites. I'm aiming to get a large number listed, so that there's plenty of choice...
Zillion has made a positive move, meantime, informing us that they're going back to offering gallery listings free, as they used to do. That's good. And there's no restriction with them as to how many items you can list before you start getting charged extra fees, something that I think is a bit sniffy on Trade Me's part.
Still you go with what you can get.
I've only ever sold one book on Alibris - a schoolboy yarn (with cricketers on the cover) called Leave it to Rags, that I found at my favourite recycling store. It went on its way to the States on the 30th Jan this year, and there's still no sign of payment. Guess that's the sort of thing it is with a firm that only pays by cheque (good grief!). An online firm that pays by cheque. Seems antiquated, doesn't it? (I've just checked the site, and found, as you'd expect, that there's a place where you can see the state of play with payments. Mine was paid out on the 29th Feb. That's more promising!)

Setting up Shelves

2008-03-03T00:46:00.000-08:00

I've shifted in four sets of bookshelves tonight, so haven't much time to do anything else except wrap up some books sold on Trade Me, get some of the stuff off the floor where it's been lying waiting until the shelves came, and then writing on this blog.
One of the time-consuming parts of selling online is the wrapping up and making sure the addresses are correct and so forth. I used to run a bookstore which was run in conjunction with a secondhand shop. Someone else owned the secondhand part, and I remember him telling me early on that with Trade Me it was the writing up and photographing the books and the wrapping up that took up so much time. I guess in terms of running a bookshop it wasn't all that time-consuming, but when you're doing it on top of running a bookshop it does take its time, or when you're working at another job entirely and then have to do it all in the evenings, along with umpteen other things...
Anyway, another book gone today, One of Ben's, by NZ writer, Maurice Shadbolt. Not sure how long I've had this in my stock, but it feels like a while. The accounting system I use, MYOB, doesn't seem to indicate when a book first came into the 'shop.' Maybe I'll have to see if there's some way of keeping track of that.

Mary MacKillop

2008-03-01T23:44:00.000-08:00

The two Mary MacKillop books are going to the Mary McKillop Centre at St Joseph's, Temuka, where Mary MacKillop once worked. MacKillop, for those who don't know about her, is Australia's first canonized saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

It turns out that Temuka was the first NZ foundation of the Sisters of St Joseph.
Three Sisters arrived in Temuka from Australia on 1 November 1883 at the request of the parish priest, Father Fauvel.
Mary MacKillop, who was the Foundress of the Sisters of St Joseph, lived here on several occasions between 1897-1904.
St Joseph's also has a small Museum Room where Reminders of the past are displayed.

Temuka has another claim to fame: it's the place where Temuka Pottery is made. (Apparently it's now advertised as Temuka Homeware.) This pottery is amongst the best-known pottery in New Zealand, and many people would have some of it in their kitchens.

A good weekend & Zillion (!)

2008-03-01T23:21:00.000-08:00

Four more books ready to go to new owners. That's quite a few for one weekend. I forgot to mention that I have books on Zillion.com, too. How could I have forgotten? For a long time Zillion seemed to be a bit of a fizzer, but it's a lot cheaper than Trade Me, and I kept books on there even though they didn't sell fast. However, this weekend we've had two sales off there, and I had another in the last week. So maybe Zillion is finally getting more customers.
This is the link to my books on Zillion.
Here's what's gone today:
A second Mary MacKillop book (as expected) called Mary MacKillop Unveiled. It's something like the not authorised biography.
Blood Orange, by Sam Llewellyn, a book that I've had for a long time, and which has never showed any inclination to move until now.
An omnibus edition of three Chalet School stories. I'd never heard of the Chalet School stories until I found one at the Recycling Shop at the Transfer Station (formerly known as the Tip or the Rubbish Dump). The Recycling Shop is one of my good sources for books, and I've found some interesting items out there. Anyway, the last Chalet book I had sold quickly, so when I found an omnibus edition, I thought I'd see how long it would last as well. Not long!
Finally, Consequences, by Carol Thomas. A romance by a New Zealand author - I don't remember where I found it, but the interesting thing about it is that when I was advertising it on Zillion last week, I discovered, when I went to find some info about it (I usually copy reviews or publishers' blurbs straight off the Net to save myself time) I discovered that someone on Zillion was already looking for it. (I'm sure Trade Me has a Wanted section that can be accessed, but I couldn't find it when I went looking the other day.)

My Links to Trade Me and Alibris

2008-03-01T19:13:00.000-08:00

You can find books I've got listed on Trade Me by clicking here.

It doesn't look as though I can direct you to my list of books on Alibris, but I'll keep trying to figure it out!

Restarting the Blog

2008-03-01T18:58:00.000-08:00

This blog had a second life early last year as a place to advertise books I was selling. However, I've revamping things, so the old posts will no longer be available on here.
What will be happening here will be information about books I've sold or am currently selling on Trade Me (New Zealand's biggest online auction site) and Alibris (in the US). I may even advertise certain books on here as time permits.
There'll be anecodotal material too, and stories about how I came to acquire certain titles.

In the meantime, the books that have been sold on Trade Me in the last two days are:
Faye Kellerman's Serpent's Tooth
Silver Fountains, by Beverley Hughesdon
An Extraordinary Australian: Mary MacKillop, by Paul Gardiner, SJ. (It looks as though the other book on Mary MacKillop that's due to expire on Trade Me tonight will also be sold to the same bidder.)