This month I reissued Wellington, New Zealand, cricketer/poet/songwriter Robert J Pope's poetry collection, King Willow: Selected Poems, as a free ebook pdf download from my website: www.markpirie.com
King Willow was originally produced as a small run archival limited edition in the HeadworX Publishers Classic Poetry Series in 2012.
Here's the link to access the free version of the book:
http://www.markpirie.com/books/king-willow-selected-poems
Reviews of this book appeared in a previous blog post.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Keith Westwater’s NZ cricket poem
Occasionally poems are submitted to me for this blog. I try to include as many poets as possible who have written on cricket.
A poet I was in contact with recently had written a poem that was cricket related. He submitted it to me, and here it is.
Keith Westwater uses cricket and the idea of a batting run out in relation to a possible road accident. The hesitations and confusions of cricketers running between the wickets are vivid in Keith’s poem, and make for a powerful ending.
KEITH WESTWATER
Road Cricket
Driving through town
listening to the cricket
I saw a man
in the road’s grassy middle
about to thread a three-lane needle
with his body
glass, metal, flesh, blood
He danced ahead
like a batsman at the bowler’s end
just before the leather leaves
the bowler’s hand
then scuttled back
to bide another chance
walk, run, dive, swallow
You fool, I thought
you bloody bunny
as my own life’s risky runs
replayed for me right then
though I knew on his far crease
there was no-one looking out to call
YES! NO! WAIT! …sorry
Poem © Keith Westwater
Keith Westwater lives in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. His debut collection Tongues of Ash (IP, 2011) was awarded ‘Best First Book’ in the publisher’s IP Picks competition. More of his poetry can be found on his blog ‘Some place else’ at http://www.keithwestwater.com/.
A poet I was in contact with recently had written a poem that was cricket related. He submitted it to me, and here it is.
Keith Westwater uses cricket and the idea of a batting run out in relation to a possible road accident. The hesitations and confusions of cricketers running between the wickets are vivid in Keith’s poem, and make for a powerful ending.
KEITH WESTWATER
Road Cricket
Driving through town
listening to the cricket
I saw a man
in the road’s grassy middle
about to thread a three-lane needle
with his body
glass, metal, flesh, blood
He danced ahead
like a batsman at the bowler’s end
just before the leather leaves
the bowler’s hand
then scuttled back
to bide another chance
walk, run, dive, swallow
You fool, I thought
you bloody bunny
as my own life’s risky runs
replayed for me right then
though I knew on his far crease
there was no-one looking out to call
YES! NO! WAIT! …sorry
Poem © Keith Westwater
Keith Westwater lives in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. His debut collection Tongues of Ash (IP, 2011) was awarded ‘Best First Book’ in the publisher’s IP Picks competition. More of his poetry can be found on his blog ‘Some place else’ at http://www.keithwestwater.com/.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Reviews of Robert J Pope’s King Willow
Last December I launched/published a book of poems, King Willow, by the late, forgotten Wellington poet, cricketer and songwriter Robert J Pope (1865-1949).
Pope’s neglect is common enough for New Zealand poets. Their reputations exist during their lifetimes and very few are enduring. However, more increasingly digital texts of these early poets are available online. I am now working on making a digital ebook pdf of Robert J Pope’s poems for distribution online.
In the meantime, watch this space. Here are two excellent reviews received on publication of Pope’s book this year, showing he still has plenty of relevance as a poet to today’s readers:
HAMESH WYATT
Review of King Willow: Selected Poems by Robert J Pope, edited by Mark Pirie, HeadworX Publishers.
Robert J Pope’s poem ‘King Willow’ appeared in Mark Pirie’s book A Tingling Catch: A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009 (HeadworX, 2010). It talked of the opening of the 1932 cricket season.
Pope was a well-known Wellington poet, cricketer and songwriter. He was born in 1865 and died in 1949. Pope wrote the famous school song ‘New Zealand, My Homeland’. Pirie has put together many of his poems. This selection gives a picture of the man and his times and restores a significant New Zealand poet.
These poems are not old, dusty stuff. King Willow traces a time when Pope began writing and publishing during the Edwardian era and spans two world wars. He put together sporting verse on the 1924-25 All Blacks Tour of Great Britain and France.
Growing up in Dunedin, Pope says in ‘Memories’:
…Twas there by the fireside my father sat
And I upon his knee,
Enthralled by the wondrous tale he told
Of the Old, Old Man of the Sea.
There my mother plied her needle oft—
Sure toll our rents supplied:
And yonder the spot where my sister fell—
She was the first that died…
King Willow is fascinating, even with the rather mannered quality to some of these poems.
(Otago Daily Times, 16 February 2013, p. 49)
ALISTAIR PATERSON, Editor of Poetry NZ
Review of King Willow: Selected Poems by Robert J Pope, edited by Mark Pirie, HeadworX Publishers.
King Willow, Selected Poems, Robert J Pope, edited Mark Pirie, is a scholarly piece of research - a timely and substantial publication.
It presents much of the work of Robert J Pope (1865-1949) who had largely dropped out of sight and might otherwise have remained so, as have many other poets who preceded Allen Curnow's 1945 A Book of New Zealand Verse and became overwhelmed by the latter's new orthodoxy.
In this respect, Mark Pirie has done stupendous work in rediscovering him (as he has many other writers) and bringing him back into notice. Pope certainly deserves such discovery and recognition.
A long term and substantial writer, he 'deserves' as Pirie says, 'recognition ... as a significant precursor to the urban 1950s Wellington Group'. This is an enlightening and extremely worthwhile publication. (Poetry NZ 47 (August 2013))
The Journal of the Cricket Society also reviewed it:
http://tinglingcatch.blogspot.co.nz/2013/05/cricket-society-reviews-king-willow.html
Pope’s neglect is common enough for New Zealand poets. Their reputations exist during their lifetimes and very few are enduring. However, more increasingly digital texts of these early poets are available online. I am now working on making a digital ebook pdf of Robert J Pope’s poems for distribution online.
In the meantime, watch this space. Here are two excellent reviews received on publication of Pope’s book this year, showing he still has plenty of relevance as a poet to today’s readers:
HAMESH WYATT
Review of King Willow: Selected Poems by Robert J Pope, edited by Mark Pirie, HeadworX Publishers.
Robert J Pope’s poem ‘King Willow’ appeared in Mark Pirie’s book A Tingling Catch: A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009 (HeadworX, 2010). It talked of the opening of the 1932 cricket season.
Pope was a well-known Wellington poet, cricketer and songwriter. He was born in 1865 and died in 1949. Pope wrote the famous school song ‘New Zealand, My Homeland’. Pirie has put together many of his poems. This selection gives a picture of the man and his times and restores a significant New Zealand poet.
These poems are not old, dusty stuff. King Willow traces a time when Pope began writing and publishing during the Edwardian era and spans two world wars. He put together sporting verse on the 1924-25 All Blacks Tour of Great Britain and France.
Growing up in Dunedin, Pope says in ‘Memories’:
…Twas there by the fireside my father sat
And I upon his knee,
Enthralled by the wondrous tale he told
Of the Old, Old Man of the Sea.
There my mother plied her needle oft—
Sure toll our rents supplied:
And yonder the spot where my sister fell—
She was the first that died…
King Willow is fascinating, even with the rather mannered quality to some of these poems.
(Otago Daily Times, 16 February 2013, p. 49)
ALISTAIR PATERSON, Editor of Poetry NZ
Review of King Willow: Selected Poems by Robert J Pope, edited by Mark Pirie, HeadworX Publishers.
King Willow, Selected Poems, Robert J Pope, edited Mark Pirie, is a scholarly piece of research - a timely and substantial publication.
It presents much of the work of Robert J Pope (1865-1949) who had largely dropped out of sight and might otherwise have remained so, as have many other poets who preceded Allen Curnow's 1945 A Book of New Zealand Verse and became overwhelmed by the latter's new orthodoxy.
In this respect, Mark Pirie has done stupendous work in rediscovering him (as he has many other writers) and bringing him back into notice. Pope certainly deserves such discovery and recognition.
A long term and substantial writer, he 'deserves' as Pirie says, 'recognition ... as a significant precursor to the urban 1950s Wellington Group'. This is an enlightening and extremely worthwhile publication. (Poetry NZ 47 (August 2013))
The Journal of the Cricket Society also reviewed it:
http://tinglingcatch.blogspot.co.nz/2013/05/cricket-society-reviews-king-willow.html
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