Tuesday Poem: “A Good Kiwi Girl” by Alexandra Fraser
A Good Kiwi Girl
A good Kiwi girl wears black
travels light
can rip her gear off quick
if she’s interested .keen for action
She’ll arrive in a foreign town
friendless homeless
find a flat a job mates
faster than a postcard home
will nanny for the rich
work behind a bar
waitress pick fruit
cheap flight weekends
Paris Prague Rome
has slept in airports
her back-pack a pillow
hitchhikes through Greece
A good Kiwi girl
in four-inch heels
if she’s pissed
will arm-wrestle you in a pub
If she’s really pissed
she’ll let you win
A good Kiwi girl wants
a double-shot flat white
her own back yard
with a feijoa hedge
and a lemon tree
© Alexandra Fraser
A Good Kiwi Girl first appeared in the NZ Poetry Society publication a fine line.
The poem is reproduced here with permission.
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About the Poem:
A Good Kiwi Girl caught my eye as soon as I saw it featured in a fine line last year—in part because of the title, but also when I read it because I felt it captured something quintessential about so many good Kiwi girls whom I know, as well as the great New Zealand “OE” (“overseas experience”—usually a working holiday.) It has something of an ‘epic’ feel to it, too, that appeals. We go out into the world like lionesses—but always, like Euripides with “the apple tree, the singing, and the gold” there’s the return to the home (part) acre, the feijoa and the lemon tree. A great poem to have as part of my current “Kiwi” and “summer” (respectively) Tuesday Poem focus, and I am grateful to Alexandra for letting me feature it.
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About the Poet:
Alexandra Fraser has been published mostly in NZ journals and anthologies, most recently in InterLitQ 17. Sometimes she lives in Grey Lynn, otherwise resident by a northern beach. She writes poetry when it rains.
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A good Kiwi girl
in four-inch heels
if she’s pissed
will arm-wrestle you in a pub
If she’s really pissed
she’ll let you win
I take it that pissed is a synonym for drunk, here? 🙂
Liked the poem.
I think so, Paul. The first line could also have the double meaning to ‘pissed off’, but the second makes it ‘drunk.’
Sums it up really. The Good Kiwi girl can be a cross between Xena, the warrior princess, and Audrey Hepburn. She’s versatile and that’s why Good Kiwi boys love them.
And quite right, too—thank you, Andrew. 🙂