Currently, I’m sharing some of the wonderful lines and stanzas from Leaving the Red Zone — the poetry anthology (edited by James Norcliffe and Joanna Preston, and published by Clerestory Press) that commemorates the fifth anniversary of the February 22, 2011, earthquake.

Today, I share the first of a two-part focus on the anthology’s “Aftermath” section.

—

from “Aftermath”

“$30 billion
7.8 billion litres of spilled
…………..untreated wastewater
535,000 tonnes of silt
181,000 damaged homes
40,000 chemical toilets
8,900 Christchurch emigrants
1,200 demolished
………….. city centre buildings546 rest home evacuees
185 lives
.
………….. 2 cathedrals”

~ Keith Westwater, “Canterbury Oblations”
.

“If I hear that damn word resilience
one more time, I will scream,
and not stop.

…

Stuff your cheer-up billboards
Stuff your fluoro vests
Stuff your overdone road cones…”

~C.M. FitzGerald, “Resilience Of A Flea”
.

“on the way in from the airport.

A random house with a scaffolded front wall
having an issue with its chimney.
…
A church with giant Meccano buttresses.
A brick wall propped up with 4 x 2s.
Empty sections.
Open space.

Absent skyline. …”

~ Laurice Gilbert, “Christchurch Reveals Itself”
.

“…
how can one lose oneself in a familiar place?

night colludes — landmarks camouflaged
darkness or coloured lights or temporary
structures; overshoot the turning; panic doubles

my heartbeat: my disorientation”

~ Karen Zelas, “Here And There”
.

“Spare me earthquake
conversation,
we try to be tolerant
but we …… find it a bore”

~ Cherry Hill, “Speechless”