The Tuesday Poem: Congratulations To Jennifer Compton
Last week, the new Ockham New Zealand Book Awards announced the first-ever longlist for NZ’s national book awards.
Although very exciting in and of itself, I was thrilled to see that my fellow Tuesday Poet, Jennifer Compton, appeared on the list — for her publication Mr Clean & The Junkie published by Mākaro Press.
For a taste of Jennifer’s poetry, check out The Topography Of Wellington, featured on the Tuesday Poem Hub on September 1:
“There is a darkness here: and also an itinerant rainbow
strolling like a twister with one lazy finger dipped in water.
There is a harbour: because of the rainbow there may be
a glory, like a saint’s halo, which is an optical effect. Glory.
…”
To read the full poem, click here.
On the same day, I also posted Jennifer’s The House of Wives, here on the blog–and do again, for your enjoyment today:
The House of Wives
Ah – he said. Camogli. Casa delle mogli. The house of wives.
Because their husbands were fishermen and so always at sea.
Or it can mean houses packed close together. The village
like one house with many wives, calling out to each other
from their windows. Or, further back, after the deity, Camuli.
A sound too much like Ca’mogli to let the happy joke go past.
But – I replied. If they were fishermen then many would
have been drowned dead. The house of widows instead.
That is not the Italian way. We infer, we imply, we don’t say.
But now, of course, it is for the tourists, they sell ice cream.
2.
Paddling on the pebble beach – ouch ouch – I come upon
a blue clothes peg, her function intact, at the high tide line.
Back in Australia my pegs had gone missing mysteriously
then the day we found a satin bowerbird’s courtship avenue.
The males adore blue, filch drinking straws and bottle tops
and pegs. What had been vanishing was always and only blue.
They used to make do with berries and flowers, which faded,
but amcoplast solvent drives them on to a fresh excess of art,
brandishing the fetish, strutting and tossing, laying it down pat.
This very peg flies home, a gift from Camogli to our bowerbirds.
from This City, Otago University Press, 2011
Featured on “…Anything, Really” with permission.
To find out more about Jennifer and her work, you can visit her on her blog:
Stillcraic
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Don’t forget to read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world—just click here.