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 am sharing some lines and stanzas from the anthology’s “Demolition & Rebuild” section.

—

from “Demolition & Rebuild”:

“Now the sound of broken
hammers my heart

This is how living here sounds.”

~ Tracey Peterson, “As Safe As Houses”
.

“See how they unlay unstack undo
all we have ever done.

~ Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, “Who Of You”
.

“Build it of stone, of brick, of twisted
metal. Build it of shattering masonry.
Build it of glass. Build it of cards
of condolence. Build it of tears. Build it
of lives, of lies, of lying alone
with the stone of absence filling your belly.”

~ Joanna Preston, “The Ministry of Sorrow”
.

“Beneath the jagged mountains
crossed cranes at dawn
frame the city skyline
buildings propped and braced
with beams and girders
all diagonals
the twisted bridge
the fallen staircase…”

~ Catherine Fitchett, “Slant”
.

“Christchurch is the new Detroit; it will have no creative
character. It might look flash today, but in ten and twenty it will
look dank-grey. Begone you arties, don’t play that happy music,
no dancing, no poetry — what’s left, Mr Norcliffe? Those quakes
those Richters that break; our buildings fall low, spirits and souls
drift around our city lost, lifeless and cold, like two bronze statues
in the Avon.”

~ Joseph Shaw, “The New Detroit”