The Treaty House, at Waitangi

Today is Waitangi Day, New Zealand’s national holiday, when we commemorate signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between the Maori Chiefs of New Zealand and the British Crown.

I posted more about Waitangi Day in a series of posts last year, as follows:

Waitangi Day: “He Iwi Kotahi Tatou”

Tuesday Poem: Tauparapara—”Te Tangi A Te Matui”; Traditional

Maori Mythology in New Zealand SFF: A Few Favourite Tales

So I don’t propose to repeat the material again today, but I hope you will consider clicking on the links to have a look if you did not read them last year — especially, perhaps, when I had that the poem and the Maori Mythology posts were amongst my 10 Most-Read Posts of 2012.

As for what I’m doing today — celebrating in spirit, for sure, but also writing away like a trooper and a Trojan on Daughter of Blood, The Wall of Night Book Three.

Ah! Summer grasses!
All that remains
Of the warriors’ dreams

.

by Matsuo Bassho 1644-1694

Translated by: R. H. Blyth, 1952

—

Mattsu Bassho is probably the most renowned of all the Japanese haiku masters, and RH Blyth’s is my preferred translation of this particular poem.

To learn more about the poet, Bassho, his life and work, click here: Mattsu Basho

To find out about the translator, click here: RH Blyth

Why this poem — because its “ages” since I’ve featured a haiku; I’m currently focusing on summer & summer related poems; and I like it: it packs a tremendous punch in those three spare lines. ‘Nuff said, I reckon!

Note (posted February 12):

The giveaway for Songs of the Earth and Trinity Rising (The Wild Hunt series) has now closed and the result will be posted at ca. 6.30 am, Wednesday 13 (NZ Time)

—

Introduction:

I enjoy doing interviews with fellow authors and am particularly pleased to be bringing you today’s interview with UK-based author,  Elspeth Cooper, who like me is a new name on the international Fantasy scene. Again like me, Elspeth is currently writing a four-book epic Fantasy series, The Wild Hunt (Gollancz.) Songs of the Earth, the first novel in the series, was shortlisted for the Gemmell Morningstar Award, for Best Fantasy Debut, in 2012.

I did a “Just Arrived” post for both Songs of the Earth and Trinity Rising, here, and reported back on reading them here—and so am delighted to confirm that as part of this interview Elspeth will be giving away a UK trade paperback set of both books, the recipient to be drawn from those who comment on the post. (Details will be provided below the post.)

But for now—onwards, to the interview!

—

The Interview

Helen: Welcome to “…on Anything, Really”, Elspeth—it’s a great pleasure to have you here. Can you tell readers a little bit about The Wild Hunt series from your point of view—what is the story you are trying to tell and what is important to you about the characters and the world?

Elspeth: This is always a tricky one to answer, because I never actually thought to myself, “I know, I’ll write a book!”

I’ve always had this overwhelming desire to tell stories, right from an early age. I had some ideas about choices that had sprung from frustration with all those late 80s/early 90s fantasy books where the prophecy was the plot and the characters were just tokens to be pushed about with no agency and no personal stake in what was happening to them. I was also playing with concepts of faith vs organised religion, and the tendency of buried secrets to come out, inspired by the child abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic Church.

After a painful break-up I started writing as therapy, and what came out was Gair, in the iron room, waiting to be sentenced for witchcraft. Somehow all those nebulous ideas came together, and a book happened. I wish I could say there was some grand plan, some calculated decision to include this theme or that which would make me sound terribly thoughtful and clever, but there isn’t. I flew by the seat of my pants the whole way.

Helen: When I read Songs of the Earth, the first book in the series, I thought: “Ah, Gair is a paladin” and realized it was a really long time since I had read a true paladin story—so what drew you to write one?

Elspeth: I grew up on tales of high chivalry and the Knights of the Round Table – my parents read me Ivanhoe as a bedtime story – so that seed was planted firmly from a very early age. However, as I said up there, it wasn’t really a conscious decision to make Gair a paladin. I’d been thinking about buried secrets and when I wrote that scene where he is wrestling with his growing abilities, it occurred to me: “What if the secret his Church is so afraid of is magic?”

I instantly had the cultural back-story, Gair’s predicament in the opening scene made sense if he was a novice in a martial order sworn to hunt down magic users, and it set the stage to open up the story from his personal journey to the epic. Plus, whilst I enjoy reading the current trend for “charming shits” as protagonists, I have a soft spot for an old-fashioned hero.

Helen: As an author, and an epic fantasy author in particular, are their characteristics you feel particularly define your storytelling?

Elspeth: There’s an emphasis on character rather than breakneck plot. I try to make my characters feel like real people, talk like real people and not be tokens, in any sense of the word. I also do my worldbuilding with quite a light hand. I’m a reader, as well as a writer, and as a reader I get irritated with worldbuilding that feels laboured or intrusive, where I can see the author’s fingerprints in the plaster, as it were.

Oh, another characteristic of my storytelling would be magic that feels well, magical. Numinous, otherworldly. I dislike overly systemised magic that feels too much like science.

Helen: Trinity Rising, the second-in-series, extends the cast of characters and opens out the world considerably from Songs of the Earth. What led you to approach the story in that way, rather than having the first book define the scope for the entire series?

Elspeth: When I originally wrote Songs of the Earth, it included Teia’s opening arc that forms the beginning of Trinity Rising. This kept the timeline chronological, but her early story didn’t obviously tie in with Gair’s, nor come to a satisfying conclusion at the same time as his (and it made the manuscript too long to boot) so I moved it to the next book. That meant Trinity starts in Gair’s “past”, i.e. five months or so earlier than where we left him at the end of Songs, but the trade-off was that Songs became a tighter book because it was all about his journey.

When we first meet him he’s quite naïve and unworldly, so this first book is his coming of age. He steps out of a cloistered existence into a wider world, grows in confidence, falls in love, and finds out that pretty much everything he’s been taught up to this point has been based on a lie, and whether he wants it or not he’s hip-deep in a larger conflict.

In Trinity we have the juxtaposition of the personal and the epic. Gair’s in pain and torn between his visceral desire for revenge and the greater good. Then something happens that casts him completely adrift, and he has to start making personal choices that might have profound effects on the wider story.

So the decision to structure the two books the way I did was a largely instinctive one (I do a lot of my writing by feel – I am not a natural planner) but it’s actually worked out quite well because it mirrors Gair’s path as a character.

Helen: As is usually the case with epic fantasy, you have developed an alternate fantasy world. But are there aspects of this world—for example environments, cultures, or periods of history—that you consider particular influences?

Elspeth: I have a background in late medieval-early modern history; it was the subject I would have studied at university if I’d gone, so I drew on European history (and geography, come to that) for some of the facets of the Empire, such as the gradual separation of Church and state, the diminution of the Church as a political force, widespread literacy etc.  Writing what you know, and all that.

I’ve pushed the technological developments a bit, as there are accurate (if ruinously expensive) clocks, a state press, mechanised weaving and so on, so it’s culturally a world on the cusp of an industrial revolution, just waiting for some clever bugger to start looking long and hard at fireworks . . .

Helen:  Actions sequences are an important component of epic fantasy and so far The Wild Hunt seems no exception to that. So do you have “go to” sources for weapons and tactics, to ensure that you get the combats and battles “right”?

Elspeth: Um, mostly I make it up as I go along 😉

If I have a big set-piece battle to choreograph, I’ll look at accounts of real-world battles over similar terrain, with similar military hardware, but to be honest I’m more interested in the personal stories of the characters involved in the fighting, the grunts rather than the generals. I want to describe the actions of the guy who’s had his horse killed under him and only has his wits and an axe he looted from a corpse to help him survive the next ten minutes. I want to write about the mud and the fear and the adrenalin singing in his blood.

So mostly it’s one-on-one combat I need to study, and the internet gives me a wealth of choices of HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) videos and re-enactments. There’s also something that can be learned from movies, believe it or not: yes, it’s carefully choreographed stage combat, but it still has to look like the real thing, and you don’t get to be fight co-ordinator on, say, Kingdom of Heaven unless you know what you’re doing.

If I was still able-bodied, I would have taken some lessons in order to have a better idea what to do with the various swords I own but, alas, that’s not an option any more. And anyway, let’s face it, if you’re in the middle of a mêlée there’s no points for style, and good form goes out the window in favour of hitting the other guy before he can hit you. This is why I don’t try to describe sword strokes with technical precision, and concentrate instead on describing the urgency of the moment.

Helen: In terms of not being able-bodied anymore, I understand you have multiple schlerosis. Does that present difficulties in being a full time writer, or not so much?

Elspeth: It’s a mixed bag, to be honest. Increased fatigue and mobility problems meant I could no longer sustain a commute that was two hours each way, nor could I work to a timetable, which was why I had to quit the Day Jobbe. Now that I am working from home I can be kinder to myself and get the rest I need, yet be at my desk for 9 am, even if I only got up at 8:40. 😉

On the other hand, I’m still sitting in front of a computer all day which makes me stiff and tends to increase the likelihood of me falling over, so I have to take regular breaks and pace myself carefully to make the best use of fluctuating energy levels. Writing full time enables me to do that, in my jimjams if necessary, but I’ve also had to learn to manage my productivity better. Now that I have all day to write, it can sometimes seem to take me all day to get anything written . . .

Helen: Ah, I know that particular feeling well! But I would love to know more about those various swords you own—do you collect them?

Elspeth: I’m not a collector as such, I just love edged weapons, and have done since I was quite small and watched The Water Margin and Shogun on the telly.

A couple of years ago, I realised that I was about to publish a book about a guy who’s spent half his life with a sword in his hand, and I’d never touched one. So I hunted around and found a combat-ready replica of a 15th-century longsword similar to the one Gair uses, and bought it so that I could better understand what it felt like in the hand, how the weight affected my muscles and so on.

In the second book, Gair’s in the desert and gets to use a curved, single-edged sword called a qatan that I’d based on the Japanese katana, so naturally I had to buy one of those too. Again, it’s a functional replica, and hangs on the wall above my desk. I’d like to add a matching wakizashi one day.

I’ve tried to persuade my accountant that these are research materials and can therefore be offset against my taxes, but she wasn’t having it. Curses!

Helen: Curses, indeed! But—regretfully—leaving the swords, what do you, as the author, love most about your central characters, such as Gair and Teia for example?

Elspeth: Gosh, I love them all, even the bad guys – Savin’s snobbery and snark are such fun. Gair’s quite tough to write sometimes because of his reserve and introspection, but it’s qualities like that which remind me of my husband. I think Gair’s somebody I could have been friends with. Tanith is a gentle and compassionate creature, but strong in her own way, and I love Teia’s determination, her drive: she just doesn’t give up, even when she feels like doing exactly that.

Helen: The wonderful thing about a series is that you get to spend more time with both your characters and their respective stories. So is there anything you can share now about how you see both developing—what are you most looking forward to with Books Three and Four of The Wild Hunt?

Elspeth: Book 3, The Raven’s Shadow, has just gone for copyedit, so that one’s in the can as it were, but without spoiling anything I can say that it sees a coming-together of the stories that began as separate threads in Trinity Rising.

I’m particularly enjoying Teia’s development as a character: just when I think she’s reached a point where she can’t go on, she digs deep and surprises me. Gair continues to struggle and feels his humanity is slipping away from him, which pushes him to make another one of those decisions that seems like the right thing to do at the time, but has ramifications for the wider story. Oh, and a couple of “Chekhov’s guns” that have been carefully placed on the mantelpiece in previous books will be fired before the end.

As for Book 4, well, I’m writing that at the minute so even I don’t know exactly what will happen, but it’s going to be big: politically for the Empire, and personally for the characters. There will be blood, oh yes indeedy.

Helen: A raven’s shadow, smoking guns, and plenty of blood—this sounds like truly epic reading, Elspeth, so I’m looking forward to seeing both books come out! In the meantime, thank you very much for doing the interview with me today, and I hope that the ongoing writing of Book 4 is a tour de force: I am sure it will be.

—

About the Author:

Elspeth Cooper was born and raised in Newcastle upon Tyne in the north east of England.  A fantasy reader from an early age, she began writing her own stories when still a child and never quite grew out of it.

In 2009, ill-health forced her to give up a 21-year career in IT and now she writes full-time. Songs of the Earth, published in 2011 by Gollancz, was her first novel, and the first in The Wild Hunt Quartet.

A sword-owning, tea-drinking imagineer, she lives in Northumberland with her husband and two cats in a house full of books.

—

About the Interviewer:

Helen Lowe is a novelist, poet, interviewer, and blogger.  The Gathering of the Lost, the second novel in her The Wall of Night series, was published in April 2012, and in June last year she won the Gemmell Morningstar Award 2012 for the first-in-series, The Heir of Night. Helen has twice won the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Excellence in SciFi-Fantasy: for Thornspell (Knopf) in 2009, and The Heir of Night in 2011.  She posts every day on her Helen Lowe on Anything, Really blog, and monthly on the Supernatural Underground and  SF Signal. You can also follow her on Twitter: @helenl0we

—

About the Giveaway:

Elspeth Cooper is very generously offering  a UK trade paperback set of Songs of the Earth and Trinity Rising for giveaway, the recipient to be drawn from commenters on this interview.

The giveaway is fully international and will remain open until 12 midnight, Monday 11 February (NZ time), with the winner announced as my blog post on the morning of Wednesday, February 13.

Just leave a comment to go in the draw—and don’t forget to check in on Wednesday 14 to see if you’ve won. If the winner has not contacted me by 12 midnight on Friday, 16 February (NZ time), I will re-draw on Saturday 17.

The draw will be made by Random.Org Integer Generator.

—

Other Recent Author Interviews on “… Anything, Really”:

To read, click on the links immediately below:

• Daniel Abraham & The Dragon’s Path
• Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris, Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel
• Kristin Cashore & Bitterblue
• John R Fultz—Author of “Seven Princes”
• Tim Jones: A Magical Mystery Tour through “Men Briefly Explained”
• Brandon Sanderson
• Mary Victoria & Oracle’s Fire

Elspeth Cooper

As mentioned on Thursday, tomorrow I shall be featuring an interview with UK Fantasy author, Elspeth Cooper.

Elspeth is the author of The Wild Hunt epic fantasy series published by Gollancz, and I recently read the first two novels currently published:  Songs of the Earth and Trinity Rising, as mentioned here.

I am delighted to be posting my interview with her here tomorrow—plus Elspeth is going to give away a UK trade paperback set of Songs of the Earth and Trinity Rising, to be drawn from those who comment on the post.

The giveaway will be fully international. 🙂

The Wall of Night Series map; design by Peter Fitzpatrick

Oh no! I was so busy last week, pushing really hard on Daughter of Blood, The Wall of Night Book Three, that I completely forgot to post the new blog series I announced last week, here:

A Geography of Haarth

The good news is — no one else seems to have noticed. 😉 And also that I was working so hard on Daughter of Blood… 🙂

But I hope you will forgive me for not having delivered as promised — and I shall duly begin this coming Friday, February 8.

The 1st of the month (US time) is my regular guest post day on the Supernatural Underground—and today I’m wishing Pride and Prejudice a very happy 200th birthday.

“Yes, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was first published on 28 January 1813, so Monday this week was it’s 200th birthday — and still in print: outstanding huh?…”

To read all about it, and even add your own birthday greetings, click here:

Happy Birthday “Pride & Prejudice”: 200 Years Old This Week!

As I posted yesterday, it’s interview time right now in the “…on Anything, Really”  ‘verse—only this time I am the interviewee rather than the interviewer.

As of today I am Guest of the Month with friend and fellow author, Karen McMillan. Please do click on the following link and check it out:

February 2013 — Helen Lowe

—

Also, just in case you missed it yesterday, I will be interviewing UK Fantasy author Elspeth Cooper here on Monday, as part of which we’ll be giving away Books 1 and 2 of Elspeth’s The Wild Hunt series novels: Songs of the Earth and Trinity Rising. So check back Monday for that.

And you can read my latest “Fun with Friends” interview with Australian author Marianne de Pierres on SF Signal right now:

Interview with Marianne de Pierres

It’s interview time right now in the “…on Anything, Really”  ‘verse. 🙂

.

Marianne de Pierres

First up, my January “Fun with (Australian & NZ) Friends” interview, featuring Australian author Marianne de Pierres, is currently featured on SF Signal.

To check on the goodness click right here: Interview with Marianne De Pierres

And as always, comments are always welcome. 😉

—

Elspeth Cooper

In a recent What I’m Reading post I mentioned reading Elspeth Cooper’s The Wild Hunt series, Songs of the Earth and Trinity Rising and that I was hoping to do an interview. Well, Elspeth and I are doing an interview and it’s going to be posting right here on Monday—an indepth author interview’n’all, so be sure to check back in for that.

Plus, not just an indepth Q&A, but also a giveaway. Yes, Elspeth is going to be giving away a Songs of the Earth / Trinity Rising duo (the UK trade paperback editions, I believe, but I’ll confirm that officially as part of the post) and what’s more, it’s going to be fully international. Definitely something to look forward to!

On December 13, when I began my two-part post on my Favourite Epic Fantasy series, I promised that I would post on standalone novels “laterz.”

As part of the background to that post, I also explained that the drive to pen lists was partly because I’d received a few communications along the lines of:

“I don’t normally read fantasy but I enjoyed your books (HL: thank you!) and would like to read more, so what would you recommend?”

The best way to recommend seemed to be sharing what I have liked over the years. With this list though, it’s just “Fantasy” because I honestly couldn’t think of 10 standalone epic fantasy novels—epic really does seem to run to series! I should also note that I tried to stick to one book per author, otherwise around four on my list would be by Guy Gavriel Kay. And yes, I know my reading “slip” is now showing, but hey—just sayin’ 😉

I am very open though to hearing your suggestions for further, specifically epic—but in fact any!—standalone fantasy reading: comment at will!

I also note that:

• The list is in alphabetical order by author, so there is no preference implied by the order in which the books appear
• I am not including children’s fiction—these are all Adult or at least YA/Crossover reads. I will post on Children’s/YA books as a separate topic(s).

—

Marion Zimmer Bradley: The Mists of Avalon

Although I was subsequently to read a huge number of retellings of the Arthurian legends (possibly too many in fact!) The Mists of Avalon was the very first such retelling I encountered—and I loved it! I was enthralled by its interweaving of Celtic myth and real history, and the combination of politics and battles and magic, romantic and sexual relationships—but most of all that the entire story was told from the perspective of the women in the Arthurian cycle. That was definitely a first for me in my Fantasy reading and one I liked, opening up the notion that women’s history and women’s voices in and through storytelling had something to say: something that mattered.

CJ Cherryh: The Paladin

I suspect The Paladin is one of CJ Cherryh’s less-known works, but I’ve loved it since first re-reading. Set in a medieval Sino-Japanese conceived world, it tells the story of Taizu, a young woman with a vengeance mission, and Shoka, the former general and warlord living in exile on the edge of the realm. The heart of the book is not the epic quest, but the relationship between Taizu and Shoka—and in particular, for me, the character of Shoka, who is a patchwork  of expereince and disillusion, self interest, guile, and reluctant integrity, that is perhaps best ‘caught’ by a companion’s summation toward the end of the book: “It was him, in all that glitter. Same eyes, same mouth. Same conniving scoundrel.”

Ru Emerson: The Princess of Flames

This is another book—and writer, sadly—that you don’t hear a lot about now, but The Princess of Flames is such a great story, with a skilfully drawn medieval world, and an interesting but not overly elaborate magic system that draws on a version of the tarot deck. The characters are fascinating and well-drawn, with the story picking up both the tensions and power-plays within a family, with similar forces playing out on a different scale within and between realms. Elfrid, the central protagonist, is a wonderful heroine: a woman forced by situation to become a soldier of fortune, who feels very ‘real’ both emotionally and in that role.

Raymond E Feist: Faerie Tale

This is the first Fantasy novel I can recall reading which brought faerie and magic so strongly into the contemporary everyday world, but also did so in a way that had overtones of Horror. In that sense it made quite an impression and I particularly liked the way traditional figures such as Oberon, Titania and Puck were re-imagined in an American setting and with a new twist added to the old stories.

Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere

Confession—I first read Neverwhere very recently, but I still feel it may be quite my favourite Neil Gaiman book (with the ‘possible’ exception of The Graveyard Book.). I just love the whole idea of an alternate realm below London (“London Below”—and yes, it does predate Mieville’s Un Lun Dun, just in case you’re wondering) and the sheer imagination of the story, the world—with elements such as the Floating Market, the Earl’s Court and the Angelus—and an array of wonderful characters. I love the central characters of Door, the Marquis, and Richard Mayhew—of course—but I think its a toss up between the ‘Russian Doll’ nature of Islington, and the villains Croup and Vandemar, for the characters I can’t help enjoying the most. This is a fun, but most of all a really imaginative read. Did I say I love it already? Well, I definitely do!

Barbara Hambly: Dragonsbane

I know, I know, you’re going to say there are sequels to Dragonsbane, but to me it’s like the movie Matrix–there’s really only one movie and the sequels don’t really exist!  The thing I love about Dragonsbane is that it is perfect, whole and complete just as it is—and I love the story, which at one level is about the nature of power, and duty, and the choices we make about those things as societies and individuals; at another about a reluctant dragon slayer, who is unheroic in his approach to the task but heroic in being prepared to take it on; and about a woman stepping fully into her power—and all the authentic Hambly interplay  between these elements. Plus featuring one of my all-time favourite dragons: Morkeleb the Black.

Mark Helprin: Winter’s Tale

I think this story is technically “magic realism” although to me it is more a kind of historical urban fantasy—beginning in a 19th century New York that is to all intents and purposes real—except for the magic: a white horse that rediscovers flight, a pursuit that traverses a century, a bridge of light to infinity… But really the heart of the book is the world, and the world is New York—Manhattan and Brooklyn and Up State—in a variant of ‘Gangs of New York’ meets ‘Westside Story.’  It’s a rich, mythic, and utterly fabulous world, more than well worth a read.

Guy Gavriel Kay: Tigana

Guy Gavriel Kay is one of the few fantasy novelists I can think of who has written more standalone novels than series—and Tigana is one of my favourites. Like many of Kay’s novels it is based on real history (in this case that of renaissance Italy) but transforms it into a distinctive story. Like most of Kay’s standalones it is also “magic-light” although there is always a thread of magic in the story—but the element that makes the story wonderful is the emotional realism and depth of the characters. Dianora, in particular, is probably one of my favourite fantasy heroines.

Patricia McKillip: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

Patricia McKillip is one of my most-loved authors, and her Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy featured as one of my favourite Epic Fantasy series. I have also enjoyed many of her standalones, but The Forgotten Beasts of Eld was the first one I read and has been an enduring favourite. Like many of McKillip’s novels it is written in a very poetic (but not inaccessible) style that suits the High Fantasy-Romantic tale involving mythic beasts, high magic, warring kingdoms, doomed love, the price of power and of vengeance, and the heroine’s journey toward understanding of both herself and others. A classic Fantasy novel, in my opinion, which fittingly won the World Fantasy Award in 1975 and was reprinted by Gollancz as one of its Fantasy Masterworks series.

Tim Powers: The Drawing of the Dark

Although not a retelling like The Mists of Avalon, this story also owes a debt to the Arthurian cycle. As the story unfolds we learn that the main character, a freebooting, Renaissance-era sword-for-hire, is actually infused by the spirit of Arthur, and through Arthur,  the older hero archetype of Sigurd/Sigismund (may I say, really loved that aspect to the story.) He also gets caught up in the Ottoman seige of Vienna, which was indeed an epic battle of its day, although I tend to think of this story as a nice mix of myth and history, rather than epic fantasy per se. But it’s a longstanding favourite and one which also plays to my love of swashbuckling and adventurous storytelling. As for the Dark—it’s definitely not your bog-standard epic “dark”, but you’ll have to read the book yourself to find out what I mean. 😉

—

So there you have it—ten of my favourite standalone, (largely Adult) Fantasy reads—but tell me, what would you add to the list?

we children

we children
when the days stretched
over the horizon, sprang
from our sleeping bags, threw
on our summer uniform, left
mum and dad dreaming, ran
barefoot through the bush, the river,
to the beach

we children
popped washed up blue
bottles, chased cantankerous
crabs, rescued stubborn sea
creatures from rock pools, buried
each other below sand castles, built
forts manned by katipos, cooked ourselves
in the sun

we children
got seaweed in our hair, sand
in our bum cracks, stranded
by the tide, wrestled the ball
from everyone’s Dad, rang
rings around them, stained our clothes
green, looked forward to doing it
all again tomorrow

now brother
you live over the horizon
and I no longer swim
in the sea

.

© Janine Sowerby

First published in The Press

Reproduced here with permission.

Note:  Katipo(s) are a native NZ spider, often found in driftwood on beaches;
they are also NZ's only naturally occurring poisonous spider (we've gained a
few imports of recent years.)

—

About the Poem:

Welcome back to The Tuesday Poem everyone—and if I haven’t said it to you already:  Happy New Year!

As we’re ripping back into The Tuesday Poem at the height of summer, I want to focus on some “summer” themed poems—and I don’t think I could start with a better one than Janine Sowerby’s We Children. For me this poem captures the very essence of the essential—and quintessential—Kiwi summer: sun, sea, beach, bach, family and friends.

If it were just that, I still think We Children would be a great summertime poem—but then Janine delivers the killer final stanza that captures so much more: the adult’s regret for summers and childhood past, certainly, but it’s not just a nostalgia poem—it also captures the disconnection that can occur between family members when we  grow up and grow apart, or are simply separated by distance; as well as the loss of courage, a sense of possibility, and even of hope that can also sometimes be part of what adulthood brings.

So—a poem of many levels and a great start, I feel, to our Tuesday Poem year. Enjoy!

—

About the Poet:

Janine Sowerby has, in addition to various competition placings, had poetry and short stories published in New Zealand and overseas, including in Takahe, The Press, Kokako and NZ Poetry Society and other anthologies such as tiny gaps, Before the Sirocco, a taste of nashi, Crest to Crest and A Foreign Country. Janine has also had some of her poetry broadcast on Plains FM 96.9, for the Women on Air programme.

—

To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub—and link to other Tuesday Poets posting around NZ and the world—either click here or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.