{"id":1010,"date":"2010-08-17T12:49:28","date_gmt":"2010-08-17T00:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=1010"},"modified":"2013-02-03T16:24:45","modified_gmt":"2013-02-03T03:24:45","slug":"tuesday-poem-the-fox-by-bernadette-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2010\/08\/17\/tuesday-poem-the-fox-by-bernadette-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: “The Fox” by Bernadette Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Fox <\/strong><\/p>\n

The fox is a single red stroke that cuts across
\nthe clearing. The colour seems to hang like smoke,
\nyou can almost see where she has come from.
\nHer musk (though you can smell nothing)
\nis specific like a thumbprint on the air.
\nIt isn’t raining but there’s a kind of wet
\non your face, a stickiness of insect juices dropped.
\nThe fox is rusty-dull, discreet, not radiant or hot
\nor pulsing. Not agitated. Not randy.
\nShe is completely dream and intelligence
\nsliding through the wet grass, the stinging nettles,
\nthe little brittle helmets of dry seed,
\na flower or two, relics of the drizzly, petalled summer.
\nThe lyric fox goes down to the creek
\nwhere dark and dankness will mask her scent
\nand the lovely rosette of her face.
\nShe’ll be able to pause there, for a while, sip water
\nwhile the dogs swirl and bell in front of the Big House.<\/p>\n

(c) Bernadette Hall<\/p>\n

from The Lustre Jug<\/strong> <\/em>(VUP) 2009<\/p>\n

The Fox<\/em> is a Best New Zealand Poem 2009<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

To listen to my recent radio interview with Bernadette on Women on Air, Plains 96.9 FM<\/a>, click here<\/strong><\/a>. (Click on the “play” icon to listen or on mp3 to download—it’s free mp3.)<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>From Bernadette:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Rathcoola Estate, where I lived for six months in 2007, is situated in Donoughmore, a rural area in Co. Cork, about twenty five minutes drive from Blarney. Among the wonders there were the blue jays that came down to steal apples from the 200 year old apple trees in the orchard. And the foxes. I\u2019ve long been fond of them, from Brer Fox to the silver foxes of the Arctic. I was desperate to see one.
\nOne day when I was standing under huge oak and sycamores trees just beyond the stone walls that enclosed the orchard and not far from the creek, I saw the fox. She was surprisingly close. And I did experience a kind of deepening stillness, the words clearly in my memory from Ted Hughes\u2019 \u2018The Thought Fox\u2019 which I had taught to so many classes over the years. Ireland had this way of offering me \u2018for real\u2019 many things which literature had already embedded in my imagination.
\nThis fox was completely unfazed by my presence in her space. She had already judged me as being of good will, or at least harmless. I was relieved to see her. That same morning the hunt had gone through the estate, tracking along the creek with a great hullabaloo, the dogs and the men all in a frenzy. I identified with her somehow. I admired the way she kept on calmly going about her own business.\u00a0 I wished her long life, good health and a safe journey.
\nIn his poem \u2018On Originality\u2019 (1977) Bill Manhire wrote of poetry \u2018This is my nest of weapons.\/ This is my lyrical foliage.\u2019 In his essay, \u2018Catholic with a small c\u2019 published in \u2018The Source of the Song\u2019 (VUP 1995), Andrew Johnston wrote \u2018A lyric poem occupies a space that has somehow been charged with meaning (or at least a sense of meaningfulness) as if a vacuum had been crossed by a spark.\u2019 So, a \u2018lyric fox\u2019 crosses a glade and it seems that all along she\u2019s been talking to me about poetry.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>About Bernadette:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bernadette Hall is recognised as one of New Zealand’s more distinctive poetic voices. She was the 1996 Burns Fellow at Otago University and an Artists in Antarctica Fellow in 2004. The author of nine poetry collections, her work has been published in a range of national and international anthologies. Hall was the 2006 Victoria University Writer in Residence and in 2007 held the Rathcoola Residency in Donoughmore, Ireland. Bernadette’s most recent collection, The Lustre Jug,<\/strong><\/em> (Victoria University Press), 2009, is a finalist for the 2010 NZ Post Book Award for Poetry<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

To see the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Blog<\/strong>\u2014and link to other Tuesday Poets posting around NZ and the world\u2014either click here <\/a>or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Fox The fox is a single red stroke that cuts across the clearing. The colour seems to hang like smoke, you can almost see where she has come from. Her musk (though you can smell nothing) is specific like a thumbprint on the air. It isn’t raining but there’s a kind of wet on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1029,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions\/1029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}