{"id":1501,"date":"2010-09-28T07:00:34","date_gmt":"2010-09-27T18:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=1501"},"modified":"2010-10-16T17:40:13","modified_gmt":"2010-10-16T04:40:13","slug":"tuesday-poem-out-of-the-blue-by-frankie-mcmillan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2010\/09\/28\/tuesday-poem-out-of-the-blue-by-frankie-mcmillan\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: “Out of the blue” by Frankie McMillan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Out of the blue<\/strong><\/p>\n

On a morning when I stare
\nat small things<\/p>\n

like the curve of a spoon
\nor light on a white rimmed plate<\/p>\n

you ring, breathless
\nwith talk of wild pigs,<\/p>\n

how they swept down
\nfrom the Aorere Hills<\/p>\n

on a moonlit night
\nto ravage your garden \u2013<\/p>\n

the winter cabbages
\npale roots upended<\/p>\n

like ghostly masts.<\/p>\n

Once our mother buried
\nbroken china in the ground<\/p>\n

blue willow\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0blue willow<\/em><\/p>\n

now you pick shards from the mud
\nthe lovers, you say, still wave<\/p>\n

from the arching bridge.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Frankie McMillan
\nfrom<\/em> Dressing for the Cannibals<\/span> (Sudden Valley Press) 2009<\/p>\n

Re-published here with permission of the poet.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Frankie McMillan completed an MA in Creative Writing (with Distinction) from Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML).\u00a0 Her first short story collection The Bag Lady’s Picnic<\/em> (Shoal Bay Press, 2001) was described as “dazzling” by the NZ Listener and received widespread critical acclaim.\u00a0 Dressing for the Cannibals<\/em><\/em> is Frankie’s first poetry collection.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

I have known Frankie, and her poetry, for a number of years and elements of her work that I particularly enjoy include her subversive humour, keen observation of the world, and acute but compassionate eye for the foibles of human nature. Out of the blue <\/em>is a vignette that describes a small moment in time, but at the same time captures something much larger, the paradox of life’s impermanence and continuity caught in the same poem.\u00a0 In this sense, it continues the theme of Bassho’s haiku, In the midst of the plain<\/em>, and Ezra Pound’s short poem, In a Station of the Metro<\/em>, featured over the past two weeks.<\/p>\n

—<\/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":"

Out of the blue On a morning when I stare at small things like the curve of a spoon or light on a white rimmed plate you ring, breathless with talk of wild pigs, how they swept down from the Aorere Hills on a moonlit night to ravage your garden \u2013 the winter cabbages pale […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501","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=1501"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1911,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501\/revisions\/1911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}