{"id":20032,"date":"2013-04-23T06:30:19","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T18:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=20032"},"modified":"2013-04-22T20:28:01","modified_gmt":"2013-04-22T08:28:01","slug":"tuesday-poem-in-memory-of-sarah-broom-1972-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2013\/04\/23\/tuesday-poem-in-memory-of-sarah-broom-1972-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: In Memory of Sarah Broom, 1972-2013"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Sarah Broom<\/p><\/div>\n

It is with great sadness that I record the death of New Zealand poet, Sarah Broom<\/strong>, who died last Thursday, 18 April, after a prelonged illness with lung cancer.<\/p>\n

My first encounter with Sarah was through her poetry, when I read and loved her first collection, Tigers at Awhitu<\/em><\/strong> (Auckland Universty Press, NZ; Carcanet, UK) in 2010. We never met in person, but did correspond via email when her health allowed—and of course, there was always the poetry.<\/p>\n

For me,\u00a0 Tigers at Awhitu<\/em><\/strong> was the outstanding poetry collection of 2010 and I believe her death leaves a considerable gap in the New Zealand poetry community.<\/p>\n

In terms of her work, I featured Sarah’s poem “All my life”<\/em> on December 18 last year, when I was guest editor on the Tuesday Poem Hub:<\/p>\n

“So we sat, and the waves<\/em><\/strong><\/span>
\n crashed in like gifts, or insults,<\/em><\/strong><\/span>
\n and the children played,<\/em><\/strong><\/span>
\n digging trenches to defend <\/em><\/strong><\/span>
\n against the sea, and then a head<\/em><\/strong><\/span>
\n bobbed up and down<\/em><\/strong><\/span>
\n in the waves, a bit too far out,<\/em><\/strong><\/span>
\n and an arm waved, and again…”<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>To read the poem and my commentary in full, please click here, on All My Life<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2009-2010, I also organised an e-feature called “Poet’s Corner.”\u00a0 The poem Sarah chose to feature was also from Tigers at Awhitu<\/em>, titled “Keep moving.”<\/em>\u00a0 In her poet’s note, Sarah wrote:<\/p>\n

“Keep Moving<\/em> was written when I was heavily pregnant and also already ill with lung cancer, though I didn\u2019t know the latter at the time.\u00a0 I did know that it was inordinately difficult to move!\u00a0\u00a0 Looking back at it, the poem has gathered more and more weight for me, and in my book it is placed as the final poem in the first section of the book; the poems in the second section were all written after my diagnosis.\u00a0 The \u2018razor pass through the mountains\u2019 has something to do with the path I have had to traverse since then.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0At the time, though, the poem was quite mysterious to me.\u00a0 I hope that readers might find that it speaks to their own experience of having to turn away from familial and social demands, from \u00a0loved ones even, to do those things one needs to do.\u00a0 Is it ok to be so outrageously large<\/em>?!”<\/span><\/p>\n

Keep moving<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I lumber over the land, knees swollen <\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\n and knotted like kumara roots.<\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\n Who is that child so far down below <\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\n who reaches out to me? I can barely hear <\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\n his cry, he is simply too far away. I trudge <\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\n through drying braided rivers, I step<\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\n over tussocky brown hills. What do you say,<\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\n you small people waving your hands at me<\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\n from beside the lake? You think I should stop, <\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\n you want to help, the child needs me? …<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

… meanwhile, I have my eye<\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\n on that razor pass through the mountains.\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\n I think I may have been there before.”<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

To discover Sarah’s work for yourself, please seek out a copy of Tigers at Awhitu<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Her second collection, Gleam<\/strong><\/em>, will also be published by AUP in July this year.<\/p>\n

To hear Sarah read from and discuss Tigers at Awhitu<\/em>, click on the following Scottish Poetry Library podcast interview: Sarah Broom<\/a><\/p>\n

My deeply felt condolences to Sarah’s husband, Michael, and her three children—no matter the gap left in New Zelanad poetry, theirs is the greater loss.<\/p>\n

Haere ra, Sarah: haere ra, haere ra, haere ra.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

To read further tributes to Sarah, please see the following:<\/p>\n

Siobhan Harvey: Sarah Broom In Memorian<\/em> on Beatties Bookblog<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr Jack Ross: Dreamtigers – i.m. of Sarah Broom<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is with great sadness that I record the death of New Zealand poet, Sarah Broom, who died last Thursday, 18 April, after a prelonged illness with lung cancer. My first encounter with Sarah was through her poetry, when I read and loved her first collection, Tigers at Awhitu (Auckland Universty Press, NZ; Carcanet, UK) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20032","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=20032"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20046,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20032\/revisions\/20046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}