{"id":2469,"date":"2010-11-23T06:00:01","date_gmt":"2010-11-22T17:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=2469"},"modified":"2010-11-21T13:18:42","modified_gmt":"2010-11-21T00:18:42","slug":"tuesday-poem-wonderful-to-relate-by-michele-leggott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2010\/11\/23\/tuesday-poem-wonderful-to-relate-by-michele-leggott\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: “Wonderful To Relate” by Michele Leggott"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wonderful To Relate<\/strong><\/p>\n

my brother leaves a message\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 call me
\nsomething has happened\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 is it an emergency
\nor terra incognita waving about in the trees
\ncloser than anyone imagined\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a daughter
\nhe says when I call him back\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have a daughter
\nand she is twenty-seven years old<\/p>\n

this takes a bit of explaining\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and when
\nhe has I ask is there a photo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 did you take
\nsome photos\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the files arrive as we talk
\nI open them and there she is\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 someone
\nwho looks like all of us\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and is most surely
\nherself\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the stranger who is his daughter
\nour niece\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and now eldest of five cousins
\nit takes a long time to work out
\nthe delicate shapes that might be\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and when
\nit is done\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 she comes to meet us
\nmore photos more talk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 we have given her
\nour grandmother\u2019s rings\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 she gives us
\nthe gift of herself\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 if we will have her<\/p>\n

that part is easy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and now there\u2019s
\na wedding in the air\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 they will tie the knot
\nwith his people and we will travel again
\nto Te Matau a Maui\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 this time
\nwith everyone on board\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and in a vineyard
\nat the far end of summer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 with strangers
\nwho have made us welcome\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 my brother
\nwill give away his daughter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 knowing
\nshe has made us into something bigger
\nand more precious than anyone
\ncould have imagined\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 she is herself
\nand she is one of us\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 for her
\nwe will travel the miles to Haumoana
\nlooking at the windy sea\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 thinking about
\nlong ago family weddings and how this one
\nis adding its quota of surprises
\nand serendipity to the story we thought
\nwe knew\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 mirabile dictu<\/em> we say
\nwiping away a sneaky tear\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 such wonders
\nand everybody talking\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 we are here
\nwith a million champagne bubbles
\nbursting miraculously against our lips
\nwish us well\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 we are going to a wedding<\/p>\n

(c) Michele Leggott<\/p>\n

Published in Mirabile Dictu<\/em> (Auckalnd University Press) 2009<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

About the Poem<\/strong><\/p>\n

Michele Leggott’s Mirabile Dictu<\/em><\/strong> was one of my favourite poetry collections from last year and this poem, which is not the title poem, but close—its title a translation of the book title—is one of my favourites from the collection. Often within a collection, and often found near the end of the manuscript, will be a poem that you feel, as a reader, in some way encapsulates the whole or acts as a key to unlock it. For me, wonderful to relate<\/em> is that key: a poem of wonders in a collection of wonderful poetry.<\/p>\n

wonderful to relate <\/em>has also been featured<\/a> by for their distributed in both New Zealand and the USA.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

About Michele Leggott:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Michele Leggott is a Professor of English at The University of Auckland, an award-winning poet, literary scholar and \ufeff\ufeffthe founding \ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeffdirector of the NZ Electronic Poetry Centre<\/a>. For more about Michele and Mirabile Dictu<\/strong><\/em> visit here<\/strong><\/a> (& scroll down.)<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

Wonderful To Relate my brother leaves a message\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 call me something has happened\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 is it an emergency or terra incognita waving about in the trees closer than anyone imagined\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a daughter he says when I call him back\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have a daughter and she is twenty-seven years old this takes a bit of explaining\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and […]<\/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-2469","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\/2469","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=2469"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2477,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2469\/revisions\/2477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}