{"id":26916,"date":"2014-09-30T06:30:34","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T17:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=26916"},"modified":"2014-09-29T18:04:46","modified_gmt":"2014-09-29T05:04:46","slug":"the-tuesday-poem-refeaturing-bernadette-hall-and-angelfish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2014\/09\/30\/the-tuesday-poem-refeaturing-bernadette-hall-and-angelfish\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tuesday Poem: Refeaturing Bernadette Hall and “Angelfish”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Angelfish<\/strong><\/h3>\n

We\u2019re flying over Australia.
\nBelow us is the desert. In the desert
\nthere\u2019s a wound which is water
\nwhich is a tear with white salt round<\/p>\n

the edges which is a little liquid gateway
\nas hard as marble should we hurtle
\ninto it. There\u2019s a road, a reddish snake-line
\nthat crosses the continent that\u2019s shaped<\/p>\n

like an angelfish. The words are trying
\nto imitate the world as it imitates
\nitself, sand wrinkles like frozen sastrugi,
\ncloud shadows like black poppies<\/p>\n

on the red ground. The brain according
\nto the Novel prize-winning scientist,
\nGerald Edelman, is not at all like
\na computer. It\u2019s more like a rainforest<\/p>\n

\u2018teeming with growth. decay, competition,
\ndiversity and selection.\u2019 So this word
\nis a toucan, this poem, a yellow
\ncasque hornbill hiding beneath a canopy<\/p>\n

of leaves. My brother went missing once,
\nin the rainforest. He was a soldier,
\npart of the New Zealand Army Reserve
\nsent to fight the Communists in Malaya.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got the headphones on now.
\nI\u2019m watching Clint Eastwood\u2019s Letters<\/em>
\nfrom Iwo Jima.<\/em> He was my favourite cowboy
\nwhen I was thirteen about the same time<\/p>\n

my brother\u2019s name was in all the papers.
\nI think of my brother hacking his way
\nthrough the jungle with a machete,
\nmaking it back to safety, singing \u2018Figaro<\/p>\n

Figaro, Figaro\u2019 in the shower. He never
\ngot on with my father who wasn\u2019t his father.
\nI think of my mother and my father,
\nthe Catholic harp, the Protestant drum,<\/p>\n

the sad, mad, bad of Irish history:
\nthe flogging and the being flogged,
\nthe burning and the being burnt,
\nthe killing with pike and hoe, sword and gun,<\/p>\n

the starving, the evictions, the bombing.
\nI want to protest.
\nI want to take communion with them.
\n\u2018Think,\u2019 says Edelman, \u2018about the idea<\/p>\n

that each individual\u2019s soul is truly embodied,
\nrather than a spirit; precious
\nbecause it is unique in its physicality,
\nand consciousness, unpredictable<\/p>\n

in its creativity, and mortal.\u2019
\nI close my eyes. I dream that the dead
\nare angelfish drifting through
\na rainforest, its green forgiveness.
\n.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Bernadette Hall
\npublished in The Lustre Jug<\/strong> (Victoria University Press) 2009<\/p>\n

Angelfish<\/em> is reproduced here with permission.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Fine poems should be read and heard more than once, so I\u2019m continuing with my series of relooking at poets who have had multiple poems featured here on \u201c\u2026Anything, Really\u201d<\/em> since I joined the Tuesday Poem community in June 2010. Bernadette Hall\u2019s Angelfish<\/em> was posted here on March 13, 2012<\/a> at which I had this to say:<\/p>\n

“…Angelfish came out in the collection The Lustre Jug<\/strong>…I still remember the poem and a whole series of the images contained within it\u2014the angelfish, the black poppies, the rainforest, the \u2018sad, mad, bad\u2019\u2014quite clearly. Bernadette has a real gift for that I think: the line or indeed the whole poem that \u2018sticks\u2019 with you as reader.\u00a0 Although in fact I\u00a0 heard Angelfish first, on the radio, and remember listening to Bernie read it and thinking: \u201cYes. Oh, yes!\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

About Bernadette Hall:<\/h4>\n

\"Bernie<\/a>Bernadette Hall is best known for her poetry but also writes short fiction. She has published ten collections of poetry, the most recent being \u2018Life & Customs\u2019<\/strong> (Victoria University Press 2013). Also in 2013, her edition of poems by the Christchurch writer, Lorna Staveley Anker, was published by Canterbury University Press. Titled \u2018The Judas Tree\u2019<\/strong> it reveals Lorna Anker as New Zealand\u2019s first woman war poet with memories of both World Wars. The Dunedin composer Anthony Ritchie used seven of Bernadette\u2019s Stations of the Cross<\/em><\/strong> poems in a symphony which premiered in Christchurch on the 22nd <\/sup>of February this year as a memorial to those who died and those who have suffered as a result of the 2011 earthquake.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

\"TuesPoem\"<\/a>To check out the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong> and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here<\/strong><\/a> or on the Quill<\/strong> icon <\/strong>in the sidebar.<\/p>\n

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

Angelfish We\u2019re flying over Australia. Below us is the desert. In the desert there\u2019s a wound which is water which is a tear with white salt round the edges which is a little liquid gateway as hard as marble should we hurtle into it. There\u2019s a road, a reddish snake-line that crosses the continent that\u2019s […]<\/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-26916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26916","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=26916"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26919,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26916\/revisions\/26919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}