{"id":29981,"date":"2015-09-15T06:30:41","date_gmt":"2015-09-14T18:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=29981"},"modified":"2015-08-31T23:36:03","modified_gmt":"2015-08-31T11:36:03","slug":"the-tuesday-poem-castle-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/09\/15\/the-tuesday-poem-castle-rock\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tuesday Poem: Castle Rock"},"content":{"rendered":"

Castle Rock<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Rotating in mid-air,
\nsuspended between blue above,
\nbleached tussock below,
\nface to face with the ragged crag
\nof Castle Rock, sun flashes
\noff her watch, dazzling
\nas the first time they met
\nin the Roxborough fish and chip
\nshop, high above the Clutha River:
\nhis presence, blazing in,
\nwas like the sun rising,
\nspilling over energy, snaring her
\nwith his eagerness for living \u2013
\ndazzled then too, but now
\nher eyes clear, take in hill, sky,
\nrock, as someone shouts \u2013 she kicks
\nhard into the face, finds purchase
\nas the rope plays out.
\n.<\/span>
\n\u00a9 Helen Lowe
\n.<\/span>
\n~ first published, The Christchurch Press<\/strong>, July 18, 2007;
\n~ re-published, Crest to Crest: Impressions of Canterbury Prose & Poetry<\/strong><\/em>, Ed. Karen Zelas, Wily Publications, 2009<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

With NZ’s National Poetry Day being celebrated recently on 28 August, I thought it appropriate to feature a poem grounded in the landscape of New Zealand. The marking of the 5th anniversary of the beginning of the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010-2011, on 4 September, makes it particularly appropriate that the landscape feature central to the poem is Christchurch’s Castle Rock, although I also note the\u00a0 connection to Central Otago’s Roxborough and the “fish and chip<\/em>
\n shop, high above the Clutha River…”<\/em><\/p>\n

As I observed in another post in 2011:<\/p>\n

“Part of the face of Castle Rock was shaved away during Christchurch\u2019s 7.1 earthquake of 4 September 2010. Although I understand intellectually that change is part of life, emotionally I feel the loss of landmarks such as this\u2014because both as Port Hills\u2019 natural feature and a favourite haunt for rock climbers, Castle Rock has been an integral part of our cityscape since its founding. And a sense of place, I believe, is part of what gives us our sense of belonging and a basis for cultural identity.”<\/em><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"TuesPoem\"<\/a>To read 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>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Castle Rock Rotating in mid-air, suspended between blue above, bleached tussock below, face to face with the ragged crag of Castle Rock, sun flashes off her watch, dazzling as the first time they met in the Roxborough fish and chip shop, high above the Clutha River: his presence, blazing in, was like the sun rising, […]<\/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-29981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29981","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=29981"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29983,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29981\/revisions\/29983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}