July 30 is National Poetry Day<\/strong><\/a> here in New Zealand, so by way of celebrating poems and poets we are making July Poetry Month at Women on Air<\/a><\/strong>. We’ll be interviewing at least one poet on every show from now until July 31, which means five weeks of amazing poetry and poetic voices coming to listeners every Saturday.\u00a0 The poets will also be featured on the Women on Air website<\/strong><\/a> here, together with one of their poems<\/strong> <\/a>for you to read and enjoy.<\/p>\n Excerpt From Three Birds <\/strong><\/em>ii<\/strong><\/p>\n … <\/strong><\/p>\n You sit in the bush before dawn, \u00a9 Sarah Broom<\/p>\n — And I Join the Supernatural Underground Blog\u2014I July<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The Supernatural Underground<\/a> <\/strong>is a blog of speculative fiction authors published by HarperCollins USA, and I will be blogging on the Underground for the first time tomorrow, 1 July\u2014and the first of every month thereafter. And no, I haven’t finally decided what I am going to blog about yet. But yes, there will be giveaways. At least two copies of the ARE of The Heir of Night<\/em><\/a> <\/strong>for within North America only, and a couple of copies of Thornspell <\/strong><\/em><\/a>(given its paperback release on July 2) for international readers.<\/p>\n On Friday 2, actual paperback release day, I’ll also be giving away a further 2 copies of Thornspell<\/strong><\/em> <\/em><\/strong>right here on this blog. So keep watching this space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" … over the next few days! Poetry on Women on Air: National Poetry Day\u2014And Month! July 30 is National Poetry Day here in New Zealand, so by way of celebrating poems and poets we are making July Poetry Month at Women on Air. We’ll be interviewing at least one poet on every show from now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,23,6,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-about-what-im-doing","category-poetry","category-supernatural-underground"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","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=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":356,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Tigers-at-Awhitu-PD-1-185x300.jpg\" "\\"Tigers")
<\/a>Our poet for Saturday 3 is Sarah Broom, whose first collection Tigers at Awhitu<\/a> <\/em><\/strong>(2010), was published simultaneously by Auckland University Press<\/strong><\/a>, here in NZ, and Carcanet<\/a><\/strong> in the UK.\u00a0 When I first read this collection earlier in the year it absolutely blew me away with its combination of wonderful use of language, poetic control, reflective intelligence and emotional power. During much of the writing of Tigers<\/strong><\/em>, Sarah was going through treatment for lung cancer (no, she has never smoked), treatment which is ongoing, which is another reason I am grateful for the opportunity to have her on Women on Air this Saturday and to help bring her voice to a wider audience.<\/p>\n
\nlistening to the seep of the soil, feeling
\nthe rags of the night air on your skin.
\nYou wait until the kokako starts to sing
\nin the still-dark trees, until slowly
\nyou start to make out its ash-grey form
\nagainst the greying light. Eyes black
\nas the rotting leaves, and at its throat
\na hurtled scarp of sky.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n