{"id":9106,"date":"2011-10-18T06:30:55","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T17:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=9106"},"modified":"2011-10-16T22:02:03","modified_gmt":"2011-10-16T09:02:03","slug":"tuesday-poem-cowarral-sequence-ii-the-orange-tree-by-joanna-preston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/10\/18\/tuesday-poem-cowarral-sequence-ii-the-orange-tree-by-joanna-preston\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: Cowarral Sequence ii—The Orange Tree, by Joanna Preston"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

from Cowarral <\/em><\/h4>\n

ii. The Orange Tree<\/h3>\n
Older than all of us, dowry for a new life.<\/div>\n
A sapling rough-swaddled in hessian,<\/div>\n
dragged behind a bullock dray<\/div>\n
across rivers named as they went.<\/div>\n
.<\/span><\/div>\n
It kept want at bay \u2013 at leaf-tip, root-tip.<\/div>\n
Fruit against the leaves was the glow<\/div>\n
of campfires seen from a mountain pass.<\/div>\n
It anchored light to the world.<\/div>\n
.<\/span><\/div>\n
Satinbirds wove altars to it, offering pieces<\/div>\n
of the sky. I disturbed a shield bug<\/div>\n
and gave my eyes \u2013<\/div>\n
.<\/span><\/div>\n
there was pain, and three days<\/div>\n
of blindness, as though\u00a0I\u2019d looked<\/div>\n
into the face of a god.<\/div>\n
.<\/span><\/div>\n
(c) Joanna Preston<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
~ from The Summer King<\/em>, Otago University Press, 2009<\/div>\n

Reproduced here with permission.<\/p>\n

—<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>About the Poem:<\/strong><\/div>\n
Cowarral<\/em> is one of two main sequences in Joanna Preston\u2019s first collection The Summer King<\/em> (Otago University Press, 2009), which won both the inaugural Kathleen Grattan Award (New Zealand) 2008 and the Mary Gilmore Prize (Australia) in 2010. I have made no secret of my admiration for The Summer King<\/em><\/strong> as a collection, and particularly love the Cowarral<\/em> sequence—possibly because it speaks to my own roots in rural New Zealand, a cultural experience that is still shared between an Australian heartland such as the Cowarral of the poem and our New Zealand sense of place. For me, Cowarral<\/em> is about turangawaewae—a physical and cultural ‘standing place for the feet.’<\/div>\n
.<\/span><\/div>\n

Last year, Joanna very kindly allowed me to share Cowarral iii A Summer Storm<\/em> with you here<\/a>. Even then I was torn between sharing that or\u00a0 ii The Orange Tree, <\/em>so am very pleased that Joanna agreed to let me feature it here today.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

About the Poet:<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n
\n
Joanna Preston is a Tasmanaut poet, editor, and freelance creative writing teacher.\u00a0 The Summer King<\/em> is her first poetry collection and she is currently dividing her time between her husband, her chooks, and work for her second collection.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

—<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong> and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets around the world, click here<\/strong><\/a> or on the Quill<\/strong> icon<\/strong> in the sidebar.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from Cowarral ii. The Orange Tree Older than all of us, dowry for a new life. A sapling rough-swaddled in hessian, dragged behind a bullock dray across rivers named as they went. . It kept want at bay \u2013 at leaf-tip, root-tip. Fruit against the leaves was the glow of campfires seen from a mountain […]<\/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-9106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9106","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=9106"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9121,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9106\/revisions\/9121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}