Four paintings by Kiri Piahana-Wong

In the morning
the light touches the walls
like a painting
the morning sun falling in thin brushstrokes
her hair a dark tangle
his face blurred with sleep


Painting #1: How She Fell In Love With Him

In this painting, she is wearing
the red dress she likes to sleep in
and it has fallen to her waist

He is naked
his arm curves around her
his mouth pressing against her neck
in the place she most likes
him to kiss her


Painting #2: Their First Fight

In this painting, she is sitting
in the outside area of a bar
wearing a black lace dress.
The night is a solid block of
darkness behind her.

He is sitting next to her, wearing
a pale green shirt, his hair
dishevelled, his back slightly turned
to her, facing away.

Cars pour past in streaks of
bright light.


Painting #3: Whatever I Said, I Didn't Mean It

In this painting he is standing alone
on an empty beach.

The sky stretches away in a blaze of light.


Painting #4: The Reunion

In the last painting she is
standing looking down a road

She is wearing a purple and gold
dress and her hair has blown
back from her face.

It is early evening. Above her
the sky is golden, wide open
and empty.



This poem from night swimming (Anahera Press 2013) is published here by kind permission of the author.

Editor: Elizabeth Welsh

Kiri Piahana-Wong is a New Zealander of Māori (Ngāti Ranginui), Chinese and Pākehā (English) ancestry. She has degrees in Law and English literature from the University of Auckland and has had a varied working life, including roles as a legal editor, sailing instructor, freelance writer and event manager, and is the publisher at Anahera Press.

Kiri's poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies, most recently in Dear Heart: 150 New Zealand Love Poems (Godwit), Mauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English (AUP), Trout, JAAM and Ora Nui. She is also a performance poet, poetry slam champion, and a former MC at Poetry Live, New Zealand's longest-running live poetry venue. Kiri lives at Laingholm on Auckland's west coast. Her first poetry collection, night swimming, was released at the beginning of May 2013.

I am delighted to share Kiri's poem 'Four paintings' from her inspired first collection, night swimming. Kiri was generous enough to share her personal inspiration behind this beautifully crafted poetic sequence with me: 'I was inspired by watching my partner, artist Jim Gaunt, at work. Watching him paint every day made me wonder what it would be like to see the world through a painter's eyes'. 

Coming to this poem, I immediately felt a distinct directness that I heartily admire in the four discrete images and sequences, conveying powerful emotive responses, which come to rest and settle in the final celebratory painting of openness and life. I am particularly drawn to the second section/painting in the sequence, with the almost theatrical 'caught in time' pose of the two lovers. The solid black night, with the woman merging into it, contrasted with the pale green of the man's shirt and the streaks of bright light trespassing on the scene is so impressionistic and painterly. 

I have known Kiri as a poet for many years, first meeting her as a fellow postgraduate student in a New Zealand poetry class in 2006. It is such a celebratory event to witness a fellow poet's artistic trajectory, and I am so delighted that Kiri has just published her first poetry collection. She is a woman of many, many talents, so as well as writing the collection, she is also the publisher! I highly recommend dipping into the pages of her collection. I am always fascinated by Kiri's fresh, honest approach to threading words together. She exudes calm, poise and a peaceful confidence and I can feel this in her poetry. 

Please do check out Kiri's collection, night swimming, at Anahera Press: http://www.anahera.co.nz/books/night-swimming

For more inspiring Tuesday Poems, look to our sidebar for the blogroll of poems and talented poets! There is always something for everyone.

This week's Tuesday Poem editor is Elizabeth Welsh, a freelance academic editor and poet from New Zealand, who is currently living in and travelling around Europe. She blogs about all things literary here.

Gigabyte by Mary Cresswell

The fact is that computers, like people,
have no problem remembering the messy stuff:
it's forgetting they can't do.

How much memory can you sell me? I want it all, asleep and awake, at the light
touch of a finger. I want the blood to stay liquid, the bones never to rise again, the
stink to stay undissipated in either still or moving air.

Forget bloody algorithms, archives, downloads, codices, indices, books, paper-brittle
files to fragment into contemplation, make me rest on my heels, make me wonder at
all this dust and cold coffee, ask what I am really after and is it worth it.

I have seen you watching action glowing in the dark bodies twisting, coupling, dying
out as the power dies leaving images burnt on memory ready to retrieve. We know
our passion is present; our passion is action.

You know, too, such frenzies are best gulped down fresh before some ungodly
troika variously rendered as reason, recall, reflection clatters up the driveway like
unwelcome parents coming home early because they forgot the key, when you
thought they would be out all night and leave you to it with all your mindless
friends.


______
Originally published in the online magazine, Talking, Writing, in January 2012.
Reproduced here with kind permission from the author.

                                          Editor: Elizabeth Welsh

Mary Cresswell is a Wellington poet who lives on the Kapiti Coast. Her book, Trace Fossils, was published by Steele Roberts in 2011. I have admired Mary's poetry for quite some time, and I recently stumbled across this new poem - Gigabyte - when I was reading a fascinating article 'Why Poets Sometimes Think in Numbers' in the online literary magazine, Talking Writing. 


I was immediately drawn to the poem, with its focus on time, memory, and the intertwining of past, present and future experiences, having spent hours during my Masters delving into the conceit of inner time in New Zealand literature. 

The idea of memory as a possible commodity - something to be purchased, to be 'had', to be casually picked up - is so human, so real. I can't express enough how much I feel that Mary has hit the nail on the head with her final stanza, where she invites the reader to share in, and relish, those trembling lived, felt, experienced moments - 'such frenzies are best gulped down fresh' - that seem to hold such illicit pleasures - 'you thought they would be out all night and leave you to it'.

When I contacted Mary to ask her if I could republish 'Gigabyte', she was kind enough to share with me some of her thoughts behind the poem and her approach: 'Like most of us, I think a lot about memory as I grow older. It irritates me that memory doesn't fall into nice, manageable compartments - it would be so much easier to deal with if it did. But, alas, at times, the past is as much a happening as the present is, and there are moments when I find them totally mixed in with each other. This poem "just happened" (pretty much) in one of those moments.'

For more information about her and her innovative poetry, please see her profile on the New Zealand Book Council website.

Elizabeth Welsh is a freelance editor, poet and PhD student. Originally from New Zealand, she now lives in South London. Her poetry and short fiction has been published in print and online. She is currently writing a chapter for a book collection on Katherine Mansfield's influences and has recently returned from speaking on Mansfield at the Sorbonne. She blogs about literary stuff here.

After reading 'Gigabyte', please do take the time to dip into this week's poetry selections from the rest of the Tuesday Poem community. You can find these listed along at the sidebar.

After Tomato Picking by Maria Garcia Teutsch

In fourth grade

I picked tomatoes

to make money.

The night before, we packed

our lunches with anticipation

and American cheese sandwiches.

We left at dawn with the sun

slithering across the desert,

twisting the horizon into slivers of gold.

The drive out to the farmland

was filled with yawns and coffee.

I leaned against my brother and dozed.

On our way we passed farm workers,

their painted signs blurring by.

I catch one word, strike.

My brother yells, Viva la Raza

but don't yet know what it means.

He raises his chin and smiles.

In the field the smell

of disturbed earth and sweat mingles

with the sound of giggles

from my sister's friends.

I stand in between rows,

a bucket full of green tomatoes

too heavy to lift, my brother

carrying it to men sitting

in precious shade.

We left as soon as the thermometer

moved above 100.

The others stayed.

This poem is a true account of Maria Garcia Teutsch's short time she spent working in the fields. Maria currently teaches in Salina, California, in the US. This area is commonly known as the 'salad bowl of America' and many of her students have long histories of field work. Plenty of them have parents who make their living in the fields. This poem has emerged from her inspiration and humble appreciation of their daily work. For me, as this weeks editor, I was immediately drawn to this poem of Maria's as it possesses such a strong grounding in the landscape. The social conditions intertwined with the act of 'tomato picking' appears to emanate naturally and effortlessly from this powerful and nostalgic evocation of the journey and the landscape.

Maria Garcia Teutsch is editor-in-chief of Ping Pong Journal of Art and Literature published by the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur, California. She teaches poetry and creative writing at Hartnell College in Salinas, California. This is also where she edits the Homestead Review which is now in its 10th year of publication.

For more words, visit her blog: mariateutsch.blogspot.com or her webpage: marialoveswords.com

This week's editor is Elizabeth Welsh, an Auckland writer and Katherine Mansfield scholar. Her blog is here. And remember to visit the live blog roll in the Tuesday Poem sidebar for more Tuesday Poems.