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LitCrawl is coming! The big night is this Saturday 10th November 6pm – 9:30pm, where literary excitement will be descending upon all manner of interesting venues around Wellington. There’s other terrific stuff happening before and after too. Today the Meow Gurrrls interviewed the inimitable Chris Tse about his role as guest curator. It’s going to be a blast!
This week’s excellent Meow Gurrrl feature poem is ‘The Invisible Years’ by poet, art curator and creative writing tutor Mary-Jane Duffy. More Meow Gurrrls and further exciting content to come!
Poets for Peace and Planet, Saturday 3 November
Poets for Peace and Planet, Saturday 3 November
Peace Movement Aotearoa
Join us on Saturday afternoon at Poets for Peace and Planet, featuring · Maata Wharehoka (Parihaka) · Janis Freegard ·Harvey Molloy · Carina Gallegos · John Howell · Maria McMillan · George Watterson · Helen Rickerby · Tim Jones ·Reading of ‘Remember the Brave’ (the new children’s book about World War One conscientious objectors), and more …
Poets for Peace and Planet will be happening at St Andrew’s Conference Centre, 30 The Terrace, Wellington on Saturday, 3 November, from 3.30pm to 5.30pm.
All welcome, entry by donation, please RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/286740918636253
Poets for Peace and Planet is part of the ‘Peace, Peoples and Planet’ weekend, which begins on Friday night with a screening of ‘Tātarakihi:The Children of Parihaka’, with Maata Wharehoka, https://www.facebook.com/events/2224626401195701 and includes sessions throughout the weekend – full details of the ‘Peace, Peoples and Planet’ weekend are available athttps://www.facebook.com/events/273862176558630
This week, our Meow Gurrrls feature poet is the wonderful photographer and poet Mary Macpherson, with her poem ‘Litter’. We’d love you to subscribe to our Youtube channel if you want more Meow Gurrrl poems.
The Meow Gurrrls are a group of Wellington/Kapiti/Wairarapa-based women who meet regularly to share poetry, often at Meow cafe.
Who are the Meow Gurrrls, I hear you cry?
The Meow Gurrrls are a group of Wellington & Kapiti Coast poets who have been meeting for some time now to share poetry, wine, food and fine company, sometimes at Meow cafe in Wellington.
So, what’s new?
The Meow Gurrrls are launching a YouTube channel, whereby you can access quality short poems delivered by a Meow poet on the device of your choice any time you goddamn please. New poems will be added over the weeks and months to come. You’ll love it.
This is cool. what can I do?
We would love you to subscribe to our channel, like and share our posts, and tell your friends.
Do the Meow Gurrrls really need all those rrr’s?
Why, yes we do.
Are there any actual cats?
Sure. Meet Polly. Don’t be fooled by those fluffy good looks. Hobbies include destroying door frames and random savage attacks on her staff.
But she looks so sweet. Anyhoo, where is this alleged YouTube channel involving the Meow Gurrrls of which you speak?
Here you go. Meow Gurrrls Youtube channel
And here’s me, with a love poem. Because, you know, poetry. The poem also appeared on the Wellington City Library blog on National Poetry Day 2018. http://www.wcl.govt.nz/blog/index.php…
How come your lipstick looks crooked?
Because our bathroom mirror looks like this:
Thanks for stopping by.
Hope to see you there!
Every year I spend several days hunched over a spreadsheet doing a bit of a round-up of who had a poetry book published in New Zealand the previous year, so you don’t have to. I’m interested in whether our national literature can be seen as representing the diversity of our population, because I think it should. I look at gender and ethnicity, based on how people describe themselves (or are described by others) on their websites, author pages, etc. Generally I try up to 3 websites and a quick check of who’s in Puna Wai Korero and if I don’t find any mention of ethnicity, I assume the poet is Pakeha/European. It’s not an exact science, but it gives a rough idea.
Now I’m up to 2015 (the most recent information readily available) and, well frankly, this is embarassing. Only two of the poetry books published in 2015 were by poets with Māori heritage and two more mentioned Pasifika heritage. Two further poets mentioned mixed European and Jewish heritage. Everyone else, as far as I could make out, was Pakeha/European. There were no Asian poets with collections published in 2015.
Here is a sad little pie chart:
By way of comparison, only 74% of people described themselves as Pakeha/European in the 2013 census (15% Maori, 12% Asian, 7% Pasifika, 1% MiddleEastern/Latin American/African – it doesn’t add to 100% because people can indicate more than one ethnicity).
Things are a bit more egalitarian on the gender front, but men were published more (57% of books compared with 43% by women), down from the heady days of 2012 where numbers equalised. Here’s how it looks over time:
Total numbers of poetry books are looking reasonably healthy, with 70 titles published in 2015 (compared with 73 in 2014). Victoria University Press were the winners in terms of overall quantity (10 titles), with Wellington’s Original Books in second place (7 titles) and Auckland University Press, Mākaro Press, Otago University Press and Steele Roberts joint third (6 titles each). Various small presses made up the rest of the list.
You can read previous posts on this subject here:
https://janisfreegard.com/2011/07/29/poetry-gender-in-new-zealand-publishing-part-2/
https://janisfreegard.com/2012/04/03/poetry-gender-in-new-zealand-publishing-2008-2010-4/
https://janisfreegard.com/2013/03/23/poetry-gender-in-new-zealand-publishing-an-occasional-series/
https://janisfreegard.com/2014/10/19/poetry-and-gender-in-new-zealand-publishing-the-latest/
https://janisfreegard.com/2015/12/30/poetry-published-in-new-zealand-by-gender-ethnicity-to-2014/
https://janisfreegard.com/2016/02/08/nz-fiction-non-fiction-by-gender-ethnicity-2014/
and if you have read it yet, here’s the link to Brannavan Gnangalingam‘s Spin-off article on subtle racism in New Zealand literature.
My source for the books published in 2015 is the Journal of Commonwealth Literature. I’ll get around to fiction in due course. And if you were wondering about reviews (whose books get reviewed), data for 2015 are still trickling in from an intrepid band of volunteers and I’ll try to do something on it when I can.
It never rains, but it pours… Hot on the heels of LitCrawl and Brooklyn, here’s another event I’m reading at, this time at Aratoi in Masterton. It’s a celebration of the work of artists, writers, dancers and musicians from all over the world who have had residencies at New Zealand Pacific Studio in the Wairarapa. The studio’s been going for 15 years now and I was very fortunate to hold the three-week Ema Saikō poetry fellowship there in 2014.
Aratoi (Wairarapa’s Museum of Art & History) is hosting an exhibition of works by former NZ Pacific Studio residents, including a video reading of a snippet of the long poetry sequence I worked on while I was there. Opening night is Friday 2 December 2016 (5:30pm) and there’s a special event on Saturday afternoon (3 December, 2 – 4 pm), featuring music by Leo & Karen Cappèl (Netherlands/NZ), Sarah Dill (USA) and Hemi Walker (NZ). The inimitable Tracy Farr will be reading a short story and I will read a short section from my poetry sequence.
If you’re in the hood and want to catch it, the exhibition runs from 3 December 2016 – 15 January 2017.
You can find Aratoi at 11 Bruce St, Masterton, Wairarapa
Saturday 3 December 2016 2:00pm – 4:00pm
This Saturday, I’ll be at LitCrawl. If you’re in Wellies, you should be too.
I shall be reading at Hashigo Zake 25 Taranaki St at 6pm with the stunning line-up of Chris Tse, Gem Wilder and Emma Barnes.
Here’s our blurb:
When you write from a minority perspective, whether it’s your sexuality, your gender, your mental health or something else about you, there’s an expectation you’ll perform those parts of yourself.
We choose what parts of ourselves we offer, reveal and share. We decide what we gift of ourselves to the audience. We’re not just queer writers. We’re writers. We’re not just genderqueer writers. We’re writers. We’re not just mentally ill writers. We’re writers. We’re all of these things and none of them. Come along to hear some writing loosely organised along non-heterosexual lines across genders and experiences. We’re wrapping up ourselves as gifts and we’ll rip the paper too.
Featuring Chris Tse, Janis Freegard, Gem Wilder and Emma Barnes.
There are rumours that at least one cape may be involved and I can neither confirm nor deny the possibility of a hat. But hey, if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, there are are many other exciting LitCrawl options to choose from and you can read all about them here:
http://www.litcrawl.co.nz/litcrawl.html
Since 2008, I’ve been looking at the numbers of poetry collections being published in New Zealand, by gender, and more recently, by ethnicity. I was a bit slow getting to the 2013 stats, but here they are, along with the figures for 2014.
So what’s changed?
In 2013, publications were evenly split between male and female authors for the first time since I’ve been looking at them. Men were a little ahead again in 2014 (55%), but it’s still markedly different from 2008, when close to two-thirds of poets with collections published that year were men.
What’s really exciting is that after a steady decline from 2010 to 2013, the overall numbers of poetry collections is starting to increase again.
The publisher landscape has also changed quite a bit. In 2008, the three “big” poetry publishers in New Zealand were Steele Roberts (12 publications), Auckland University Press (8) and Victoria University Press (6). Other outfits to put out more than one publication that year were the Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop (5), Headworx (4), Original Books (4), Soapbox Press (4) and Chihuahua Press (3).
In 2014 however, romping to the lead is Lyttleton’s Cold Hub Press with 20 titles to their credit. Stalwart Steele Roberts came in at 14, Victoria University Press at 11 and Auckland University Press at 8. Wellington’s Makaro Press, if you include the 6 books published under their Submarine imprint, published 9 collections.
What’s the same?
Poets with published collections are overwhelming Pakeha, way more so than we would expect if we looked at the population breakdown from the latest census. (Note: doesn’t add to 100% as people may have multiple ethnicities.)
Only 5% of poets who published collections in 2014 were Maori (whereas Maori made up 15% of the NZ population), 3% were Pacific (cf 7% of the population), 1% Asian (cf 12% of the population – no pressure, Chris Tse) and 1% Middle Eastern/Latin American/African (cf 1%). Yes, Pakeha have an ageing population and are therefore more likely to produce published poets than more youthful sub-populations, but that’s not enough to account for the disparity.
Who cares?
Well, I do. I want to see a rich, diverse published literature that more closely reflects the range of poetic voices of this country. Also, I care about equity of access to goods and services and that includes access to being published (wait – didn’t someone sign a Treaty way back when?)
But surely it’s all based on merit? And women have got the vote now – what more do youse sheilas want?
Merit is subjective. If it’s only Europeans judging the merit of poetry, then there’s a chance we’ll miss something that a different group would find meritorious or inspirational or recognise their own lives in.
Whatevs. Where do the figures come from?
I rely on the Journal of Commonwealth Literature which includes an annual round-up of the literature of Commonwealth countries. I copy the list of published poetry collections from there into an Excel spreadsheet and bake it into pies (just kidding – I don’t bake). The journal comes out late in the year that follows the year in question which is why there is a delay. I can’t be certain the list is complete, but I feel sure that the good folks who compile it have done a thorough job.
How do you know everyone’s gender and ethnicity?
Ah, I’m not promising this is 100% accurate. I go to at least 3 websites (eg author pages on publisher websites and the NZ Book Council writer files) and I try to work it out from that. If there is nothing at all to suggest that a poet is not European/Pakeha, I count them as Pakeha. I do this because I figure when you’re part of the bigger group, you are less likely to identify yourself as such. I think it’s a reasonable assumption. Only a handful of poets actually say they are Pakeha, but some say they were born in the UK or US or mention that their ancestry is Irish, so I go by that.
Why is it just collections? Why don’t you look at poetry in journals and so forth?
Because I have a day job. But, you know, you should totally go for it.
Have you thought about looking at reviews?
Funny you should ask. I am part of an intrepid bunch of volunteers who are trawling through 2015’s many and varied reviews of NZ books as we speak (and not just for poetry ). If you’d like to join our merry band, please do leave a message on this site.
Wishing you all a merry 2016, filled with poetry and wonder.
Photo: Fleur Chalmers
Links to previous posts on this topic:
https://janisfreegard.com/2010/02/06/poetry-gender-in-new-zealand-publishing/
https://janisfreegard.com/2011/07/29/poetry-gender-in-new-zealand-publishing-part-2/
https://janisfreegard.com/2012/04/03/poetry-gender-in-new-zealand-publishing-2008-2010-4/
https://janisfreegard.com/2013/03/23/poetry-gender-in-new-zealand-publishing-an-occasional-series/
https://janisfreegard.com/2014/10/19/poetry-and-gender-in-new-zealand-publishing-the-latest/
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