Gavin McLean reviews Landfall 216, Jaam, Skywire and
Living Windows.
Editor Tim Corballis organised
Landfall 216 around the theme of utopias - real,
imagined, and presented in prose (fiction and non-fiction),
poetry and in photography.
Some contributors examine utopias in New Zealand.
In "The New Colonists", Kirsten Warner reacts to news of
billionaire developers buying land in the Bay of Islands by
reflecting on the first contact there between Marsden and
Ruatara.
John Horrocks offers an essay on the Chartist-inspired
thinking of Carterton's Pakeha founder, John Carter, and
reminds us that in welcoming Georgina Beyer, this small town,
often overshadowed by its twee neighbour, Greytown, continues
a long tradition of welcoming progressive thought.
Rather like the colour photographs of a Seoul motorway
transformed into an urban walkway, or Barrett Warren's piece
on public art in the former East Germany, some places make
surprising utopias.
Gregory O'Brien, whose father made the most of Hamilton's
Paul's Book Arcade days, does as good a job as anyone could
in seeing that town as a cultural utopia.
In "Soaping the Geyser", art historian Damian Skinner looks
at Theo Schoon's Rotorua photography.
The reviews section has always been one of Landfall's
strengths and this issue is no exception, offering some
particularly insightful reflections on the lives and works of
veteran writers such as C.K. Stead and Fiona Kidman.
Landfall is available on subscription from the
University of Otago Press (PO Box 56, Dunedin, $49.95 for two
issues).
JAAM (Just Another Art Movement) is a
younger journal.
Its pages are home to a few established contributors
(Elizabeth Smither, Sue Reidy, Trevor Reeves) but its shorter
pieces are dominated by emerging writers, not the
heavyweights who dominate Landfall.
Nor does it have that mag's fancy typesetting, photos or
reviews.
Instead, it's printed on basic, honest paper.
Why, though, can't designers remember to leave a reasonable
gutter for those who will read in printed and bound form what
sits so flat on the screens of their Macs?
Just a few millimetres more can avoid the struggle of forcing
open the pages of the prose sections to catch those first and
last characters as they disappear into the curve of the
binding.
Tim Jones edited JAAM 26.
He invited prospective contributors to send in speculative
fiction and poetry, science fiction, fantasy and horror
especially, but did not impose a theme.
Some did, but the collection has a less structured feel about
it than Landfall (no bad thing).
Stand-out items for me included Jenny Powell's poems, Helen
Lowe's court intrigue in ancient Ithica and poem about the
Trojan shore, Eden Carter Wood's cynical office worker in
"The Resume" and L. E. Scott's reflection on the death of an
older brother.
JAAM is published by the JAAM Collective, PO Box 2539,
Panama St, Wellington 6146, $24 for three issues.
"TO wobble into love at the dingbat end
of your sixth decade is remarkable enough," Leonard Lambert
writes on the front flap of Skywire (Steele Roberts,
$19.99, pbk).
"But to find someone who shares your own background and
foreground as a painter, hard-yards poet and self-created
individual is, I would guess, way out on the loopy end of any
probability curve you could come up with."
So that's why this collection of love poems is dedicated to
"my lady-love, Jan."
And that is why it has such a playful, joyful,
startled-by-good-fortune feel as he reflects on people,
places and incidents.
Lone wolves meet. People connect the blue skywire dismissed
as "redundant" by the sparkie. Old poets get their due.
There's even warmth in his imagined funeral.
I love Lambert's playfulness with the language.-
He's not afraid of coining a word that stops you in your
tracks, then leaves you smiling.
Take a couple of examples: abrupture in "Changing offices"
("the slam of abandon-/abrupture-/is no imagined wound") or
disdameful in the wonderful "Hereford Street" ("men
anonymous/dismissed by the skirted world/disdameful,
defecting to the pub.")
Crisp, elegant design by Steel Roberts added to my reading
pleasure.
LIVING WINDOWS: Reflections
& Stories from Otago Migrants (Maari McCluskey,
editor, Dunedin Multi-Ethnic Council, PO Box 5045, Dunedin,
price not indicated) brings together short pieces from a
dozen participants in the council's reflective writing
workshops.
Amanda Dickson is a Kiwi returning after a long stay in
Australia.
Others, foreign-born, are getting to grips with life in
Otago.
The coast is important to several of them.
For Brazilian Luciana Nascimento de Carvalho, it's the
freezing cold water at the beautiful and near-empty beach.
For Tushar Robins, it is the national breakfast.
"They are like little bricks of compacted wheat flakes," she
writes to a friend.
"When you add milk and sugar to them they turn sludgy.
It's like eating cold, damp cardboard."
- Gavin McLean is a Wellington historian and reviewer.
Bookmark/Search this post with:
A name, residential address, and (preferably residential) telephone number is required from readers who comment on ODT Online. These details will not be visible to site visitors.