Nicaragua puts its poets on pedestals and it has one waiting for Michael Harlow, writes Pam Jones.
Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud said unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.
Psychotherapist Carl Jung said secret unrest gnaws at the root of our being, and dealing with the unconscious has become a question of life.
Poet Michael Harlow pays credence to both.
His psychology and literature-filled existence is a powerful mix of words, illumination and transformation, both knowledge-seeking and empowering as he seeks adventure and balance. For him, the affiliation between his two great loves and careers - poet and Jungian therapist - is more than a partnership, it's almost ''an affair''.
''They fit hand in glove,'' he says.
''They've always had a very special relationship. One informs the other.''
Poets, to quote Freud again, have a more direct insight into the unconscious than the analyst, Harlow says.
Said Freud: ''The poets and philosophers before me discovered the unconscious; what I discovered was the scientific method by which the unconscious can be studied.''
Harlow revels in the discussion and intertwining of it all, working as a Jungian therapist in Alexandra, writing, editing and translating works and also working as a librettist, writing lyrics to musical works.
A book-lined Earnscleugh cottage is the centre of his nurturing and learning at present, but words of different cultures figure heavily, too.
This week his poetry will travel the world as he flies to Nicaragua as an invited poet for the country's prestigious International Poetry Festival of Granada.
''We extend this invitation to you, dear poet, because this celebration would not be complete without poetic angels with your humane qualities that will enrich our festival,'' the letter from the president of the board of directors for the festival said, continuing: ''All of our cities and its ribcage, the 8000sq km lake and all of our volcanoes become witnesses to the largest party that celebrates the written word and the annual report on the state of world poetry.''
Harlow has attended the biggest poetry festival in the world once before, along with another five or so international poetry and literature festivals in Latin and Central America. The Nicaraguan event was thrilling for its homage to poetry in ways that, regretfully, New Zealand did not celebrate the creative word, Harlow said.
There, poetry is ''the song of the people'' and a common form of expression, including of national aspirations, often with political overtones, Harlow says.
''Historically, poetry was like song; it's always been seen as the voice of the people, and a major cultural form of expression.''
So while football kings are treated like rock stars in Nicaragua, so too are poets, and the festival will feature an array of public recitals, either in front of thousands or through the festival's outreach programme, which sees guest poets taken to tiny villages to read in front of church, school and even prison communities.
Poems are read in both Spanish and English, and Harlow will mostly translate his own works through his knowledge of Spanish. He says translating a poem results in two interpretations of the piece, much like a score of music will sound different each time another person plays it.
''It's like those little Russian dolls, where you keep taking one apart to get a similar but different version of the doll inside ... The trick [when translating] is to be as faithful as possible to the original, but don't let the original get in the way of the translation.''
But despite his love of things Latin, Harlow treasures his life in New Zealand and says it will always be home for him.
Born to a Greek father and American/Ukrainian mother, Harlow was raised in the United States and travelled widely before coming to New Zealand in 1967.
He has been practising Jungian therapy - known as a psychology of the unconscious - for about 20 years, been writing since childhood, published a variety of poetry and prose books and been awarded several significant fellowships, including the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship (1986) and the Robert Burns Fellowship (2009).
His most recent book, The Tram Conductor's Blue Cap, published in 2009, was a New Zealand Post Book Awards finalist and drew praise for its lyricism and tenderness.
From the book's namesake poem: ''He is the tram conductor, and he inside a story that dreamshim: in it there is a leather pouch the colour of old furniture,inside that there are years; there are the bright holes of punched tickets, and the gobbling tongues of strangers; there are thesmall disturbances of wayward words ... There is yes, this manin a blue cap, he is waving his arms, and we see and we hear ... ''
''No New Zealand poet uses symbol and image more magically and tenderly than Michael Harlow,'' said New Zealand writer Elizabeth Smither at the time.
''In poems that range from lyrics to his superlative prose poems there is always the underpinning knowledge of how words begin their attraction for one another and how we owe our salvation to them.''
Two more books of Harlow's poetry are being published next month - Selected Poems, Sweeping the Courtyard, an anthology of mostly previous works, and Heart Absolutely I Can, a collection of love poems. A third new book, The Company of Map Makers, is due for publication after that.
He is hoping Central Otago events will be included in the launch of his books, is grateful for the support of his local community (his trip to Nicaragua is being part-funded by the Alexandra Community Arts Council) and, as well as the Nicaraguan festival, is looking forward to his return home.
''There's something about the natural world here that provides a kind of nurturing presence for me. I like it because it's remote, and for that nurturing effect the natural world has on me. Central Otago is magnificent.''
- Pam Jones.
