AUGUST 24 2019 LISTENER 47
G
ET
TY(^) IM
AG
ES
Paula Green wanted her
book to “create room for
the women to speak”.
Opposite: Lorde, left,and
Selina Tusitala Marsh.
with this book but I am laying it down in
a different kind of way. I wanted to write a
book that is hopefully intelligent and full
of utter human warmth. And I wanted to
create room for the women to speak.”
In 570 pages, they do speak, in inter-
views, journals, essays and, of course,
poetry: voices from rural Canterbury and
South Auckland, from historical Scot-
tish traditions to new Māori and Pasifika
traditions, from children’s chants to
contemporary lyrics.
“I am suspicious of people claiming
some people as not poets. Children’s poets
like Margaret Mahy and Joy Cowley – how
often are they brought into the poetry
discussion? But if you think about the
agility and the layering [of their poems] –
it is absolutely exquisite. And musicians.
We love hearing Lorde sing but there is
so much music in her lyrics, as there is in
Aldous Harding and Nadia Reid. When
you hear Selina Tusitala Marsh performing
her poetry – it is the music that works on
your body.”
There are new names, such as Evelyn
Patuawa-Nathan – “I was so disappointed
I could only find one book” – and new
insights into more familiar names, such
as Ursula Bethell. “It was extraordinary to
read all her books and to take on board
the fact she wrote poetry for just 10 years
of her life during this intense love for
Effie [Pollen] and for gardening, then
when Effie died, she stopped writing, she
stopped gardening.”
There are shared experiences (including
the persistent white noise of self-doubt
“that erodes a writer’s equilibrium”) and
uncommon connections. Mackay and
Hera Lindsay Bird, for example, one
intensely private, the other raised on a
“currency of confession”, both setting
out to shake down complacency and
mediocrity.