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by NICHOLAS REIDS
o far, only a small number of New
Zealand poets have shown the
ability to write knowledgeably –
and poetically – about science.
Among the best are Helen Heath and
Richard Reeve.
In Star Trails, Alexandra Fraser also
tackles scientific matters with subtlety
and skill. Subtitled “Learning to see – a
memoir”, this collection begins withpoems in praise of Fraser’s father. “I wear
my father’s eyes/I stand on his shoul-
ders,” she writes in Influence.
Her father was a photographer and
amateur astronomer who spent long
Waikato nights stargazing with self-
devised equipment. When she was a
child, he showed her how he captured“star trails”, long-exposure images that
show the apparent position of stars as the
Earth turns.
From these experiences – and her later
life as a science teacher – Fraser draws
complex webs of imagery.
The telescopic lens capturing light is
related to memory, just as the fragility of
a beam of light is related to the brevity of
life. As she implies in the poem Aurora,the complex wonders of nature are the
only god Fraser respects.
Many of her poems are written in
the fragmented style of broken lines. A
few, especially the ones about pioneers
in science such as Galileo and Newton,
come across as preachy and prosy. But
she has a deft way with imagery and
her description of the musical style of
jazz pianist Thelonious Monk is spot
on: “Hop-scotching notes .../almost like
missing/the last step/in the dark.” l
STAR TRAILS, by Alexandra Fraser (Steele
Roberts, $25)The telescopic lens
capturing light is relatedto memory, just as the
fragility of a beam oflight is related to the
brevity of life.Hot on
the trails
Good poems about
science are a rarity,
but Alexandra Fraser
brings subtle skill
to the task.