Laura Williamson
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Book review: No Other Place to Stand – An Anthology of Climate Change Poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand
Edited by Jordan Hamel, Rebecca Hawkes, Erik Kennedy and Essa Ranapiri (Auckland University Press) Can poetry save us? In No Other Place to Stand, ninety-one writers with connections to Aotearoa New Zealand grapple with the biggest issue on the planet right now, and while the answer isn’t quite yes, it isn’t quite no, either. As…
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Poetry Review: Everyone is Everyone Except You and Meat Lovers
Meat Lovers by Rebecca Hawkes (Auckland University Press) Everyone is Everyone Except You by Jordan Hamel (Dead Bird Books) Both of the poets featured in the last issue of 1964 (Issue 9, Autumn 2022) have recently released their debut full-length collections. One word: Yay! Two words: Cows and Timaru! Rebecca Hawkes’ Meat Lovers is “a…
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Poetry Review: Everyone is Everyone Except You and Meat Lovers
Meat Lovers by Rebecca Hawkes (Auckland University Press) Everyone is Everyone Except You by Jordan Hamel (Dead Bird Books) Both of the poets featured in the last issue of 1964 (Issue 9, Autumn 2022) have recently released their debut full-length collections. One word: Yay! Two words: Cows and Timaru! Rebecca Hawkes’ Meat Lovers is “a book of poems on…
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Goodnight bunnies
Aotearoa New Zealand’s curious connection to a beloved children’s classic. Anyone who has ever lulled children to sleep with the bedtime story Goodnight Moon will not be surprised to hear that its author, Margaret Wise Brown, was an unusual woman. It’s a strange book. There’s a wee bunny in bed in a “great green room”,…
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Book Review: Aspiring
by Damien Wilkins FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD RICKY LIVES IN ASPIRING, A TOWN GROWING AT AN ALARMING RATE, LIKE RICKY HIMSELF, WHO HAS HIT 6’7” AND IS GETTING TALLER BY THE DAY. IT’S THE SECOND YEAR OF THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY. CLIMATE CHANGE FRAMES EVERYTHING. RICKY’S INTERNAL MONOLOGUEIS GETTING LOUDER. “THE SELFIE STICK CARRIED IN ITS TIP THE MOST…
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Flare – A Ski Trip: A NZ ski film by Sam Neill
Laura Williamson looks back at Flare, a classic New Zealand ski film directed by Sam Neill. Warning: Contains ski ballet. “FREESTYLE,” THE NARRATOR TELLS US, “BEGAN AS AN EXUBERANT REACTION TO THE CONSTRAINTS OF CONVENTIONAL SKIING. NOW IT HAS STRETCHED THE LIMITS OF WHAT’S POSSIBLE ON SKIS.” It’s 1976. Six skiers (five Kiwis and one…
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Book Review: Across the Pass – A Collection of New Zealand Tramping Writing
Selected by Shaun Barnett Across the Pass is like a lolly scramble. It takes you in lots of directions and it’s sweet as. The focus is narrow, sure, but there’s a wide range of voices and genres, including, but not limited to, poetry, prose, song lyrics, diaries, articles, columns and a fair bit of humour.…
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Book Review: Tussock
By Bruce Hunt Despite being primarily black and white, the photos in Bruce Hunt’s Tussocks feel, in both composition and tone, like paintings. Turns out Bruce is a painter, one who likes to head out, brush in hand and polyprop on legs, to capture the hills of Otago and the Mackenzie Basin. He also likes…
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Pants on fire
Revisiting the great exploding trousers epidemic of the 1930s. It was strange behaviour for “a quite respectable garment”. According to the Hutt News, “not long ago, in a country township, a man’s pair of trousers exploded with a loud report.” Fortunately, he wasn’t wearing them at the time and was able to throw the offending…