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[labellementeuse]

April is poetry month. A word or two about poetry month: I tend to post New Zealand poets. This is not because I inherently think I should, or anything, but because the poets I read fall into two categories: very famous American and occasionally British poets; and New Zealand poets. I feel like the idea of poetry month is not "Let's post "The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock" and "Dream Deferred" and "Funeral Blues" and "A Rose is a Rose" continue series for 30 days", you know? So I post NZ poets. If you can afford to pay money to support these people, you should.

This guy is dead, though. This is a poem by James K. Baxter, who you can read about on Wikipedia. I was given a first edition of Pig Island Letters for my birthday last year and I've been attempting to digest it slowly. There are several poems in it I really like. Here's one.

A Wish For Berries

TODAY the waves of bright lead
lift rubbsh, driftwood, in eah
high bending wall: a good day
for gulls or dogs. The worn touch
of air and sun unkindly
like a dull whore tames the blood

offering only sleep. Yes . . .
I think of a friend who took
poison lately. Being dead,
he has gone into the dark
sheaf of truth and shares a word
with me just as my eyes close--

'Pity all things'--Do the tough
kids need pity who wrestle
under the bathing shed wall?
or the girls whose broad muscles
slide in bermuda shorts, all
intent on a thunder-proof

world of knowledge? I cannot
pity what is; but look up
at the karaka tree whose
thick wide leaves contain such ripe
yellow berries, their clusters
would take a fortnight to eat.

- James K Baxter

Note: karaka berries are poisonous. (Actually, technically not the berry but its kernel, but the need for contextualising stands.)