NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Entertainment

Poetry with music

NZ Herald
13 Nov, 2009 03:00 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Napoleon Swings by Jen Crawford. Photo / Supplied

Napoleon Swings by Jen Crawford. Photo / Supplied

Like Fiona Farrell, Bernadette Hall spent six months in Ireland courtesy of the Rathcoola Fellowship, and like Farrell, she has produced a superb new collection of poems that feed off the Irish experience.

Many of the poetry books I have reviewed this year have produced glorious music and I
would be hard pressed to pick a favourite, but The Lustre Jug is a book to dawdle over. Give this book to a student of poetry to demonstrate the way a poem can make music.

Often it is best to absorb poetry through your skin and senses, like you do a painting at first sight or an opera upon first hearing, and with Hall's book I want to do this. But I also want to stop and admire the way inspired technical choices lead to such movement and grace.

In the fabulous poem The Fox, a real-life fox becomes luminous on the page, while also standing as a metaphor for poetry itself. On the one hand you fall into the crisp description of the scene, while on the other, you are led to ponder how poetry breaks apart routine, everyday language, and speechlessness.

The sounds come together as a melody that needs to be replayed and listened to for the pleasure that words can give the ear. Sleek words such as "wet," "hot" and "cuts" sit in contrast to words that twist and stretch such as "stickiness" and "thumbprint". There is the pull of alliteration such as "dark and dankness" and the melodic flourish, the inspired audacity, of placing "bell" shortly after "swirl": "She'll be able to pause there, for a while, sip water / while the dogs swirl and bell in front of the big house."

One poem recycles eyewitness accounts of the potato famine and includes a recipe that enables you to eat potatoes at their most vile.

Another poem, more anecdotal, navigates blackberry picking in the relentless Irish rain. Every poem is worth savouring. Diana Bridge returns to her signature theme, classical Chinese culture, in her latest collection, Aloe, and in my view it stands as one of her best.

The Chinese poems bring to mind still-life paintings, such as those by Italian painter Giorgio Morandi. It is as though Bridge's poems can frame an object, a moment in time, a selected scene, and bring a plethora of exquisite detail into sweet focus. Yet just as Morandi's paintings break out of the confines of stillness, so do Bridge's poems. It feels like an oxymoron, but these poems present a calm while shimmering with so much more, with perception, observation and precision.

The central poems move away from the Chinese themes and explore an intriguing range of subject matter: Freud, a cellist, the Botanic Gardens, an Elizabeth Thomson exhibition, the business of writing poetry. One poem, the urge to bury, reveals how poetry translates things that are deeply human, such as grief, loss, joy or rage, into words that embrace a white hot, emotional core.

This poem is of such moving simplicity it transcends a singular occasion: "as I honoured / the old urge to bury / trusting / nothing but earth / with my loss." Jen Crawford uses language to achieve a different kind of fluency in her latest collection, Napoleon Swings. She plays around with how words nestle on the page, slip and leap and bend in the air.

Crawford's poems bear traces of lyricism, syncopated grammar and billowing gaps; features that mark her as a poet who wants to take risks. If you are after a poet who makes conversation that is easily understood then Crawford is not the poet for you, but if you are after a poet who is willing to juggle words in offbeat ways then her levels and sidetracks will make poetry magic for you - "your tiredness and that you did well. / building a wall around it. like a harbour with boats clinking".

The slender volume, with its handcrafted appeal, is another inspired production by Michael Steven's Soapboax Press.

The Lustre Jug
by Bernadette Hall (Victoria University Press $25)

* Paula Green is an Auckland poet and children's writer.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from Entertainment

Entertainment

Ex-MasterChef star reveals alcohol addiction

Entertainment

Lena Dunham's 'Too Much' on Netflix redefines rom-com expectations

Entertainment

Whittakers release new limited edition flavour 'Banana Caramel'

Watch

Sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Entertainment

Ex-MasterChef star reveals alcohol addiction
Entertainment

Ex-MasterChef star reveals alcohol addiction

He underpaid 500 employees $7.8 million over six years.

14 Jul 03:56 AM
Lena Dunham's 'Too Much' on Netflix redefines rom-com expectations
Entertainment

Lena Dunham's 'Too Much' on Netflix redefines rom-com expectations

14 Jul 03:45 AM
Whittakers release new limited edition flavour 'Banana Caramel'
Entertainment

Whittakers release new limited edition flavour 'Banana Caramel'

Watch
13 Jul 10:00 PM


Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper
Sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

01 Jul 04:58 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP