The writing life

POET & MUSE: Hannah Mettner with her cat Waffles, the inspiration behind ‘Cat Chakra Alignments' from her first book of poetry, Fully Clothed and So Forgetful, Victoria University Press, 2017. Picture by Matt Bialostocki

Hannah Mettner grew up in Whataupoko, in an old villa with a big backyard full of fruit trees and a tree hut.

“Now that I live in Wellington I dream of the bounty of plums, crabapples, feijoas and loquats that we used to throw at each other for entertainment,” she says.

The eldest of four girls, Hannah remembers her father being asked if he wished he'd had a son.

“To his credit, he always insisted that no . . . and he'd raise us all the same anyway.

“We always had tree huts which we built ourselves using ‘reclaimed' bits of wood from Dad's stash. So we spent a lot of time hanging out with the neighbours, building, maintaining and extending these.”

Describing herself as a proud Playcentre kid, she remembers Playcentre being a very tactile place where they could “rock up and make our own scones, go outside and nail beer caps to bits of wood all while wearing a great array of dress-ups”.

“There was always paint or playdough around and we were allowed to make messes. I think that gave me a lot of confidence to just try things out, despite the fact that I was an extremely shy kid.”

She had a very outdoorsy childhood with lots of scope for adventures and when she thinks of her own children, 15-year old Lucia and 13-year old Jethro, regrets that they're such city kids, more likely to visit a gallery in the weekend than build a hut in the bush.

Hannah has always been artistic and assumed she would go to art school after leaving Gisborne Girls' High.

“For some reason, at the last minute, I enrolled in Art History and English Literature instead because I thought this was a more sensible course of study (debatable). Lots of writers I know tend to have dual lives as visual artists as well, and I wonder if that ability to visualise things and to recreate them either in words or pictures is more of a common thread across artistic genres than we think.”

Her love of reading started young.

“My parents are great readers and I was fortunate enough to grow up in a house where books were always around.

“As a person with three younger siblings I was certainly encouraged to take myself off quietly with a book as needed. Books are great compost for the imagination, and I remember making my friends and younger sisters re-enact scenes or ideas from whatever book I was reading at the time.

“I think that the process of immersing myself in other worlds was really important for my creative development, and you definitely have to do a bit of that as a writer.”

She was also drawn to books as objects at a very young age and remembers toting around an old copy of Don Quixote at primary school because she loved the old calf leather binding and wooden board cover. Unsurprisingly, she ended up as a librarian.

Her most recent job was at the National Library of New Zealand where she was lucky enough to work with the Rare Books and Fine Printing Collection.

After graduating from high school in 2003, Hannah went to Victoria University in Wellington for a year and came home to Gisborne when she was pregnant with her first child, Lucia.

“My partner and I were both determined to return to Wellington to finish our studies after that year off, but I don't think anyone believed that we'd actually do it.

“We did get back to uni and I had a few hits and misses trying to figure out what I wanted to do there. I tried a linguistics degree, but found language learning incredibly difficult (especially as a new parent on limited sleep). After finishing my degree I tried teachers' college, but quickly realised I'd be a terrible teacher.

“Then I was lucky enough to be accepted into the Master's programme at the International Institute of Modern Letters.”

For the first time she felt she was doing the thing she was meant to do.

She first submitted poems for publication in 2012, the year she was working on her Master's, and they were published.

“It was terrifying,” she said.

“I'd been writing for a while by then, but had never thought of publishing. Having them in print, where anyone could see them made me feel like a real writer, but also made me aware of the vulnerability of the work.

“I realised that once writing is released into the world it has to be able to stand on its own two feet. From then on I wanted to feel certain that if I was submitting something for publication, it was saying what I wanted to say.”

Her first book, a collection of poems called Fully Clothed and So Forgetful was mostly autobiographical.

“I like to think of poetry as looking in detail at parts of a recognisable world in order to make larger, more philosophical questions relatable. I don't know if my book is like that — people have said it's funny, which I'm pleased with, because I try not to take myself too seriously, you know?

“It's bad enough being a poet, let alone being a poet without a sense of humour.”

In 2014, she and fellow poets Morgan Bach and Sugar Magnolia Wilson started an online poetry journal called Sweet Mammalian.

“It's everything we dreamed it would be, full of fun new poetry, with excellent, outrageous launch parties and the occasional handmade accompanying chapbook (its usual format is online).”

Last year they stepped down as editors and handed it over to Rebecca Hawkes and Nikki-Lee Birdsey.

“Actually, the most nerve-wracking moment of my literary career was submitting poetry to Sweet Mammalian recently for an upcoming edition, because I had no idea whether Rebecca and Nikki-Lee would like it.

“Fortunately, I made the cut, and I'm included as a contributor in the upcoming Issue Seven.”

Her advice to others wanting to pursue a career in writing is “to read lots”.

As well, “remember that writing becomes good writing through editing. Keep going.”

Hannah now works full-time as an adviser to the Chief Archivist at Archives New Zealand while parenting two teenagers and trying to write more poetry and a collection of short stories.

She is also studying te reo Maori — and loving it.

“I recently bought my first house, so am dabbling in some dodgy DIY and questionable paint choices.”

She works in the “political precinct” (Thorndon, where the Beehive and Parliament Buildings are) and said it was interesting walking past Aotearoa's decision-making hub every day.

“I started writing a poem called ‘Poem while watching the world burn' last year during the Aussie bush fires.

“I'm still writing it because more and more stuff which feels like the world is on fire keeps happening.

“I've got two kids who have to grow up in this mess and it definitely makes you think.”

She describes living through a global pandemic as tough but she was lucky to keep her job and be able to work from home.

The children carried on their schooling at home and they did regular walks in the bush reserve around their house and made lots of sour dough and fresh pasta.

“We're so lucky here. Jethro's school is across the road from one of Wellington's quarantine hotels, so it's been interesting watching the action on school pickup days.

“I hope the pandemic teaches us that there's more to life than work, to value nurses and teachers more, to check in on our neighbours and whānau, to value the arts (imagine quarantine without books, music and TV), and to be less selfish.”