Canvas books wrap: This Woman's Work, A Book of Rongo and Te Rangahau, and more

Vivienne Lingard.

What's it like to survive a helicopter crash? A new memoir pens the story from someone who's brushed with death on many occasions, from being trapped in a mine to being caught in an avalanche. Elsewhere, read a poem by Michaela Keeble, and discover the tomes author Vivienne Lingard has taken to lately. Happy reading.

BOOKS IN REVIEW

This Woman's Work: Essays On Music, edited by Sinead Gleeson & Kim Gordon (White Rabbit Books, $38). Reviewed by Kiran Dass.

Growing up as a music obsessive in a small New Zealand town in the 1980s, it was always a thrill when each issue of the then-free music inkie Rip it Up came out. A portal to a wider world, I would study and memorise the bylines and always looked out for the women writers. There weren't that many, and globally, male dominance in music writing is a problem we still have. A quick squiz at major publications shows that it's often still the same men from 30-odd years ago who get to write about music - a deflating editorial habit. I wrote about music for 20 years but it was such a rare thing that people who read my writing often assumed I was a man.

This landmark collection of 17 essays written by women about music made by women has been compiled by power duo co-editors Sinead Gleeson (a writer and critic who has long been a champion of women writers and artists) and musician and visual artist Kim Gordon. With it, they elevate women's voices and experiences of music which are too often overlooked. The aim is to challenge the tired historic narrative of music and music writing being by and for men, and the collection sparkles with joy, discovery and concision.

The inspired choice of contributors includes established literary figures such as Anne Enright, Ottessa Moshfegh, Rachel Kushner, Leslie Jamison and Maggie Nelson alongside Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Margo Jefferson, contributing editor at Pitchfork Jenn Pelly, pedal steel shredder Heather Leigh and Fatima Bhutto. The pieces explore music as a private experience, as a shared experience, and for political purpose, while also shedding light on enigmatic groundbreaking practitioners. Gleeson's own piece about Wendy Carlos, the pioneering electronic composer best known for her atmospheric scores for Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and The Shining and her work with Robert Moog, is inspirational and illuminating. Wanda Jackson and Laurie Anderson's life and work are also explored but rather than critique or profile pieces, the collection focuses on music as a gateway to memory and personal and collective experiences and the powerful force of this.

In Songs of Exile, Fatima Bhutto remembers how her father, the politician Murtaza Bhutto, would play Otis Redding's (Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay. "Bob Marley said the one good thing about music was that when it hits you, you feel no pain. I can think of several cases where Bob is very wrong." Anne Enright contributes a warm and surprisingly funny piece about meeting her hero Laurie Anderson, and writer Yiyun Li's piece about Auld Lang Syne explores music as placeholders in life. What unifies these essays is an exploration of the transformative and ephemeral nature of music and the magic around this, and music's powerful ability to connect us and evoke memory and place. For many of us, music is the one constant through life and its roller coaster of childhood, adulthood, romance, loss, pain and grief - and This Woman's Work is a celebration of this.

It feels timely that the book takes its name from the 1989 Kate Bush song from The Sensual World - at the time of writing this Bush is back in the UK charts with Running Up That Hill hitting number one 37 years after its initial release, making the singular musician both the youngest and oldest woman to top the charts with a self-penned song. Additionally, Gleeson has compiled a superb 20-hour-long Spotify playlist to accompany This Woman's Work, providing the perfect deep-dive odyssey into visionary sound and music created by women. As Heather Leigh writes in her beautiful introduction, "This is music returning to music."

JUST OUT

The lives of two strong and influential 19th century Ngāpuhi women are reimagined in A Book of Rongo and Te Rangahau (Anahera Press, $30), by critically acclaimed poet Briar Wood. Rongo was married to Hōne Heke while Te Rangahau raised 12 children with husband John Leaf. "Survival in the 1820s meant / the stench of burning fern / and claggy mud floors" – from "Kororipo."

It's cold and flu season so in Nanny Mihi's Medicine/Ngā Rongoā a Nanny Mihi, by Melanie Drewery (Oratia Books, $20), Nanny Mihi takes the grandchildren foraging for natural remedies from the bush. This is the third Nanny Mihi book but the first bilingual book in the series, translated into te reo by Kanapu Rangitauira, with illustrations by Suzanne Simpson and botanical notes at the back.

Adventurer Mark Sedon once nearly died in a helicopter crash. He's been trapped in a mine, caught by an avalanche, and out at sea with a broken mast. He describes all of these scrapes and more in What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (Mark Sedon, $46), a memoir which aims to encourage people to get outside and make the most of it. "I have a saying: 'I am very afraid of dying, but I am even more afraid of not living.'"

POEM BY MICHAELA KEEBLE

This poem, tactics and strategy, is a Matariki poem. It is very quiet. It's a kind of a call to non-Māori activists, journalists, artists, politicians and policy makers to consider the political strategy of "getting out of the way". We can do this by sitting still and listening - particularly to mana whenua, as well as to the environment.

This poem is also a way of honouring the group Te Kāwau Māro, who with many others fought hard against the Government's "fiscal envelope policy", which limited how much could be awarded in Treaty settlements. It seems to me that the Crown is always trying to limit Māori development, in one way or another.

I hope this poem is not too opaque. I don't love poetry that's impossible to understand! But I also love how still and enigmatic cormorants are, and wanted to write a poem that was worthy of them. Mānawatia a Matariki!

tactics & strategy
after the proverb He Kāwau Māro

i come home early
from work

forty cormorants
on the rocks
at half tide

it's cold
and close
to winter solstice

the midday sun
lacks energy

the ocean
slaps at the sand

trying
for attention

you rest in
silent groups

breasts
to the wind

long necks
curled under
like question marks

one of you
slips in

i love the way
you ride low
in the tide

the way
you could claim
either domain

but you're always
minding the margin

you finish
your fishing

you beat the water
from your wings

you labour
into the sky

not quite broken
sticks

nearly straightened
arrows

i stretch out
my arms

to catch the last
of this year's
news

5 QUICK QUESTIONS WITH VIVIENNE LINGARD

Vivienne Lingard.

1. You have been a book illustrator for many years and came to fiction later in life. What prompted you to start writing?

I moved to Auckland in 2001 armed with a Bachelor of Education (teaching), but I couldn't find work as an art teacher. I took a job teaching English in Japan, and was there on my own for approximately 18 months. Evenings I read, lots of adult fiction, and I began to wonder if I could plot a storyline of a novel. So, I gave it a go, and by the time I returned home I had drafted several chapters. I finished my first novel during my Masters in Creative Writing at Auckland University.

2. How has your creative writing degree informed your work, do you think?

It was stimulating to be among interesting people writing such vastly different stories. I learned a great deal by listening to the students as well as the tutors, and began to think about and view the process of writing in different ways. The MCW also reinforced the importance of reading widely, as we can't be good writers if we don't read and recognise good writing.

3. What has been the publication journey for Pocket Money and Other Stories?

It's been a long and interesting journey. After finishing a fictionalised memoir about my father, I embarked on writing a new book, and stopped. I told myself that I should do something about the many short stories I had already written, which were languishing on my computer. I sent them to an editor to read and, while waiting for their return, began contacting the people needed to help me publish the collection. It was a great feeling working through each story again, and readying the collection for publication. I am grateful to all who have helped bring this work into the world.

4. You are currently working on a novel – how is it going?

I have written three long pieces of fiction and published one, The (almost) True Story of a Man Called Jack (2020). The latest novel is not moving quickly as I have been too busy getting the short story collection out. I do jot notes down when something pops into mind. I love writing and I now look forward to get the novel moving again.

5. What have you read lately?

Travelling with Djinns, by Jamal Mahjoub (2004). I was given it by a friend. I really like novels that dive into a person's make-up, the complexities of being human, or living outside your own culture. I learned so much about Sudan's history, divided loyalties involving the protagonist's parents and the culture, and a great deal about literature. Mahjoub's writing touched my senses, whether it was the setting, the people, the language – it was vibrant. Vibrancy is what I aim for in my own work.

Pocket Money and Other Stories, by Vivienne Lingard (Scorpio Books, $38), is out now.