11 April 2011

Tuesday Poem: 'Milk for Money' by Emma Barnes, and all the other Best NZ Poems 2010

I'm not going to actually repost this poem, which was included in Best New Zealand Poems 2010, as selected by Chris Price, rather I simply direct you it there: http://www.nzetc.org/iiml/bestnzpoems/BNZP10/t1-g1-t3-body-d1.html.

'Milk for Money' is one of the longer poems I've ever seen of Emma's, and it uses the length to tell a lifetime, or rather several lifetimes. I love its shifty, mythic use of time. As well as time, it bends gender, it bends language. It's full of love, it's full of loss, it's full of colour.

I was delighted to see that so many of my friends and acquaintances have poems in this latest selection of Best New Zealand Poems (and there are others I'd definitely have included, if it were my selection, which it obviously wasn't). Congratulations to you all! Check them out: http://www.nzetc.org/iiml/bestnzpoems/BNZP10/contents.html.

Also, it was the Tuesday Poem's first birthday last week, and to celebrate we collectively wrote a poem, exquisite-corpse style. And now it's done, and you can check it out on the blog: http://www.tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com/. I wrote my bit on Friday afternoon, and found I was really nervous about it beforehand - I'm not much of a collaborative writer, and I tend to keep my work away from prying eyes until I'm sure I'm ready to release it into the world. But actually, it was really fun.

As always, for more Tuesday Poems, check out the sidebar on the blog.

1 comment:

Harvey Molloy said...

Emma has such a striking, original voice. Great poem.