Seen in ŌTAUTAHI - a photo essay of a book launch

LAUNCH - anthology (n.) a collection of flowers - 25 July 2024

Gail Ingram's third poetry collection. Taonga pūoro. Three guest poets. Launch speech by Erik Kennedy. Native flowers, aroha and toi tangata fill Tūranga.

It's on!

'white flowers bristle

from my iron heart'

– from "13 lines for the last 13 flowers" anthology (n.) a collection of flowers

Geoff Lowe's collection of Taonga pūrora

musical treasures, waiting to make poetry music.

'the power inside her the bud opening and she is ready'

— from "Blooming"

Supper

green and red themed for my favourite flower, rātā.

I named my daughter 'Rata' after this South Island tree and stunning delicate red blooms!

TSB Space Tūranga

filled with poets, flash-fiction writers, readers, librarians, ecologists, botanists, rangatahi, students, musicians, mathematicians, friends and whānau from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland to Ōtepoti Dunedin 🌺

A big shout out to Lyn Malakou, outreach programmes at Tūranga for all her help to make it happen.

Native flower cookies!

Mt Cook Lily

New Zealand forget-me-not

Kānuka

Mānuka

Mountain foxglove

"The throat of the flower

has a yellow patch

from which she sings

of shelter and sun"

— from "Choir flowers"

Tables

decorated with tin-vases covered with the endpapers from anthology (n.) a collection of flowers and fillled with native flowers from our garden ... and don't forget the plate of flower bikkies.

Pūkeko Publications publisher extraordinaire Karen Zelas welcomes us.

It is Pūkeko Publications tenth year of bringing the books of emerging Canterbury poets to light. What an extraordinary woman Karen is, a stand-alone publisher, poet and novelist in her own right.

Pūkeko Publications.

"and I want to learn

how to bear this

joy."

— from "On my speck, Horton"

Erik Kennedy

celebrated Ōtautahi poet, launches anthology (n.) a collection of flowers with his extraordinary launch speech. Erik is an editor and an academic and because of this, I felt both humbled and blown away by his words about anthology (n.) a collection of flowers. Some quotes from the speech follow:

'... this book is a tour-de-force of poetic ambition, applied botanical knowledge, and imaginative symbology.'

'Gail has combed seemingly every inch of soil in the South Island—every hillside and wetland and verge and underside of a boulder—in her search for plant specimens to press between the waxed paper of her mind. She has thoroughly investigated, taxonomised, and made a poetic whakapapa for every local living thing that eats sunlight and has a root system. There is genuine mastery here.'

'The etymology of anthology (n.) is, indeed, a collection of flowers. But this book is a mere ‘collection of flowers’ in the way that a tragedy is just a ‘goat song’. (Which is the literal etymology of that word.) No, much of the important work that anthology (n.) does is in the realm of storytelling, cultural criticism, and love lyric.'

'The book’s gorgeous layout and profusion of illustrations make you think of herbariums and planting calendars, but the second you start reading you get sucked into Gail’s world of psychodrama and intrigue. anthology (n.) is garden in the front and party in the back. It is more daring than an unwitting reader will expect. I say ‘an unwitting reader’ because Gail’s achievement in this book shouldn’t be a surprise to readers of her two previous books—especially Some Bird, which also sometimes took nature as a matrix on which to build her meanings.'

— Erik Kennedy

Erik also writes and performs a "Gail-style" poem about Tī Kōuka, the cabbage tree. It was really strange to hear a poem written after my own voice, like a weird reflection in the mirror, but what a wonderful gift too to hear that attention to language and give it back.

Here's what my Tī Kōuka poem looks like in response to Erik's!

The mountain and river at the top of each page are representations of the place where I took the photo of the plant on each page. Also in that top border is a little info about each plant - its te reo, common English and scientific name and a small description.

Joanna Preston

treasured Ōtautahi poet, teacher, NZ Ockham Book Award winner, reads “Diptych for the Canterbury Knobbled Weevil” – the weevil, of course, has a love affair with the wicked Spaniard (the golden taramea pictured) – and found in the NZ Alps, naturally. Joanna is one of my mentors and teachers, she is funny and smart, and I have learned so much from her.

Rata Ingram

How lucky am I to have a daughter who brings her love of mathematics into poetry. The rhyme scheme for the first poem Rata performed followed a mathematical formula to show fractal geometry in plant growth. It's a stunning poem, and some poets in the audience might have been nodding out to the rhyme scheme as she read. But not only did Rata read at my launch, she designed and illustrated the cover, gave thoughtful feedback on my poems, and brilliant advice on the design. It was her idea to make the mountain forms in the header represent the actual mountains the flower photographs were taken. Man, that was a lot of extra work but too good an idea to ignore! As I said, how lucky am I?!

'seed child bathed in my blood,

my cotyldon heart opening'

– from "Daughter" anthology (n.) a collection of flowers

GEOFF LOWE (musician) & GAIL INGRAM (poet)

Time to begin. Geoff Lowe, a talented musician of many decades introduced me to his taonga pūoro made of bone, stone and wood, the most beautiful, eerie and natural accompaniment to my poems I could have dreamed of. He plays the pūtōrino, kōauau, tumutumu and porotiti while I read a selection of poems from anthology (n.) a collection of flowers. We had a few practice sessions at Geoff's place, and one in Tūranga the day before. Hikatea, his partner, was a friend of mine from long-ago days in South Island Writers' Association (SIWA). She helped me with my te reo pronunciation - so grateful to both these mana Māori. Needless to say, the performance whooshed by so quickly and I was soon wishing the seed to be flying off safely (and everyone) – he waimarie tēnei mo tātou! – in the final poem of the set "A karakia for your journey, Korokio".

Books for sale! (And the whole print run had sold out a week after the launch. New books ordered and you can buy here!)

If you bought a book at the launch, you could take home a bag of flower lollies!

Book signings. Writing friends are the best. Nod not only bought my book but she brought me a flower garland to wear in my hair at the after party.

Selfies in the flower arch - here's my awesome book group in their red and green gowns 💃 📕

Mick made the arch and I decorated it with natives from our garden. Boy, what a mission to get into the library, then up the lift into the TSB Space, but we did it!

Aroha mai to my natural mum and dad came all the way from Blenheim and Auckland respectively. There was rough stuff going on in my life in the background over this time and they made such a difference to me by being here.