Thursday, May 08, 2008

:stripy sock photo of the week:

I’m very excited to bring you this week’s stripy sock photo of the week a) because it is a beauty and b) because it was taken by an accomplished photographer! Scoutj takes a good shot - there is a whole lot of beauty in her photo stream, but check out this beautiful boy who she shot for the amazing 100 Strangers Project. I love the idea of this project - if I wasn’t trying to write a poetry book, teach creative writing, raise two kids, grow food, make craft stuff to sell....I’d do this. I would.

I love this shot, too. Flower as weapon.

And this isn’t so much about the photography, but check out these fur-reaaky pancakes, apparently they are ‘Horton Hears a Who’ themed pancakes from the ‘International House of Pancakes’ restaurant. Woah - that’s a lot of blue food colouring.

Anyway, I digress - regarding this week’s stripy sock photo - I love this - it is atmospheric, moody, it asks questions. I love the blur, the colour.

It also reminds me of a friend I used to flat with, also called Helen. For a while we were “the two Helens” and she wore drain-pipe jeans and converse sneakers very much like the figure on the left (still does) and I wore interesting shoes and stripy socks (still do!) like the figure on the right.

I’d love this one on my wall, I reckon. Thanks so much, Scout, for letting me use it.

Hope you all have lovely weekends. I have a lot of work to do, but despite that I’m feeling pretty buoyant. Long may it last. 

:yoga buddy:

I try to do yoga first thing in the morning, before everyone else is up. Sometimes Willoughby wakes up and comes to do yoga with me. The main difference in our styles is that while I try to hold a pose for a few minutes - he holds them for a few seconds before racing ahead. He can do my 30 minute yoga sequence in about five. I enjoy his interest and am trying to quietly encourage it, without appearing so enthusiastic that it puts him off. (Have you noticed that with older children? If you get too fired up about something they are doing, they swiftly decide it isn’t interesting anymore.)

His favourite thing, though, is to do this pose - which he called his “try to kiss your own butt” pose.

And then to giggle uncharitably at my attempts to get my rickety old body in the same position. Not a chance. That thing they say about youth being wasted on the young. So true. 

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

:prehistoric bites:

Willoughby made these dinosaurs (with a little help from his papa.) Normally I find it easy to resist eating the baking we do, because it’s for the children, right? Pre-kids we didn’t bother baking much, except for special occassions - but these days, with two hungry kids - we tend to ‘fill the tins’ a la the childhood many of you may have had, but I didn’t. My mother didn’t bake. If we were hungry we were offered crackers or fruit. (Oh sob sob, my tormented childhood. No fresh baking! Wail!)

But, anyway, shortbread is hard to resist. Which is why we only make it a few times a year. Usually we make oat based things like anzacs, flapjacks, also hokey pokey biscuits and afghans and chocolate chip cookies.

Note to parents of children obsessed with dinosaurs - buy dinosaur cutters! They will eat anything - pastry, bread, scones, biscuits, crackers, healthy oat slice…

if it is in the shape of a dinosaur. Rowr!

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

:more on the book:

(Today’s image from a 1930s Wallpaper, from a book about Wallpaper in the C 20th.)

My copy of ‘Swings and Roundabouts’ (see yesterday’s post) arrived in the mail.  I’m very excited about this book. The production values are high, it has a lovely matte cover, black end papers, a black ribbon bookmark, the photos are great. Hell, I even like the fonts. (Yes, fonts are important to me.)

As well as not knowing about the photos, I also didn’t realise it is an international (though largely NZ) anthology. Consequently, I found my poem hanging out with the poems of Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney, Sharon Olds, and Louise Gluck. I know it is totally not cool to show that you are impressed/intimidated by things like this - but when have I ever been cool?? I’m not cool - I’m earnest, and geeky and find it hard to hide my emotions.

I am in an anthology with Sylvia Plath. Holy c**p.

To those of you who aren’t huge on poetry, this is the equivalent of being a big music fan for much of your adult life and then one day finding one of your own songs on a compilation CD with Elvis, John Lennon, Morrissey and PJ Harvey. Yeah, cue quiet freak out.

There are dozens of wonderful local poets in here, also: Lauris Edmond, Bill Manhire, Anna Jackson, Anne Kennedy and many many more.

It’s Mother’s day this weekend - this would make a lovely Mother’s day gift for any woman who enjoys poetry.

Thanks for sitting through my two days of rabbiting on about the book. And one more thing - there is an interview with Emma Neale about the book on the National Radio archives here.

Monday, May 05, 2008

:swings and roundabouts:

In my continued quest to get better at shameless self-promotion, I’m excited to tell you that on May 2nd ‘Swings and Roundabouts’ was released. This book was edited by wonderful Emma Neale and I was lucky enough to have one of my poems selected. I haven’t received my copy of the book yet, so I can’t comment too much on the other poems but I’m confident that under Emma’s editorship they will be of high quality. The surprise to me about the book is that apparently it is “beautifully illustrated with photos of babies and children” - the editors didn’t tell us that, and it is a nice surprise.

I’ll talk about the book a little more once I’ve seen it. There was also an interesting article in the Listener about Emma Neale’s new book, Spark and this anthology, and how motherhood has affected her. You can read that here, if you care to.

PS - if any NZers spot any reviews of the book in the coming weeks, can you let me know? Thanks, darlings.

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