The Sea Walks into a Wall
by Anne Kennedy
The sea walks into a wall – and therein lies a whole book full of tales, in different styles and formats, all of them engrossing and a joy to read. Kennedy takes us from her earlier years in Island Bay to the outer edges of Polynesia, back and forth through time and structure.
We start out in fresh water in Mānoa, Hawaii, about as far as you can get from New Zealand and still be in Polynesia. The stories in the first section look at ideas being considered as product, the commercialisation of thought, and the poet throws us right into it:
The problem is – and it’s a very big problem – there is an art school
at the fucking polytech.
The art school is in an old chip factory, it is loud, fun and shocking,
and history and memory,
...
The seven members of the polytechnic executive committee
with their various
chief executive academic provost professor business-partner headdresses
hear about the goings-on
at the art school – the entertainment, reflection, representation – and they are
filled with dread.
They are careful never to stray near the old chip factory
especially after dark.
(‘Light On in the Garden’ pp. 20, 21)
Warning: the ending is not a happy one.
The second section comes closer to hints on survival in a totally screwed world, including dealing with new improved bits of civilisation you neither want nor need. This story begins in the section ‘Action’, pulling us along subsequent pages with the refrain “You’d go down there and you’d.”
Island Bay has a new sea wall.
Old sea wall, new sea wall.
The sea used to love the wall.
Now it hates the wall, it hates
on it.
The sea crashes its glass onto the bar.
You watch from afar.
You’d take it all back if you could. Everything.
You’d go down there and you’d.
Island Bay has a new sea wall.
It’s the wall to end all walls.
(‘The Sea Walks into a Wall’, p 50)
‘Warp and Aho: A Part-life in Flax, for Eileen Te Aho’ is a truly magnificent talking tāniko, precisely spaced and presented, although interrupted periodically by rude colonial noises. Like other tāniko, its layout is a crucial part of the story, and although the poet makes it clear that “I will be quoting substantially from the harakeke”, you can see that “the conundrum holds everything in check” ... (p 71). You will need to read the whole story, stand back and admire it, then read it again.
This is a great collection of poems/ stories/ tidal events – a pleasure to have and to read.
by Anne Kennedy
The sea walks into a wall – and therein lies a whole book full of tales, in different styles and formats, all of them engrossing and a joy to read. Kennedy takes us from her earlier years in Island Bay to the outer edges of Polynesia, back and forth through time and structure.
We start out in fresh water in Mānoa, Hawaii, about as far as you can get from New Zealand and still be in Polynesia. The stories in the first section look at ideas being considered as product, the commercialisation of thought, and the poet throws us right into it:
The problem is – and it’s a very big problem – there is an art school
at the fucking polytech.
The art school is in an old chip factory, it is loud, fun and shocking,
and history and memory,
...
The seven members of the polytechnic executive committee
with their various
chief executive academic provost professor business-partner headdresses
hear about the goings-on
at the art school – the entertainment, reflection, representation – and they are
filled with dread.
They are careful never to stray near the old chip factory
especially after dark.
(‘Light On in the Garden’ pp. 20, 21)
Warning: the ending is not a happy one.
The second section comes closer to hints on survival in a totally screwed world, including dealing with new improved bits of civilisation you neither want nor need. This story begins in the section ‘Action’, pulling us along subsequent pages with the refrain “You’d go down there and you’d.”
Island Bay has a new sea wall.
Old sea wall, new sea wall.
The sea used to love the wall.
Now it hates the wall, it hates
on it.
The sea crashes its glass onto the bar.
You watch from afar.
You’d take it all back if you could. Everything.
You’d go down there and you’d.
Island Bay has a new sea wall.
It’s the wall to end all walls.
(‘The Sea Walks into a Wall’, p 50)
‘Warp and Aho: A Part-life in Flax, for Eileen Te Aho’ is a truly magnificent talking tāniko, precisely spaced and presented, although interrupted periodically by rude colonial noises. Like other tāniko, its layout is a crucial part of the story, and although the poet makes it clear that “I will be quoting substantially from the harakeke”, you can see that “the conundrum holds everything in check” ... (p 71). You will need to read the whole story, stand back and admire it, then read it again.
This is a great collection of poems/ stories/ tidal events – a pleasure to have and to read.
Review by Mary Cresswell
Title: The Sea Walks into a Wall
Author: Anne Kennedy
Publisher: Auckland University Press
ISBN: 978 1 86940 958 6
RRP: $24.99
Available: bookshops
Author: Anne Kennedy
Publisher: Auckland University Press
ISBN: 978 1 86940 958 6
RRP: $24.99
Available: bookshops
RSS Feed
