Emma Smith: Deadmans Block (2026)(18 April, 2026) Emma Smith: Deadmans Block. Auckland: New Lynn Community Centre, 2026.
Reading Cold Mountain
in interesting times
for Emma Smith
Cold Mountain: there’s no through trail – Gary Snyder I The little dog’s better he’s with the monks now Bronwyn assumed I’d remember she told me that the Buddhists walking across the States to raise awareness had sent off their dog to get his leg fixed he’s glad to be back he wagged his tail II This morning John sent me a link to a doco about Cold Mountain Han Shan a poet who lived 1000 years ago he may have been Taoist or Buddhist but was really just a crazy old man who scribbled poems on rocks as the old lady said he faded into the walls of his cave III In Hoffmann’s Mines of Falun a sailor gives up the sea after coming back from a voyage to find his mother dead the old man who lures him to work underground is a ghost or a demon or something like that they both end up petrified in veins of ore IV Cold Mountain this hermit who gave up on life to clamber up here had nothing to teach if you’ve nothing to learn there are statues of him and his buddies they’re ugly and red Red Pine laughed when he saw them the filmmaker asked him why because he would have laughed however he looked
(24-26/1/2026)


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