Poetry Specials

Bronwyn Lloyd: Pania Press Archive (2006-2016)

Poetry Specials
2008-2018

1. (November 6, 2008) Minotaur. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2008)







2. ((November 23, 2008) Je donne à mon espoir. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2008)







3. (February 12, 2009) Volcanic Glass. Pottery by Len Castle (Napier: Mountain to the Sea Exhibition, 2008)







4. (December 25, 2009) Silhouette. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2009)







5. (January 18, 2011) Pale Star. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2011)







6. (October 9, 2011) Lounge Room Tribalism. Collage by Graham Fletcher. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2011)







7. (December 25, 2011) Britain’s Missing Top Model. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2011)







8. (July 13, 2012) Except Once. Painting by Kirsty Black. (Howick: Korero Exhibition, 2012).







9. (August 22, 2014) Jay Checks His Father into a Home. Design by Phantom Billstickers (Auckland Library: Poetry on Posters Programme, 2014)







10. (August 28, 2015) Ice Road Trucker. Design by Daniel Fyles (Ashhurst: Fyles Web Design, 2015)







11. (December 25, 2015) Antigone. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2015)







12. (December 25, 2016) 1942. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2016)







13. (August 25, 2017) Canberra Tales. Design by Dianne Firth (University of Canberra: Poetry and Place Exhibition, 2017)







14. (November 6, 2017) Rather a shock. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2017)







15. (December 25, 2017) Time for an outing. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2017)







16. (November 6, 2018) Malinche Dreams. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2018)







17. (November 6, 2022) Scurvy Grass. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland, 2022)







18. (November 14, 2024) Unpopular Mechanics. Room-sheet for Emma Smith's exhbition The Municipal Gardens (Auckland: the waiting room, 2024)







19. (November 14, 2024) BECN. Design by Roseanne Bartley, Love Letters and Other Correspondences (Melbourne: Press Print, 2024)

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Unpopular Mechanics (2024)

Emma Smith: Living with Caves (2024)

(5-6 October, 2024) Emma Smith: The Municipal Gardens. Auckland: The Waiting Room, 2024.

Unpopular Mechanics:
Crossing Auckland for Emma Smith

Relying on Kylie the GPS voice
to route us round the roadworks 
at the entrance we drove into 
the campus found a parking place 
no payment needed after 4 pm 
walked over to the exhibition space 
past the table of refreshments quite 
a spread wine fruit-juice grapes chips 
dips then into the high L-shaped 
room

     Emma was around the bend 
three paintings on one wall the 
other facing them grey roiling clouds 
a few brave emblems flapping in 
the wind like shards of Pharaoh’s 
army drowned in the Red Sea 
caught as a Renaissance painter might
if they wanted to display their 
dexterity

         then after a few words 
with Emma handing her a book 
for Will my erstwhile publisher we 
went out past the kids walked 
over to the car and drove 
off on our way back home 
two hours from go to woe 
on the way out I waited 
for the red light for right-turning 
traffic rather than the free left 
turn

(7-9/9/24)

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Emma Smith: Even though you have lost your horse, don't pursue it
[oil on canvas] (2011)

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Tin Grew: Emma Smith (2011)

BECN (2022)

Roseanne Bartley: Love Letters and Other Correspondences (2024)

(November 14, 2024) [with Bronwyn Lloyd] “U.” Love Letters and Other Correspondences: An Artist Curated Book by Roseanne Bartley. ISBN 978-0-646-89402-7. Melbourne: Press Print, 2024: 61.

U


Until recently, I was unaware that my husband Jack had been sampling from our conversations over a period of 101 days. These samplings were part of a low-stakes exercise designed to unblock his creative writing practice through the simple task of committing to writing one poem a day.

Jack presented me with the drafts of the 25 poems from the group that featured things I'd said or done, and reading them, I was struck by the "un"ness of some of my exchanges with him.

The unromantic way I threatened (in jest) to 'put him out to grass' if he continued to forget things, The unkindness of a remark (in jest) that I'd had enough of his shit and was leaving him. But the "un" that surprised me most related to several poems where I made comments about his softness, his unmanliness, culminating in the poem BECN about a gift I bought Jack last year:

BECN

Bronwyn gave me a necklace 
made by Renee Bevan 
for my birthday

or perhaps a necklet
If you think it’s unmanly 
you can wear it under your shirt

I thought it’d be bigger somehow
like dog-tags
a small lozenge made of silver

on the front it says
BE
on the back

CN
be seen?
beacon?

it seems to be saying
something about 
not hiding your light

under a bushel
quite fitting from the creator of
wearing the world like a pearl

I wear it with pride

(9/12/22-5/7/23)

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You see, Jack's "unmanliness" is the thing I love about him the mmost, from the moment I first saw him cross the floor of the wharenui at Te Rau Aroha Marae wearing his striped winceyette pyjamas, buttoned to the throat.

May his unmanliness continue to shine like beacon our whole lives through.

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Renee Bevan: The World is a Giant Pearl
[Photograph: Caryline Boreham]

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Roseanne Bartley: Radiant Pavilion (2024)

Scurvy Grass (2022)

Scurvy Grass (2022)

(November 6, 2022) Scurvy Grass. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland, 2022)

Scurvy Grass

(for Bronwyn)

The other place I landed at was the north point of the Bay 
where I got as much Sellery and Scurvy grass as loaded the Boat
– Captain James Cook (27/10/69)


It’s quite a ways from Napier
over the worst of roads 

but a trip to Tolaga Bay
must have seemed something 

for kids who’d never been there
on arrival at the campground 

Dad went out
there may not be much

but there is a pub
hours later he came back

with two velvet paintings 
he’d blued all their money on

we stopped there a year or so ago 
on a road trip around East Cape

the immense beach choked with driftwood 
the epic wooden pier

there were organised walks 
we didn’t join in

a lack of seabird habitats 
is blamed for the decline 

in this native plant
the rich environments they need 

no longer plentiful enough


(6/2-22/7/21)

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Lepidium oleraceum
[Scurvy Grass]

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Malinche Dreams (2018)

Malinche Dreams (2018)

(November 6, 2018) Malinche Dreams. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2018)

Malinche Dreams

Feet splayed 

apart
   lightning strikes 
      at
   the Earth Mother 
she awakes 

bedspread
   turned back
      on its axis 
   arches
bridges

clouds 
   fall
      into creases 
   something
breaking through

the sky 
   is overhead 
      no roof to it 
   Malinche dreams 
of Cortés’ son’s

return

(6/7-19/10/17)

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Antonio Ruíz: El sueño de la Malinche
[Malinche's Dream] (1939)

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Time for an outing (2017)

Time for an outing (2017)

(December 25, 2017) Time for an outing. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2017)

Time for an outing

for the boys
to monkey island
by way of the sea

of pillow cases
wooden junks
plying their trade

between the great birds
of the mainland
and the tiny

animalculae
so sedulously collected
from Browns Bay market

until the Gran
who knitted up
their pipe-cleaner bodies

each brandishing
a banana
above the head

to their lips
held out to make
a point

collapsed in harness
leaving the owls
and caterpillars to mourn

(23/1/16-19/10/17)

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Rather a shock (2017)

Rather a shock (2017)

(November 6, 2017) Rather a shock. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd (Auckland: Pania Press, 2017)

Rather a shock

i.m. Alan Rickman (1947-2016)


to think it’s been 25 years since
Truly Madly Deeply
1991

my sister died
or rather
killed herself

so hungry ghosts
seemed documentary realism
to me

living by Lake Pupuke 
with its gigantic eels
and those students next door

who had to pump up the stereo
to psych themselves
into going out

every evening
1991
an unhappy time

as Rickman said
roles win Oscars
actors don’t 

that swing inscribed for 
Alice who used to play here
that makes the other parents

hold onto their kids
so tight
as if death were another infection

they might pick up

(15/1/16-7/5/17)

Bronwyn Lloyd: Jack's Birthday Book. Mosehouse Studio (5/11/17)

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Canberra Tales (2017)

Dianne Firth: Canberra Tales (2017)


Canberra Tales

Dianne Firth's 2017 art exhibition 'Poetry and Place' consisted of a series of textile works inspired by poems commissioned from 14 Australian and International poets who attended the 2016 Poetry in Motion Festival at the University of Canberra. The poem printed below was my contribution to the show. As you can see from the image above, Dianne's four works (like the four parts of my poem) form an interconnected whole.

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1942

The picture is sepia-toned
like the not-too-far-distant war

the need to stay silent at mealtimes
so her father can hear

every radio news report
the need to pose paramount

in the stiff lines of this schoolgirl
reaching out a tentative hand

to the strangest of beasts
in the latter stages of dementia

my father removed her photos
replacing them with snaps

of his militaria
I don’t think she understands

what we see in this picture
the meekness before authority

the gentleness of the pose
the dark fringe of trees

in a faraway world
where my mother

has just been told
to pretend to feed

a wallaby

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1948

My father and my grandmother
crossed the Tasman

in a flying boat
for my uncle’s graduation

from Duntroon
they took off from Mechanics Bay

my father said of Canberra
there was only tenuously

a city there
even by Auckland standards

a building
trees and fields

far off
another building

like Brasilia

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1984

They held a faculty reception
at ANU

for the visiting professor
Frank Kermode

said my buddy Claire
and somehow she

got seated next to him
she asked

d’you see that mountain over there?
he allowed he did

I just ran up and down it seven times
really? why?

to become iron woman!
bemused look

no doubt a story for
High Table

back in the real world

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2016

Somebody snaffled my cab
that first morning

at the Premier Hotel
I’d rung up to order it

half an hour before
But after sitting stumm

in the lounge
I just had to ask

it’s coming any moment now
said the man on the desk

(hastily ordering it)
but when it did turn up

the cab-driver wouldn’t let me in
it was reserved for Paul

he said
(who turned out to be 

the guy on the desk)
he’d got into trouble that way before

at one of the bigger hotels
two punters

both with the number seven
that one turned quite nasty

he said


[24-25/3; 16-17/9-4/12/16]

“Canberra Tales.” In Dianne Firth, Poetry and Place: Catalogue for the Poetry and Place Exhibition, Belconnen Art Centre, 25 August – 17 September 2017. ISBN 978-1-74088-460-0. Canberra: University of Canberra, 2017: 10.

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