Oct 15, 2011

Mark Pirie - Author Interview: Poet

What kinds of poetry, including songs, did you experience as a child and teenager, and did you have some favourites?

As a boy, I oftenheard songs in primary school and listened to rhyming stories read to us in books. Songs like “Puff the Magic Dragon” and nursery rhymes like “Humpty Dumpty” stuck in the head.

I read mainly fiction myself such as Mark Twain, Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, AA Milne, Lewis Carroll, etc or else I read comics (Tintin, Asterix) and collected the Commando and Marvel comics.

From about 11 I started listening to pop charts as my older sister played records in the next bedroom (Michael Jackson, Duran Duran). My interest in songs and pop culture developed from then on.

Would you say your childhood and teenage experience of poetry has had a distinct influence on how you write poetry now, and why?

Most of the songs I heard in childhood and teenage years were in rhyming forms as lyrics.

I didn’t start writing poetry myself till about 16 or 17 and I was using rhyme in the style of rap. So I mostly wrote lyrics down to be set to music.

I would say the musical element of hearing songs along with the dramatic aspects of musical performance have had a profound effect on what I write today, but I no longer use rhyme the whole time. I write a wide range of poetry and seldom set out with a defined form. I tend to leave the words open to the form. The form arrives as I write the words.

Who is another poet whose poetry you admire and why?

I’d say poets rather than a poet. Other poets I admire would be a list far too long for this interview. There are literally hundreds and I enjoy reading all kinds of poetry. I have recently been co-organising the Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa (poetryarchivenz.wordpress.com), an all-inclusive project to archive New Zealand poetry back to the 19th century. You can only do this kind of work without prejudice as to what you encounter. I’m continually surprised by what I discover. There are so many poets writing well. I’m sure it’s the same in every country.

As an editor, I’m seen as a generous friend to poets, not really favouring one particular style. It’s the same with my very wide reading and appreciation of poets and poetry.

How would you summarise one of your poems in one paragraph?

I think it was Robert Frost who said: ‘Poetry is what is lost in translation.’ So I don't tend to summarise my poems. However, I’ll have a go for the purposes of the interview.

A poem I wrote called ‘The Pavilion’ has been published a number of times and uses cricket as its metaphor and yet it is not entirely about cricket but life in general.

The poem opens by talking its way through incidents on a cricket field and ends by drawing these incidents together as like a person’s life. In cricket you have bad days and good days, successes and failures, and so to with life. Sometimes we are all ‘stuck in the pavilion’ awaiting better times.

How would you describe the appeal of this poem to readers?

It’s difficult to know the appeal to the reader. I often read reviews and find interesting angles into my poems that I hadn’t thought of myself or find criticisms of the content that were unintended in the writing of the poem.

It’s always surprising how people from all walks of life can react to poems and yet it is commonly said that there is not much public interest in poetry.

‘The Pavilion’ would appeal to cricket nuts and sport followers more so than a reader who doesn’t know the game well. I guess you could say it’s aimed at a particular audience. I expect it to appeal to the cricket fraternity and those who know a bit about the game.

Could you share a stanza or small section of this poem?

Everyone likes to take
their chances: the dipping
catch at mid-on

grasped by urgent finger-tips,
or the unbeaten 50 that
has the opposition packing

early. Or the swinging ball
that sends the stumps
cartwheeling into the air.

How would you describe the contribution this stanza or small section makes to the poem?

As stated above these opening three stanzas record incidents on the cricket field that most cricketers would’ve experienced. It sets the scene for the concluding stanzas that give the poem more depth and meaning on another level: a person’s life. It ends:

But, as with cricket,
as with life, there’s times
when things inevitably turn,

and even the best of us
spends their time stuck in the pavilion.

Would you describe your poetry primarily as narrative, thematic, character portrait, or how would you describe your poetry?

My poetry takes on many forms: song lyrics, dramatic monologues, biographical summaries, satires and parodies, minimalist poems, epigrams, triolets, ballads, lyric poems, narrative sequences, elegies, and more ‘open form’ structures.

I would say though that critics have often detected a strong satirical element in my work as being consistent throughout. So I think humour is often a mainstay in my writing.

The other mainstays are poignancy and empathy in my more serious poems written in memory of other people.

Do you read your poetry aloud to people? If so, how would you describe the size and response of your listening audiences?

I have done many readings and performances over the years.

The size of the audiences and the response differ. Sometimes you turn up to a literary festival and find only 20-30 people there and other times you can find a packed room with 200 people.

I would say that when I read I tend to pick the more accessible work that I think goes down well with an audience. Usually these poems can be dramatic monologues and droll, funny satires. I don’t like to bore people.

I tend to be lively in my performance to keep people entertained and laughing with me. My performances are similar to cabaret in some respects. Occasionally I have worn costumes for further humourous effect.

Do you write groups of poems to form collections? If so, how were the poems connected in your most recent collection?

Sometimes I write groups of poems to form a collection. Mostly I write whatever inspires me at the time, and later on poems find their way into a collection.

In 2008, I put out the first collection of New Zealand cricket poems: Slips. The poems (written over 4 or 5 years) eventually found themselves collected by the theme of cricket.

My most recent collection is a book of epigrams called Thinking Cap (published this year in the Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop Mini Series, No. 27). I wrote the book over a period of two years.

When I collected them, I divided them by themes such as “Film/TV”, “Sport”, “Love”, “Public”, “General” and “Music”. It’s nice to organize the work by themes, but some of my collections are randomly put together with no sections to them like No Joke (2001) and Reading the Will (2002).

My first book Shoot (1999) also had a thematic connection to the poems: cinema. Another book Dumber (2003) had an underlying theme attacking the “dumbing-down of society”.

I do enjoy working around thematic links much like a band making a ‘concept album’.

Author website: www.markpirie.com

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