R E V E R S E
Re-verse I N T R O D U C E D BY C H R I S T S E
About the poet: Mary Macpherson is a Wellington photographer and poet. Her photography has been widely exhibited and is represented in many national collections, including Te Papa and the Dowse Art Museum. Her poetry books include The Inland Eye (1998) and Millionaire’s Shortbread (2003), a joint collection authored with fellow Wellington poets Mary-Jane Duffy, Mary Cresswell, and Kerry Hines.
NEW ZEALAND H O L I DAY The weather blew through us. Wind and rain driving through bones as we strained to pull the cart of belief. The forest was dirty, sullen. You looked for the slash of a road sign to reel us in. I believed in a beach that stretched further than thought but held fast as water flew from our wheels. We spoke as if speaking would rope us to our intentions – intended more by me but negotiated silently between us like sniffing animals. I thought of being told New Zealand photography was more about place, Australian, more ephemeral. It was like seeing myself as a child hot and blinking in front of a hedge. Moments on either side falling like sheer cliffs. Was that still me, in spite of the journeys and grown-up body? When the car rocked, our hearts skipped, being there with toetoe, a gravel-edged ditch, shrouded mānuka.
In brief: As we all know, summer holidays in New Zealand aren’t always so picturesque, thanks to a pesky thing called the weather. Mary’s poem, taken from her recently published collection Social Media, is a memory of one such holiday, depicting a family trip that is more rainsoaked than sunsoaked. As well as the literal scene of a family persevering through unideal conditions, the poem alludes to a more figurative journey, contrasting childhood experience with adult reflection. Appropriately for a poem set on a road trip, there’s a lot of motion – the weather, water flying from under the car’s wheels, hearts skipping – which puts the reader right in the middle of the action. Why I like it: A lot of Mary’s photography explores natural and urban environments and how we interact with, and are affected by, them. These ideas can also be found in her poetry. Unsurprisingly, Mary’s career as a photographer lends this poem (and others in Social Media) a very visual quality, conjuring scenes using carefully selected details and words to convey tone and atmosphere. It’s a poem that triggers some very specific sensory memories while also leaving the reader with plenty to contemplate.
By Mary Macpherson, from Social Media (The Cuba Press, 2019)
Best quotable line: Driving around New Zealand is a breathtaking reminder of how much open space there is in this country, especially if you haven’t left the city for a while. That’s why I love the line ‘I believed / in a beach that stretched further than thought’. It encapsulates how our imagination, and to some extent our holiday snaps, can’t contain the vastness of our landscape. The fields, the sky, the water – everything just seems bigger in real life.
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