Scott Hamilton and Brett Cross enjoying the Bill Direen gig at the Wine Cellar 29 June '07. Read more about that gig on Scott's blog here View from Mt Eden before the gig on Monday
Scott and Michael Steven larking about at the 'What's in Your backyard?' event last night (2 July) . It was an evening of poetry, performance and music - brought to us by Powertool Records (they produce Bill Direen's music) and Titus Books (they bring us Bill's writing, along with many other talented writers).

It was a cold Auckland night but about 80 of us braved the weather and came down to the Kings Arms to hear cutting edge NZ poets perform. It was also a chance to hear the legendary Bill Direen play (a rare treat for Aucklanders as he spends most of his time in Paris with the odd stint in Dunedin).

The fire was blazing in the pub and everyone was in a relaxed mood - the evening had the feeling of a group of friends hanging around the fire, jamming and sharing ideas and poetry. Looking at all the faces during the evening I saw how happy people were to be part of such a refreshingly original event.

Moments from the event that stand out for me are:
1) Michael Steven reading his Cesar Vallejo translations:

Sacred Defoliation Moon!

Crown of an immense head,
that loses its golden leaves in shadow!
Red crown of a Jesus that thinks
tragically of sweet emeralds!

Moon! Wild celestial heart
is it for you I row, inside a goblet
filled with blue wine, toward the west
away from a stern and powerful beating?

Moon! And to fly by force of vanity,
dispersing opal holocausts,
you have entered my gypsy heart
to walk in my weeping blue verses!..

2) Scott Hamilton's 'Ode to Auckland', backed by Bill Direen and Brett Cross, was a noisy but lyrical bash and was a crowd favourite (Chris Knox couldn't wipe the smile off his face and seemed to enjoy it).

Ode to Auckland

The city wall’s condition varies. In some places it stands twenty feet high, and sprouts concrete watchtowers like sea monsters’ heads. In other places it is three strands of rusty wire, supported by warped and splintering puriri posts. In still other places one finds piles of scoria bricks of an irregular shape and size, padded by lichen and moss. The wall is punctuated by gateways at Orewa, in the north, and Mercer, in the south. The gates are never opened, because barbarians camp outside them, in fighting units of indeterminate size. In the evenings smoke from the barbarians’ campfires and the scent of their roasted opossums can be detected in Silverdale and Pukekohe. The barbarians are as necessary as the wall. The barbarians are part of the wall. Though their muskets have rusted and their hostages have expired, the fearsome reputation they won long ago deters more well-equipped and motivated armies from approaching the city.

but now it is time
and the microbes swarm
like stars in a midsummer sky

The city’s law is impartial. Rich and poor alike are strictly forbidden to sleep under bridges, or beg for bread. Young and old alike are strictly forbidden to drag race down Queen Street, or enter nightclubs without ID. Men and women alike are strictly forbidden to breastfeed in public, or buy gin while pregnant. Healthy and sick alike are strictly forbidden to sneeze in cafeterias, or cough blood on city streets. The law is impartial. Wells may on occasion be poisoned, but the city’s fountains must be kept clean. The law must be defended like a wall.

but now it is time
and the secret policeman advances
stooping to pick up butts

The city’s one hundred and eleven registered poets have three common tasks. They must make young women cry at weddings, make young men shout before football games, and prepare the elderly for dignified deaths. To these ends, each poet is supplied with certain meters and rhymes. In lines for young men, the spondaic beat of the agitated heart is preferred. Anapests are deployed at altars and in geriatric wards. Rhyme is encouraged, but it is forbidden to couple manoeuvre with manhole cover, or blackbird with blackbird. Occasionally a poet goes mad and runs deep into the eleven hectares of wilderness at the park, where he carves winking eyes on the puriri trunks. On returning, he is asked to write a self-criticism in perfect blank verse.

but now it is time
and the insurance salesman advances
with sherry on his breath

The park covers one and a half square kilometres, and includes eleven hectares of wilderness. At the entrance to the wilderness you pause to watch two park rangers fitting a plastic cord and a label written in Latin around a puriri trunk. You remember the morgue two blocks away, tags tied around the blue ankles of tramps and junkies. You have come to the park to admire the city’s protected bird. The bird’s importance has been noted in several volumes of local poetry. You look up, and listen carefully. According to one of the city's poets, the bird’s song consists of a single repeated note, which can be heard at a distance of two kilometres. Up close, the bird's song is reputed to sound like a hammer beating an anvil. You hear a sudden shrill squeal, and look down to see the bird swooping low and shitting on a grateful ranger.

but now it is time
and all the heroes enlist
in a train station’s rush hour crowd

Above the city, the moon goes about in his white coat, like a doctor walking his wards. Sometimes clouds are rolled in front of him, like the stained curtains that separate beds. After every night shift you park, turn off your engine, and listen to the same waves breaking jellyfish and condoms on Bastion Reef. The moon stares back.

but now it is time
and the billboard shouts
in a language you’re afraid to learn

The city’s first governor established extensive grounds around his mansion, but his successors have had little interest in gardening, and today environmental groups lobby to have the whole site turned into a wilderness reserve. Geese fly low, in formations of six or eight, under the radar, over the scummed surfaces of the four rectangular ponds. A silver-gray epiphyte wraps itself around an ageing oak, like an undercover policeman embracing a heckler in the mansion’s banquet hall. Blackberry bushes grow like barbed wire around a memorial to the war dead.

but now it is time
and the pill is placed in your hand
like a coin worn smooth

The city’s public hospitals were long ago consolidated into one super-facility, whose surgeons are noted for their technical brilliance. A middle-aged woman is raised from the underground waiting room, where she has been shaven and sedated. The operation lasts for seven hours, until the chief surgeon holds a blood-coloured cyst aloft and punches his other fist in the air, before accepting the handshakes of his colleagues. The patient expired four hours into the operation. The cyst will be bottled and handed to her family.

but now it is time
and the hated face congeals
into a blissful smile

Now and then a group of citizens assembles in the city’s central square, in the place of the clowns, jugglers, and karaoke singers who are normally gifted to the space. It is sometimes possible, in the interval between the expulsion of the city’s entertainment corps and the arrival of the police, for a particular citizen to make one or two statements from the stage that occupies the middle of the square. Along the edges of the space, statues of previous governors study his countenance, his gestures. When the police and protesters wrestle, they knock each statue off its flimsy plaster base, so that the city fathers appear to be prostrating themselves.

but now it is time
and the microbes swarm
like stars in a midsummer sky

now it is time
and the hated face congeals
into a blissful smile

3) Bill Direen - so much of what he did touched and inspired me. He started the evening by singing a French revolutionary song and his version of Carickfergus brought a tear to my eye. He jammed with friends including Brett Cross and Chris Knox (we all smiled and enjoyed Chris and Bill improvising together and singing children's ditties).

I found it interesting when Bill put his own poetry to music and that of WH Auden as well. Bill's enthusiatic guitar playing saw him break a few strings but he still managed to perform 'America' amazingly - 'Alligator' also got everyone going. Absolutely wonderful Bill - you are a true artist and your voice has such a great range and tone - magnifique!If you want to buy Bill's Cds you can get them through Powertool Records

Read some of Auckland's best writers including Jack Ross, Olwyn Stewart, Bill Direen, Scott Hamilton, David Lyndon Brown, Olivia Macassey, Will Christie, Richard Taylor- you can buy them through Titus Books