Weekly Highlight: Emma Barnes

Landslide

I am her reflection, she is my reflection.
I was a tiny girl, held between two fingers.

I rolled out sheet music for automatic pianos,
through the holes pricked grass, through my

fingers the ridges slid. The air pushed me down,
the ground came up, she, she, she, was a whis-

perer. Later, a larger girl, I swallowed the
paper, piece, by body, by piece and she lifted

me with her hands, her rough hands, and she sang
out loud. I realised in this instant that I had al-

ways been here with her. Right from the start
when I popped out of the oven, just like this

*

Erdrutsch

Ich bin ihr Spiegelbild, sie ist mein Spiegelbild.
Ich war ein kleines Mädchen, gehalten zwischen zwei Fingern.

Ich entrollte die Lochstreifen für die Pianolas
durch die Löcher pikte Gras, durch meine

Finger glitten die Kanten. Die Luft drückte mich nach unten,
der Boden kam hoch, sie, sie, sie, war ein Flüst-

terer. Später, als größeres Mädchen, schluckte ich das
Papier, Stück, per Körper, per Stück und sie hob

mich mit ihren Händen, ihren rauen Händen, und sang
laut auf. Ich begriff in diesem Augenblick, dass ich im-

mer mit ihr hier gewesen war. Von Anfang an,
als ich aus dem Ofen heraus kam, einfach so

*

“Landslide” was first published in Turbine, A New Zealand Journal of New Writing.Translation into German by Dorothee Lang.

Emma Barnes is a poet from Christchurch and currently lives and writes in Aro Valley, Wellington. She’s released three editions of her magazine Enamel and is trying to understand what a book of poetry is so maybe she can write one. She has had poetry published in quite a few places including JAAM, Landfall, Catalyst and Best New Zealand Poems: “Passive Aggressive Letter to a John” in 2008 and “Milk For Money” in 2010. If you’re in Christchurch you can come see her read at the launch of Catalyst 9 on Tuesday the 7th of February.

 

Weekly Highlight: Marcus Speh

The Families

Auckland, New Zealand. — The two Art Deco houses stood in a valley on Tuarangi Road next to one another, in view of the highway leading downtown. Strangely enough, one could not hear the cars near the houses. Two families of artists lived in these buildings, which were too small for their perennially expanding minds, but were loved for their almost human daintiness. Their backyards were swampy despite the occupants’ earnest attempts at draining the land. The artists’ sculptures rested on the wet grass. Whenever a new sculpture appeared like a big friendly giant, the children were the first to claim it by climbing all over it, unsupervised except by the huge eucalyptus trees by the side of the road, which curiously peeked over the fence.

*

Die Familien

Auckland, Neuseeland. — Die beiden Art Deco Häuser standen in einem Tal in Tuarangi Road nebeneinander, sichtbar von der Autobahn, die in die Stadt führte. Merkwürdigerweise konnte niemand in der Nähe der Häuser die Autos hören. Zwei Künstlerfamilien lebten in diesen Gebäuden, die für ihren endlos sich erweiternden Verstand zu klein schienen, die aber von ihnen für eine beinahe menschlich zu nennende Anmut geliebt wurden. Die Gärten hinter den Häusern blieben trotz der ernsten Anstrengungen der Bewohner, das Land trockenzulegen, Sumpfwiesen. Die Bildhauerarbeiten der Künstler standen im nassen Gras. Wenn eine neue Skulptur dort erschien wie ein großer, freundlicher Riese, nahmen die Kinder sie als erste in Beschlag, indem sie darauf herumkletterten, unüberwacht außer durch die hünenhaften Eukalyptus-Bäume am Straßenrand, die neugierig über den Zaun spähten.

*

“The Families” was first published in Blue Print Review issue 24 “micro cosmos”; published also as part of a flash fiction cycle in the Metazen Christmas Ebook 2010.

Author’s note: “The situation described is based on our actual situation when we lived in New Zealand in 2002, next door to a couple who were friends and had a daughter same age as ours. The wife was of Maori descent. There was constant crossing: between their culture and ours; across the fence; between our kids; between our art and theirs. The magical trees were the smallest surprise. We felt very welcome and loved down there in the valley in Grey Lynn, and we broke hearts, ours too, when we returned to Europe.”

*

Marcus Speh is a German writer who lived and taught in New Zealand in 2002. He made friends for life and wrote his first novel there. His short fiction has been published in elimae, Mad Hatter’s Review, kill author, PANK and elsewhere. First published in 2009 at Metazen, he’s been nominated for a Micro Award, two Pushcart Prizes, two Best of the Net awards and two Million Writers Awards, and was longlisted for the Paris Literary Prize. Marcus now lives in Berlin with his family, many wonderful New Zealand memories, and writes sitting at a Kauri desk. He blogs at marcusspeh.com and posts German translation of his prose at krautflash.tumblr.com.

Weekly Highlight: Tim Jones

The Translator

Shutting out the torment and the fear
deep into the night’s cold morning hours
I work on my translation.

Improbable, that in another tongue
such lines as these were born,
set down, are vivid on his page

and will not come across to mine.
Two ways to go: the forced rhyme
the flaccid filling phrase

or terse, unrhymed,
trying to capture the meaning
as if that could ever be known.

But something does translate —
a voice from bleak immensities
perfect for nights like these:

the wind’s forgotten murmur,
the war that beggars language
speaking the creole of slaughter.

“The Translator” was first published in New Zealand Books (December 2004), included in Best New Zealand Poems 2004, and then collected in Tim Jones’s second collection, All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens.

Tim Jones is a poet and author of both science fiction and literary fiction who was awarded the NZSA Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature in 2010. He lives in Wellington. His third poetry collection, Men Briefly Explained, was published in late 2011. Among his other recent books are fantasy novel Anarya’s Secret (RedBrick, 2007), short story collection Transported (Vintage, 2008), and poetry anthology Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand (Interactive Press, 2009), co-edited with Mark Pirie. Voyagers won the “Best Collected Work” category in the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Awards.  For more, see: Tim’s Amazon author page and his blog.