Join us to celebrate the launch of Luminescent by Nina Powles, an amazing new collection/box set of five chapbooks by one of the most exciting young voices in New Zealand poetry. 

There will be poetry readings by Nina Powles, Sarah Webster and Louise Wrightson, and Luminescent will be launched by Cliff Fell.

Thursday 17 August 2017, 6.00 pm
Ekor Bookshop and Cafe
17B College Street, Wellington

All welcome

For more about the book, or to buy a copy online, visit: http://www.seraphpress.co.nz/luminescent

Is it a book, or is it books? It's a single collection made up of parts that can be read in any order. It is full of fabulous poems which show the growing and significant talents of an exciting poet. And it's also going to be possibly the most beautiful publication I've ever made. 

Find out more about Luminescent by Nina Powles

Launch invitation coming soon!

You studied Spanish at university, and have lived in Spanish-speaking countries? What was it that drew you to the language and the culture?
 
Yes, I lived in Spain for four years and spent six months travelling through South America. After my travels I studied Spanish language and English literature at Victoria University. Funnily enough, it was poetry that drew me into the language. I was obsessed with Pablo Neruda for a long time and went to Chile on a poetry pilgrimage.
 
As well as learning another language, you’ve also taught English as a second language. What have both of those experiences taught you about your own language, and how has that feed into your poetry? I’m thinking particularly of your poem ‘Paroemiology’, which seems especially alive to the tricksyness of language.
 
When I first started teaching English in Spain I had no more than an instinctive knowledge of how English worked. Learning more about the grammar and the structure of language; the whys and hows and whens has been useful, especially during the editing stages.
 
Learning another language expands your world. This is healthy. It can be fun too. Paroemiology plays with international proverbs that are sometimes lost in translation.
 
In New Zealand we tend to not be that familiar with poetry from other languages. Your poem ‘Peruvian Light’ has the subtitle ‘after Vallejo’, referring to Peruvian poet César Vallejo – of whom I must confess I had previously not heard. Do you read much poetry in translation? What do you think the literature from another language has brought to your own work?
 
Yep, one of the main benefits, for me, of learning Spanish is that I can delve into that language’s poetry. I’ve definitely been influenced by Spanish language poetry. I try to read it without translations. Peruvian Light is an ‘interpretation’ of parts of Vallejo’s Trilce, a book that turned Spanish language poetry on its head when it was published in 1922.
 
As I pointed out I was/am a big fan of Pablo Neruda, but when I went to Chile I discovered Nicanor Parra, the great ‘anti-poet’. He was the response to Neruda’s grand romanticism: anti lyrical and colloquial but just as powerful and profound. I think this tension between ‘poetry’ and anti-poetry’ has helped defined what I am doing in my own poetry.
 
You’ve travelled around the world a lot, but now you’re living in a fairly remote part of the West Coast, near Punakaiki. Why did you decide to move there, and what is life like there, especially for a poet? Is it conducive to writing poetry? Do you miss a wider literary community?
 
I have lived in Punakaiki, on and off, for over 25 years. I came here as a teenager and fell in love with the place. It is majestic and wild. There is also a great community who appreciate artistic endeavour and support and encourage me. I don’t really miss a wider literary community as I have internet and am able to keep connected this way. I do miss the poetry events and live action of the city though.
 
When did you begin to write poetry, and why?
 
I had a great English teacher at Wakatipu High School who made poetry fascinating. I don’t think I was writing poetry then but I was writing stories. In my late teens I discovered the beat writers and wanted to be cool like them. I have mixed feelings about The Beats today, but they were exciting and appealed to my young sense of rebellion. To me poetry is rebellion. It is an instinct towards freedom.
 
Are there any poets who have been a particular influence on you?
 
Hone Tuwhare was a big influence and lots of my early poems are fairly good imitations of him. Nowadays I’m influenced by Geoff Cochrane, Tim Uppperton, Gregory O’Brien ... and now Hera Lindsay Bird – she’s brilliant.
 
What inspires you, and what are you aiming to do in your work?
 
Mostly I am inspired by the absurdity of our existence. In my poetry I am trying to make sense of it all while simultaneously trying, as Talking Heads might have it, to  STOP MAKING SENSE. 

Find out more about Two Lagoons...

​We hope you can make it to the launch of Two Lagoons, the debut chapbook by Trevor Hayes, proudly published by Seraph Press.
 
When: Thursday 8 June 2017, 6 pm
Where: Upstairs at Thistle Inn, 3 Mulgrave Street, Thorndon, Wellington (note, not Thistle Hall).
 
Find out more about the book and author

Seraph Press has lots of exciting projects coming up this year, but the first one off the block is this little beauty - Two Lagoons, the debut chapbook of Trevor Hayes.

I've just realised that the first poem in the book, 'Cartography', is the first poem I ever heard Trevor read - at the Poetry Society, at the Thistle Inn, which is kind of perfect because the Thistle Inn is where we're going to be having the launch - more details about that very soon (but save the evening of 8 June)! 

Despite its small size, the poems in this chapbook have a lot of variety - lots of colours, tones, locations. I'm thrilled to find such lyrical gems as:

            ​I’m grasping at straws here. Blind
                        from birth I have never seen
            the grand chandelier, only heard
            comments guests make as they enter
            the ballroom. ('Peruvian Light')
 
alongside the absurd, such as: 'What a pleasure / to sit in the fire with strange trousers on.' ('Paroemiology')
 
I've enjoyed Trevor's work whenever I've come across it, and am delighted to be putting some more of it out into the world.

Read more about Two Lagoons

After a week of earthquakes, storms and floods, we were delighted so many people joined us at Vic Books on the afternoon of Saturday 19 November to celebrate the launch of these first two books in the Seraph Press Translation Series: Shipwrecks/Shelters: Six Contemporary Greek Poets / Ναυάγια/Καταφύγια: Έξι Σύγχρονοι Έλληνες Ποιητές, edited and translated by Vana Manasiadis and Observations: Poems / Osservazione: Poesie, by Claudio Pasi, translated by Tim Smith with Marco Sonzogni. 

In a fascinating and in-depth panel discussion the translators talked about how and why they started translating, and why translation is so important – with all pointing to the importance of celebrating diversity, especially in the midst of a primarily monolingual culture. They also discussed some of the specifics of translating poetry, for example Tim talked about translating Italian hendacasyllablics into English iambic blank verse, and Vana discussed trying to find a word in English that meant innocence but matched the 'muscularity' of the word in Greek. Marco said that to translate poetry one must be or become a poet, creating a new poem out of the original poem. 

There's something wonderful about hearing poetry in a language you don't understand, as rather than focusing on the meaning you listen instead to the sound, rhythm, tone, musicality and energy of the poem, and we were were treated to a bilingual reading of a poem from each book, which you can listen to below. The afternoon ended with Greek and Italian food and wine.

If you're in or near Auckland, don't miss our Auckland launch, a multilingual poetry reading, Wednesday 14 December, ​6.00pm,  ST PAUL St Gallery,  40 St Paul Street, Auckland. Find out more about the Auckland launch...

Join us to celebrate the launch of the first two chapbooks in the  Seraph Press Translation Series

Shipwrecks/Shelters: Six Contemporary Greek Poets, edited and translated by Vana Manasiadis
and 
Observations: Poems by Claudio Pasi, translated by Tim Smith with Marco Sonzogni

with poetry readings in and from Greek, Italian, Māori, Fijian, Norwegian, Sāmoan and French by
Vana Manasiadis, Paula Green, Hemi Kelly, Glenn Colquhoun, Tulia Thompson Siobhan Harvey, Doug Poole and Jack Ross.

6.00pm Wednesday 14 December
ST PAUL St Gallery
40 St Paul Street, Auckland
All welcome

For more information about the books, or to buy them online, visit:
http://www.seraphpress.co.nz/shipwrecks.html
http://www.seraphpress.co.nz/observations.html

and for more about the Seraph Press Translation Series, visit: http://www.seraphpress.co.nz/translation-series.html

Seraph Press and Vic Books invite you to help us celebrate the launch of the first two chapbooks in the Seraph Press Translation Series:

Shipwrecks/Shelters: Six Contemporary Greek Poets / Ναυάγια/Καταφύγια: Έξι Σύγχρονοι Έλληνες Ποιητές, edited and translated by Vana Manasiadis

and 

Observations: Poems / Osservazione: Poesie, by Claudio Pasi, translated by Tim Smith with Marco Sonzogni

Come and enjoy short readings in Greek, Italian and English, and a panel discussion with the translators about the books, their approach to translation, some of the knotty issues they came across, and why literary translation is important; followed by refreshments. 

2.30 pm, Saturday 19 November
Vic Books, Kelburn Parade, Wellington

All welcome.

For more information about the books, or to buy them online, visit:
http://www.seraphpress.co.nz/shipwrecks.html
http://www.seraphpress.co.nz/observations.html

and for more about the Seraph Press Translation Series, visit: http://www.seraphpress.co.nz/translation-series.html

You can also catch Vana Manasiadis and Marco Sonzogni at Litcrawl: Polylingual Spree – Poetry in and out of Translation, 7.15 pm, Saturday 12 November, Ferret Bookshop, 175 Cuba Street.

LitCrawl is back in less than two weeks for its third outing, where all sorts of people will roam the streets of Wellington looking for a literary fix. Seraph Press is delighted to be involved once again in this fantastic event. Check out the complete programme on their website.

Get a preview of the first two chapbooks in the Seraph Press Translation Series with Vana Manasiadis, editor and translator of Shipwrecks/Shelters: Six Contemporary Greek Poets and Marco Sonzogni, one of the translators of Observations: Poems by Claudio Pasi:

Polylingual Spree – Poetry in and out of Translation. 7.15 pm, Saturday 12 November
FERRET BOOKSHOP
175 CUBA ST
 
‘The more languages you know, the more you are human’ – Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk
 
Come and hear lively readings of poetry in languages from around the world, read by poet translators Marco Sonzogni (Italian), Vana Manasiadis (Greek), Ya-Wen Ho (Mandarin) and more. Hosted by Helen Rickerby (mostly English).

Entry is by koha ($5 is the suggested amount), which goes to support LitCrawl.

You can catch future Seraph Press author John-Paul Powley, whose book of essays we'll be publishing in 2017 (working title: Kiatiaki o te Pō), with a fine bunch of other essayists.

Essays 8.30pm
MEOW, 9 EDWARD ST
 
‘...it expanded an interior conversation about what really matters’ – Sarah Chandler on Can You Tolerate This? by Ashleigh Young.
 
Some of the country’s (and one of Australia’s) finest essayists come together to read what they consider to be their choicest paragraphs. Ashleigh Young (Can You Tolerate This?), Aimie Cronin (Metro, North & South, The Spinoff), Naomi Arnold (Metro, New Zealand Geographic, The Spinoff), John Paul Powley (Man of Errors) and Khalid Warsame (The Lifted Brow) celebrate the essay.

Anahera Gildea appears in not one but two events at this years' LitCrawl:

True Stories Told Live 6pm
WELLINGTON CENTRAL LIBRARY, 65 VICTORIA STREET
 
Intimate. Real. Anything goes. Our writers step across the threshold and go unscripted and unsupported by notes, lecterns or audio-visual equipment. This is storytelling at its unabashed best. Come and witness unique stories on the theme of ‘metamorphosis’ as they are shaped in the moment.
 
Featuring Mayor Justin Lester, Paula Morris, Emily Perkins, Khalid Warsame and Anahera Gildea.

I Ain’t Sorry 8.30pm
LAYERS LAUNDRETTE & EMPORIUM, 282 CUBA ST
 
Stolen body. Stolen history. History denied. History reframed. Returning home. White skin brown bones. Brown skin. White assimilation. Smothering. Autonomy. Healing. Self determination. Fulfillment.  A one-night-only reading with a short publication. All writers will speak to experiences of dislocation and marginalisation within their communities. Defined by difference, they look to points of intersecting experience, vocalising new histories, claiming new narratives. Curated by Faith Wilson and Hana Pera Aoake.
 
Writers include George Watson, Piupiu Maya Turei, Quishile Charan, Ines Almeida, Anahera Gildea,Tayi Tibble.

Seraph Press managing editor, Helen Rickerby, appears in this special Sunday-afternoon event, where she'll talk about why the art and life of KM have been so compelling for her at different ages and for different reasons, and she'll read a couple of KM-related poems, including one about that statue.

​MANSFIELD & ME
 
Sunday 13 November, 2 pm
KATHERINE MANSFIELD HOUSE AND GARDEN, 25 TINAKORI RD
​
Come to the Katherine Mansfield House and Garden for an afternoon of Mansfield appreciation with writers Sarah Laing, Helen Rickerby and Anna Jackson.
 
All three Wellingtonians have created work inspired by and reflecting the life of Katherine Mansfield. The afternoon begins with an artist talk on the Mansfield & Me exhibition by comic artist and writer Sarah Laing.
 
Duration: 90 mins
 
TICKETS > pay what you will:
$20 standard – afternoon tea included
$30 patron ticket* – afternoon tea included
 
PURCHASE TICKETS FROM EVENTFINDA
 
*Patron tickets support LitCrawl and KMHG

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