Mark Pirie

In the first half of 2020, my publishing company HeadworX released two new poetry books: The Wanderer by Ron Riddell and a Three Poets anthology, featuring Alex Jeune, Margaret Jeune and Marion Rego.

Ron Riddell’s poem The Wanderer is a book-length poem sequence and this is book one, being its first instalment. I have known Ron Riddell for many years since working with him and his wife Saray Torres de Riddell on the Wellington International Poetry Festival, 2003-2005. Bob Orr writes of it: “What a poem… Reading it I had the sense of being increasingly spellbound, of being transported to a place I’d previously not known about. Its repetitions had a hypnotic effect on me – it was like a music that returns to a coda at intervals along the way… a kind of extended Gregorian chant or a jazz musician’s riff open to endless interpretation.”

Three Poets brings together poets who have known each other over a long period of time in the Horowhenua. Marion Rego is already known as a children’s writer and the author of a memoir, Africa for One. Margaret Jeune has had published several poetry books with HeadworX and The Night Press in 2019. Alex Jeune is an emerging Wellington poet and this is his first publication in book form.

It's great to publish these titles in the HeadworX New Poetry Series.

For more details on each book, please visit the HeadworX website:

The Wanderer by Ron Riddell

https://headworx.co.nz/poetry/wanderer

Three Poets by Marion Rego, Alex Jeune and Margaret Jeune

https://headworx.co.nz/poetry/three

The Night Press, a division of HeadworX my publishing company, has just brought out a handsome edition of children's poems by Margaret Jeune. It is published under her maiden name Margaret Webb, the name she wrote her poems under in The Evening Post Children's page 1968-1970 (aged 12 to 14 years old).

The title, My Sketchbook, is a neat edition to my Night Press series, which features chapbook sized collections of poetry. 

The issue of my journal broadsheet, no.23, May 2019, features the Auckland-born poet Margaret Jeune, of Wellington.

The issue gives an overview of her poetry from the 1970s till now. In 2019 my publishing company, HeadworX, published two books of her poetry.

It's nice to recognise and to feature a poet who has remained outside of book publication but has been widely represented in regional journals and anthologies and has pubished consistent work over a long period of time.

Others included were: Anita Arlov, Karen Peterson Butterworth, Tony Chad, Bill Dacker, Michael Duffett (USA), Brentley Frazer (Australia), Siobhan Harvey, Alex Jeune, Margaret Jeune, Annie Newcomer (USA), Alistair Paterson, Mark Raffills, P V Reeves (1927-2019), Marion Rego, Bill Sutton and Gill Ward.

Here's the link:
http://broadsheetnz.wordpress.com

In the first half of 2019, my publishing company HeadworX will release three new poetry books: The Presence of Love: Poems Selected and New by Michael Duffett, California, USA, and Flight Paths and Upbeat: Selected Early Poems 1969-1987 by Margaret Jeune. Upbeat is published under Margaret's maiden name Margaret Webb.

Michael Duffett’s selection (which I put together) comprises mainly new material along with some earlier poems and an article about his lecture tour and visit to New Zealand in 1979. It’s a significant addition to his poetry publication history and the HeadworX list. As an Associate Professor at San Joaquin Delta College, Califorinia, he has published extensively in prose and verse. As an actor (among other roles) he has appeared in the final episodes of the TV series, Magnum, P.I.

Margaret Jeune has been writing since childhood when she was first published in the Children’s Page of the Wellington newspaper, The Evening Post. Her two books represent mainly the best of her poetry that she wished to have collected at this stage. Upbeat covers her early writing period (1969-1987) and Flight Paths covers her writing from the past 30 years.

It's another significant editing achievement to select and publish these titles.

For more details on each book, please visit the HeadworX website:

The Presence of Love: Poems Selected and New by Michael Duffett

http://headworx.co.nz/poetry/presence

Flight Paths by Margaret Jeune

http://headworx.co.nz/poetry/flightpaths

Upbeat: Selected Early Poems 1969-1987 by Margaret Webb

http://headworx.co.nz/poetry/upbeat