This is Mark's blog.
The latest ESAW Christmas Surprise 2016 has been released by Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, in conjunction with my press HeadworX and the Poetry Archive of NZ Aotearoa (PANZA).
The booklet includes some of my poems along with works by Michael O'Leary, B. E. Turner and F. W. Nielsen Wright.
A small token of appreciation for our friends and clients at Christmas time.
Click on the link to view the free ebook and download it:
/books/esaw-christmas-surprise-2016
The latest issue of my journal broadsheet, no.18, November 2016, features the Nelson-based poet David Karena-Holmes.
The issue celebrates his long-term commitment to the writing of poetry.
Others included are: Nick Ascroft, Tony Beyer, Kay McKenzie Cooke, David Eggleton, Brentley Frazer (Australia), Rob Hack, Hugh Isdale, Peter Olds, Mark Pirie, Blair Reeve, Richard Reeve, Nicholas Reid, Michael Steven and MaryJane Thomson.
Here's the link:
http://broadsheetnz.wordpress.com
In September, my new book of selected poems in five sets, Rock and Roll, was published overseas by exciting and innovative Australian publisher Bareknuckle Books in Brisbane.
I was delighted to be included in their new Bareknuckle Poets Pocket Series, as well as in their annual anthologies that have commemorated Allen Ginsberg and Frank O'Hara, two influential poets I admire.
Rock and Roll was launched by Richard Langston (New Zealand poet and journalist) at Unity Books in Wellington, New Zealand, on 27 September 2016. This was a joint launch with MaryJane Thomson's new HeadworX book Songs of the City launched by Fiona Kidman.
At the launch I made the following comments relating to this selection:
"It was hard work putting the book together as I have around 2000 poems to select from. But I had an idea from my earlier days as a music DJ at Radio Active, to make the book like five different rock and roll concert sets, and to choose the themes that have made me more unique as a poet, poems that readers would say are distinctly Mark Pirie poems in his own voice. I chose music, film, love, sport, and Australia as my main themes, bearing in mind the Australian place of publication, too. No doubt readers will make a quite different choice of my poems if offered the chance.
I am very lucky that Bareknuckle put together an impressive cover design to complement so well the concept that I provided for them. The cover is by the artist Anthony Lister who does the artwork for their Bareknuckle Poets Pocket Series.
Finally, I would like to add that this book is in memory of the poet and editor John O’Connor who died suddenly last year, and who will be missed by the New Zealand poetry community."
Here's the link to Rock and Roll on my website:
/books/rock-and-roll-selected-poems-in-five-sets
In August and September, my publishing company HeadworX released two new poetry books by Brentley Frazer, of Brisbane, Australia, and MaryJane Thomson, of Wellington.
Frazer's book combines major new sequences with shorter lyrical, concrete and prose poems, and gives a generational sense of what it means to be an urban Australian looking into the future. A 21st century apocalyptic howl from the cities: Aboriginal to nowhere.
Thomson’s book, Songs of the City, is the third collection by her and continues the development in her poetic since her second collection Lonely Earth. Songs of the City ranges over contemporary issues and offers a generational assessment of a technologically driven world.
I’m very pleased to be publishing both of these titles by two excellent Australasian poets.
For more details on each book, please visit the HeadworX website:
Aboriginal to Nowhere by Brentley Frazer
http://headworx.eyesis.co.nz/poetry/aboriginal
Songs of the City by MaryJane Thomson
http://headworx.eyesis.co.nz/poetry/songs