This is Mark's blog.
My poem tribute to John d'Estaing Adams (aka Kenny the Busker) appeared in The Dominion Post as The Thursday Poem, Arts & Entertainment section, 7 July 2011. Kenny will be missed. Wellington City Mission has set up a John Adams Memorial Fund where people can make donations.
Issue 6 of my poetry journal broadsheet (featuring Auckland poet, critic, editor of Poetry NZ and novelist Alistair Paterson) was reviewed in the spring issue of The Evergreen Review (No. 126) in America, edited by former Grove Press publisher Barney Rosset. The following notice about it appeared in Wellington's Dominion Post, Arts & Entertainment section, edited by Tom Cardy, 19 May 2011:
"The Evergreen Review is one of the most respected and influential literary magazines in the world. It was founded in 1957 by Barney Rosset, who succeeded in publishing the uncensored Lady Chatterley's Lover and the works of Henry Miller in the United States. Contributors have included Albert Camus, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Bertolt Brecht, Jean-Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and many more. So it's great to see the spring issue - it has existed online since 1998 - praising Wellington poetry magazine broadsheet edited by Mark Pirie. This is the equivalent of a Wellington musician being championed by Rolling Stone or a Wellington film-maker by Variety."
An interview with Aotearoa/New Zealand cricket novelist Michael O'Leary appears on my Tingling Catch blog.
I discuss Michael's republication of his 1987 cricket novel Out of It as an e-book and his interest in cricket.
Issue 7 of my poetry journal, broadsheet: new new zealand poetry, has been released and is now avilable from the broadsheet website.
Issue 7 features poet/translator Anthony Rudolf (UK), best known for his translations of the French poet Yves Bonnefoy. The issue showcases his latest collection Zigzag (Carcanet/Northern House, UK) and includes an extract on cricket from his new memoir.