Of poetry, and sips of water

Press, 11 July 1979, Page 3

Of poetry, and sips of water

(By GENEVIVE FORD) “As Sir Keith Holyoake said when he was last in Christchurch, it’s nice to be hack here in Wanganui.” — Sam Hunt, introducing himself to 120 sixth and seventh form pupils in the Hillmorton High School hall yesterday afternoon.

Between sips of cold water, he, and three fellow New Zealand poets, Hone Tuwnare, Alistair Campbell, and Jan Kemp, entertained the pupils for more than an hour, reading their poems and answering questions as part of their national, midwinter tour of educational institutions

They are spending most of this week in Christchurch, with a grand finale in the Limes Room on Friday evening, which, according to Sam Hunt, will be something of a fashion show.

“Do you know Norman Gunston?” he asked the assembled pupils. “Yes,” they replied. “Well, when he was over here he gave his socks to Hone. My pants were given to me by Rod Stewart. We will be launching these on Friday night in the Limes Room. What with his socks and my. pants, it should be quite a fashion display really.” Yesterday. Sam Hunt looked as if he had just stepped out of a turn-of-the-century tourer; scarf hanging loosely round his neck, dark goggles pushed back on to his tawny curls, reading his poems at the top of his breath as usual. Last year, after a tour of borstals and prisons ... he was motoring south in the North Island, doing only about 50, when he ran over an opossum — “Little man, little man, I never meant you any harm.” “A bit of a sentimental

number. I just put it in to show you how a poem’s sometimes sparked off.” The eyes of the opossum and the I eyes of the inmates in the prisons and borstals. I There were poems about [love. “Hone doesn’t approve,” paid Alistair Campbell, reading one about an affair he Shad with a “young university Igirl” . . . “an ageing rapist and ■ a runaway schoolgirl... the ionly thing that came out of it was this poem.” She went to America, where she mar-

ried an Indian poet, “not as good as me.” Poems about politicians, too. “When a tricky Politician decomposes I know why Fat blow-fly blowses.

Oh I should ask for If he knows Why Cold Noses In the Winter Blowses. Oh, go to blowses, Autumn roses.” — said Hone, reading from his poem, “A Know Ail Nose.” Sam had one, too. He knew this lady who was very particular about her men. She didn’t care whether they had a lot of money, or no money. They had to be one of three things, a politician, a poet, or an All Black. She had had affairs with several backbenchers, and “finally made it with a front-bencher. I wrote a poem about her newfound man. It is called, ‘Your Ultimate Accountant.’ ” The Ultimate Accountant was not amused by the poem, Sam said. “You’re not going to read that poem any more are you?” he asked. “Who’s going to stop me, mate?” replied Sam. Finally, there’s one called “lan Fraser,” by Hone Tuwhare. This one was written about the television reporter of “Dateline Monday” fame when he was a student at Otago University and Hone was Burns Fellow. “I wrote this the morning after I’d been on the bash with lan. He said my eyes looked like smoked oysters, so I wrote a poem about it.” “lan said yesterday my eyes looked like, oysters close together; smoked. 1 .can’t see too good today. I’ve just swallowed my oysters.”