Literature reading

Press, 6 March 1984, Page 8

Literature reading

“A reading with Janet Frame, Rachel McAlpine, Cilia McQueen, and Yvonne du Fresne,” presented by the Christchurch Arts Festival and Scorpio Books at the James Hay Theatre. March 5. Running time: 8 p.m. to 9.50 p.m. Reviewed by Gerrit Bahlam. An air of expectancy pervaded the James Hay Theatre before four readings by a diverse group of New Zealand literary talents. The stage bare save a podium, small table ; with water jug and' glasses, and the übiquitous microphone underlined the nature of the experience. This would be an occasion, of words, images created and cast out to form shards of meaning.

The tension of the essentially private being exposed to the public gives poetry, and prose read by their authors an immedate edge. The performances of Janet Frame, Cilla McQueen, Yvonne du Fresne, and Rachel McAlpine were full of individuality and colour.

Janet Frame’s shyness and reticence in public is well known yet her light, fragile voice was carefully controlled with clear enunciation and charm. Her delivery of the nearly .20 poems she read was even and unforced. Her touch was light and lacked deliberate stress to emphasise humour or change of atmosphere.

“The Landfall Desk” was an early favourite as the

poem described the ambivalent attitudes of the writer to a desk given to her when a “Landfall” editor retired. The desk became the personification of the literary critic — stalking the arid phrase and dominating its environment. Most of the poems were concerned with the theme of change. ‘Trying to Spin the Straw into Gold” concerned the boundary between fictional andreal characters. “Martha's, Vineyard,” “The Icicles" “The Death of Snow” (written for a friend whose wife had died), “Letter to the Present Tense,” ‘The Present Tense Replies,” “The Prune,” “Frank Sargeson’s Cat,” ‘Hooded Batteries,” and “After” were some of the poems incorporated in the “change” theme.

Cilla McQueen read eight poems in a dynamic style which leans on her sense of the theatrical. Her delivery is quick and energetic, with a deliberate use of the upward inflection to give lines a lilting quality. Her language is aggressively colloquial at times, with observations that can see angry shards of meaning generated by rapid shifts in pace. Topicality is given a humourous twist in her poem, “That’s Incredible,” which pursued the experience of a man leaping out of a plane in search of a drum containing his parachute. Two weather poems were read, “Short Story,” and

“Veranda.” Vision and distortion were images utilissed in “Pink Neon Revolution” and “Hard Maths.” “Interference,” “Say it” and “The Trapeze Artists” completed Cilla McQueen’s readings.

Yvonne du Fresne charmed with her reading of a short story, “The Looters,” The tale is set in Manawatu where a young Danish girl is trying to make sense of the English world around her. The title of the short story refers to the Danish family’s ready ability to adopt the expressions and attitudes of the surrounding population’s characteristic sayings, expressions, and attitudes. They are rendered into humour by the Danish accent which Yvonne du Fresne injects so smoothly into her reading. The insight Srovided by the glimpse of lew Zealand through the fresh eyes of the immigrant is both funny and sensitive. Rachel McAlpine presented 10 poems in a warm, personal style which accentuated the awareness that all poetry is first and foremost a prive expression which is shared. The source of her poems was her book, “Recording AngeL” Subjects ranged form her past, through her respect and admiration for her mother-in-law, to her concern with the proliferation of nuclear arms. Her final poem, “Devotions,” became an important commentary on the nature of poetry readings and their appeal.