The Radio Room

Cilla McQueen

• Publisher: Otago University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781877578038
• eBook ISBN: 9781927322116
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

In The Radio Room, Poet Laureate Cilla McQueen travels space and time, throwing 'thought-lines' from her present-day corner of the world to the ancient Celtic islands of her ancestors ('On a cliff-top above screeching gulls I stand still thinking backwards, antipodean poet grafted from ancient taproot in this bedrock' ... 'if they spoke, what would they say? Could I understand that language at the root of my tongue?' Her point of view is at once small, interior and intimate ('I sit on an upturned apple box in the shade of my hat looking up through the pores of its straw') and in the next breath, flung outwards and upwards: 'Discovered in lenses, bent around stars. I leap island to island, altar to altar'. The collection is about the writing and reading of poetry, too: 'Poem in hand, the tendons slide and muscles smile under the skin'. 'Soapy Water' riffs on modern politics to play with this theme: 'world poetry is running low. Naturally, there is speculation in solar poetry, wind poetry, tidal poetry, all as old as mankind, since he learned to talk to himself'. Whether investigating the extinction of the natural landscape or space-time, molecules and mathematics, writing to her dear departed, watching an insect ('I am too big to be seen, like the weather'), or playfully pondering the perspective of a sock, McQueen's word-ware is as polished and intelligent as ever, and demands multiple readings to uncover each subtle layer. 'Poetry takes you apart, puts you back different' she intimates in 'Foveaux Express'. The Radio Room does just that. These are words to be visited again and again, by one of this country's most talented writers.

ALTAR (ELEMENTS 1)

One rock, another rock,

a flat rock on top.

On this we laid our sin, the Great Auk

that we killed for fear of sorcery

Our sin because

she was the last bird of her kind.

Here the Amazon once laid

a pair of antlers and a bowl of oil

In thanks to the Being

for new life, another year.

On this I laid my prayer,

a woollen thread and a button.

BEACON (ELEMENTS 2)

Discovered in lenses,

bent around stars.

I leap island to island,

altar to altar.

Breathe life into things,

one word to another,

Sweep the night seas

with a quartz shiver.

My feet of quicksilver

dancing on water.

BOOKWORM

Been here in arms, fresh linen,

before snow’s aery characters

illuminated, drifting

down darkness beyond a window

here before –

tell past to know time present

past familiar, dawn cloud lifting

from a dreaming mountain.

Hold the image against meeting,

knowing time and place

coincidence, gaudeamus

in the next dimension,

life history, manifold instant

of a given point.

At this juncture,

memory scrolling time, I

who I am drill like a bookworm

leaves tunnels perfectly aligned leaves

as a closed book,

memory keeping

portholes in cliff emplacement

blast chamber tunnels, open to shock,

delight; in arms, fresh linen held up

secure, newborn

in fresh white sleeves

and this remember not

but have been told she said

she has been here before

and shown at last

snow’s aery characters

white on black,

on dark ground, white words

and white ground dark words:

‘Writing was most astonishing to them;

they cannot conceive how it is possible

for any mortal to express the conceptions

of his mind in such black characters

upon white paper.’

(Martin Martin, 1716, of the inhabitants of St Kilda)

COASTLINE (ELEMENTS 3)

I meet myself

coming the other way.

Distinguish between

two grains of sand.

No power on earth can change me,

nothing pins me down.

Within my high and low

I belong to none,

A sacred slate

where law is written.

CRAZY HORSE

Thanks for the dream of the sapphire sea last night,

ultramarine-speed ocean framed by rocks, so bright it sang.

Harmonically, I send pearls rolling down cabbage leaves,

diamonds from my washing line, bronze totara,

the harbour’s violet pewter plate in this fine dusk.

All day the sapphire sea and the words have held my eyes.

As promised now and then a message comes of startling loveliness.

CUP OF TEA

My mother’s sugar bowl

is tinged with sadness

And cannot be put

together again.

Tea of tar and smoke. Tea of green.

A china bell, a silver spoon,

whirl a pool, lip a fine warm rim.

Smile over it.

A place to rest,

a small vessel decorated with roses.

ETCHING

Art ages.

For instance, this view of York Minster engraved with a fine burin.

In the foreground an upright car of 1930s’ vintage with a cloth top, square back window, bumpers and narrow wheels is either parked or driving towards the cathedral through deep shade cast by a tall tree on the left. The shadow stretches across the road almost to the centre of the picture.

On the right-hand footpath, opposite the reaching shadow, a single figure walks beside a fence towards the cathedral. In the middle distance four people stand to the right of the entrance. Further reduced by distance, a group of three on the steps in front of the door.

The distant three are little more than scratches but it is possible to see from the arrangement of their lines that a tall man, hands clasped behind his back, his legs two fine strokes, is bending slightly towards the woman beside him who is middle-aged, well-dressed, with a pale fur around her shoulders. Fox. Standing beside the woman is a gauche, slim-shouldered girl.

The engraving of light areas is so feathery that the outline of York Minster is faintly blurred. Shaded areas are hatched. The cathedral is bathed in sunlight from high on the left. It might be spring, late morning, after Matins.

Of ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• A GHOSTLY BEAST
• ABOUT THE FOG
• ALTAR (ELEMENTS 1)
• BEACON (ELEMENTS 2)
• BOOKWORM
• COASTLINE (ELEMENTS 3)
• CRAZY HORSE
• CUP OF TEA
• ETCHING
• FOVEAUX EXPRESS
• FUGUE, 1892
• IN HAND
• LENS
• LETTER TO HONE 1
• MINING LAMENT
• NOTES FOR MOTHS
• PASSION PANTOUM
• PHOTON
• POEM
• PRIVATE VIEW
• RED HERRINGS
• REPRISE
• RIPPLES
• SOAPY WATER
• TALKING TO MY TOKOTOKO
• THE HOLE
• THREE ELABORATIONS
• TIME (ELEMENTS 4)
• TO A BABY
• UMBRELLA
• WASH
• WINDOW
• YNYS ELEN
• YOUR EYES