Serie Barford : My love is a red, red hibiscus

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Enjoy Lisa Scott's reviews and blogs: guest blogger for NZBM 2009 as well as past blogs from NZ writers and commentators.

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Serie (Cherie) Barford hails from Waitakere, West Auckland. Her poetry collection Tapa Talk was published by Huia in 2007. Her previous collections Plea to the Spanish Lady (1985) and Glass Canisters (1989) were published by Hard Echo Press. The title poem ‘Plea to the Spanish Lady’ was republished in Whetu Moana (AUP: 2003). More recently Serie has been published by the Pacific Writing Forum in Writing the Pacific: An Anthology (2007) and Dreadlocks (2007) and in Poetry NZ (Puriri Press & Brick Row:2007) Niu Voices: Contemporary Pacific Fiction 1 (Huia:2006). Her work also appears in electronic publications such as BMP (New Zealand), Snorkel (Australia), Tinfish 16/Trout 13 (Universities of Hawaii & Auckland) Best NZ Poems (Institute of Modern Letters). Her poem ‘Migration’ featured on Artsville in 2006. Serie belongs to a Pasifika Poetry Collective which performed last year with Ben Kemp & Uminari and will be performing this year at the Queensland Poetry Festival.

If you’d like to make a comment on Serie’s blog, simply click on the word ‘comments’ below

My love is a red, red hibiscus

I’ve got anthologies on my mind this week. Best NZ Poems 2007 is about to be launched online and the closing date for entering the third Six Pack has come and gone. What amazed me with the Six Pack was how secretive everyone became. Many of us are writing on similar, even identical topics, but when it came to discussing what we were going to submit, even the most convivial writer clammed up. Five grand is five grand. Think of how many power bills you can pay with that!

Paula Green edited Best NZ Poems 2007 (Institute of Modern Letters). She’s heartened that there’s “a poetry community that is alive and kicking” in Aotearoa. Paula says, “What makes a good poem is whatever it takes to lift the words beyond the sum of their parts, beyond formula or well intentioned recipe. A good poem may be loud or quiet, traditional or innovative, complex or simple.”

I like how Paula recognises that poems have a life force. That energy creates entities. I must run this past the cast of Outrageous Fortune next time they camp on the lawn beside my office for lunch and a bit of privacy. Wonder what Munter would say?

It seems that Maori, Pasifika and Asian voices remain under represented ‘per capita’ in mainstream written poetry. Paula mentions Huia and the Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop as publishers of these other voices. Then there are online anthologies such as Trout and BMP. There should be more. At this point I’d like to acknowledge Bernard Gadd who edited Pacific Voices: An Anthology of Maori and Pacific Writing (Macmillan 1989), Other Voices (Brick Row/Hallard, 1989) and Other Voices 2 (Brick Row/Hallard 1991). These books were valuable outlets for people like me who were looking for mentors and trying to get published in the 1980s and 1990s.

I’ve sniffed a few changes in the publishing wind but I’d really welcome public discussion, perhaps at a literary festival, about what makes a poem a good poem, the form and function of poetry in different cultures (including socio-economic cultures), how oral cultures are adapting their storytelling heritage to the written word and what happens when these poems are experienced beyond their original geographic and cultural context. What is lost during the process of cultural translation? Does this matter or are the readers of poetry entitled to derive their own meaning from this art form?

A simple example of the tension that can arise over ‘what makes a good poem’ emerged in my previous life as a school teacher. I was working through a unit standard and talking to my class about avoiding clichés and being original. Keep in mind that the students at this school spoke more than 30 languages between them and were a cross section of Maori, Pasifika, European, Asian, Balkan and Middle Eastern cultures… plus others. An uproar ensued. One of the discussion points I vividly remember was the rejection of the English department’s negative perception of clichés.
    “What’s wrong with words or ideas or expressions that are time worn?”
    “How can you overuse good words and expressions?”
    “If they’re used heaps then they have to be good.”
    “If those words say what we think and feel and everyone uses them, then I will too because then everyone knows what I mean.”

I came to the conclusion that the class valued clichés and responded to the familiar and what they could make familiar. They didn’t see the point of innovation for the sake of being different when something already existed and worked. New things replace things that are no longer useful or interesting or make life easier.

The reality was that they would be internally assessed by an English department who derided clichés and considered them evidence of a student’s lack of imagination or externally assessed by a carefully selected panel of markers. No doubt, these experienced teachers wouldn’t be too keen on clichés appearing in a ‘good’ poem or a ‘good’ piece of prose. They wouldn’t earn my students any marks for originality.

A time worn phrase has a history, a moment of birth, a life of its own. It can be passed on and inherited. It’s a cultural reference point as powerful and enduring as any established visual motif.

In French cliché refers to a stereotyped phrase or expression. But I’ve also heard the word used in relation to old time photography. It’s the impression on the negative or plate that’s developed into the final photograph. It’s something full of potential and life.

I say, “Long live clichés!” And by the way, my love is a red, red hibiscus.

Comments

	Tallullabelle said: Teenagers like cliches because they're callow, unimaginative, and want writing that makes them say 'me too!' instead of 'I've never thought of it that way'. As writers, we should constantly reinvent the way people see things, like with Socrates and the Gadfly, instead of using lazy cliches. The problem with cliches is they DO lose their meaning- people just don't think about the meaning if they've heard the words a thousand times. April 6, 2008 3:39 p.m.
	Manu said: Students need to learn cliches so they know how to create their own original prose. It is a part of their development as potential writers of the future. I mean it's like cross pollination.... flowers don't grow on their own.... the wind has a lot to answer for. Once enough people hear a new turn of phrase it becomes a cliche too. Cliches have their place in the world because as Serie says it comes with a context that people understand. Universal understanding leads to people painting the imagery of the words that people read. One reason why I will always choose a book over the movie version - my cinematography is better than the director haha. And Serie is right. there still isn't enough Pacific literature out there. One reason could be not enough Pacific students are lead to believe they can become writers nor have the talent, passion and creativity to write. It's sad but true. May 30, 2008 9:32 p.m.
	o said: I used to teach secondary school English. I don't have that much faith in the ability of teenagers to assess the value of the cliche in literature. James Joyce recognised that the ubiquity and popularity of cliches is, in large part, attributable to its ability to accelerate meanings, that cliches have a certain ability to arc distances of understandings in a common spark. But as with all things, the cliche needs to be used sparingly and well, and if it is used in an original context it may in fact circumvent the fact of its own fatigue. I have yet to meet a high school student who has demonstrated this ability. I also read many published new Zealand poets who likewise fail in this department. June 14, 2008 1:26 a.m.