The end of the line (and other beginnings)

On Dracula, line breaks, card stock and how to build a trifle.

Untitled (Glasses). Collage on paper. 190 × 280 mm. 2021.

September has been full of things I didn’t anticipate spending quite so much time thinking about.

01     – Dracula

WORD Christchurch took up the first days of September. One standout was Noelle McCarthy and her obsession with Dracula.

I’m always interested in preoccupations. The things that attach themselves to us, sometimes at a young age, and refuse to leave.

Noelle’s fascination with Dracula began when she read Bram Stoker’s novel. She was 14 and growing up at a time when all things vampire-related were sexy and cool. Her mum worked as a nurse in a gothic asylum, and some scenes in Dracula (not that I’ve read it) are set in that environment. Noelle got me thinking about who or what I might have been obsessed with at a similar age.

My sister and I bought a cassette each. Mine was the Eurythmics. Hers was Billy Idol. That summer played out to a soundtrack of Sweet Dreams and White Wedding.

I’m always half-impressed, half-cringing when a session ends with audience questions and a slightly threatening microphone begins its journey around the room.

I’ll never ask a question, and yet I feel anxious for both the audience member and the author. I could never think of anything to ask that hasn’t already been covered.

Someone asked Noelle, ‘Have you made it to Transylvania?’

Now that’s an excellent question. 

02     – Where does the line end?

I attended a poetry workshop with Joanna Preston, called The End of the Line.

Line breaks intimidate me. I understand that words are supposed to end somewhere but deciding exactly where seems to involve knowledge that I don’t possess.

I began to see how a line can interrupt, withhold, emphasise or change the way a poem is received. Moving a single word or punctuation mark can alter the experience of a poem.

I haven’t mastered line breaks, but I’ve stopped avoiding them.

03     – A small obsession with paper

I’ve been researching the possibility of producing a collection of greeting cards using some of my artwork.

It sounded straightforward. It isn’t.

I’ve had proofs printed and discovered that a perfectly respectable reproduction can somehow lose the character of the original. Everything is technically there, but something isn’t quite right.

I’m preoccupied with paper. Its weight, texture, colour, and the curious process of translating an artwork into something smaller.

More experimenting will follow in October.

04     – 351 Riccarton Road

A lovely surprise this month. My poem How to Build a Trifle was selected as one of the winners of Christchurch City Libraries' National Poetry Day competition.

The poem is about my grandmother, who lived at 351 Riccarton Road.

When we were kids, Sunday drives were a regular family outing. My father drove, my mother was in the front passenger seat, and the three of us kids sat across the back.

We might go to a river or a beach, always in search of somewhere there was no one else. Sometimes we’d drive around looking at neighbourhoods and other people’s houses.

On the way home, Dad would sometimes ask, "Should we stop in at 351 Riccarton Road?"

Mum had the final say.

We sat in the back of the car willing her to say yes.

351 Riccarton Road meant baking, a kitchen cupboard with a container of nail polishes, cousins, and a shed out the back called Casablanca.

The judges said the poem would make an excellent performance piece and that it really came alive when read aloud.

The poem began a few years ago in a session at the Linwood writing group, led by the poet James Norcliffe. It has taken its time to find its way into the world.

Here’s my poem.

How to Build a Trifle

You must visit with my grandmother.

She used to live at 351 Riccarton Road,

opposite the Bush Inn Centre.

In the front yard she holds baby Margaret

wrapped in finger lace drifts,

out back, a fruit tree – peach or nectarine

and next-door’s pet magpie speaks.

I’m not sure where you’ll find her now,

probably floating on the air,

beating eggs and sugar,

ribbons falling,

from silver spoons.

On her breath,

dry sherry rises,

above her jammy perfume.

Until next month,

Catherine