the new carpet
smells like warm ewe
you take my hand
lead me over its spine
to our bed moored
in the small
of the back
now we are riding a raft
the sky is golden cream
the sheep gently arches
outside the buses
arrive, unload, reload, depart
there’s light rain
inside we make our own weather
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Tuesday poem: little fish
has lately become
a fishbowl
and you, little fish
winged mermaid
dancing citizen
of my inner seas
you sang to me
long before
your 17 weeks
long before I first saw
your tiny arms
doing freestyle
on the screen
your feet waving
in gentle currents
little fish, as I feel you
blowing bubbles
in my belly
I can’t help but smile.
Yes. This is my biggest 'creative' project for the year!
Sunday, January 22, 2012
A Dragon year
So in a few hours it's going to be the Year of the Dragon. A big year for me, with many personal 'projects' (the biggest of which I can't yet divulge), and if you believe such things as Zodiac predictions, it's going to be a year bursting with creativity, innovation and unpredictability. I can believe it!
Good thing I'm well stocked up on sleep. Since late November, when The Bone Feeder wrapped, I've been lounging in a pleasurable creative limbo - sleeping, reading (comics and newspapers mostly, though other books have crept in) and, I admit it, sampling the various crappy programmes that passes for TV these days (I now know all I really wanted to know about Gypsy Weddings, the inner workings of the restaurant industry and old antiques. I draw the line at spending any time on the X Factor, though. Just the adverts are cringeworthy.) I've caught up with a few excellent films on DVD too, spent lots of 'couple time' with my lovely squeeze, and we've done a bit of travelling around the South Island where I've been based for the summer. (I should mention that my creative laziness contrasts with my work in the medical realm, as I've had locums right through Xmas and January).
So. That's why there's been no movement on this blog (or my other blog on The Big Idea)... nothing's been happening! But we're back to the big smoke tomorrow, and I see the creative crowd are cranking up for the year, and a few deadlines are looming for me...
Good thing I'm well stocked up on sleep. Since late November, when The Bone Feeder wrapped, I've been lounging in a pleasurable creative limbo - sleeping, reading (comics and newspapers mostly, though other books have crept in) and, I admit it, sampling the various crappy programmes that passes for TV these days (I now know all I really wanted to know about Gypsy Weddings, the inner workings of the restaurant industry and old antiques. I draw the line at spending any time on the X Factor, though. Just the adverts are cringeworthy.) I've caught up with a few excellent films on DVD too, spent lots of 'couple time' with my lovely squeeze, and we've done a bit of travelling around the South Island where I've been based for the summer. (I should mention that my creative laziness contrasts with my work in the medical realm, as I've had locums right through Xmas and January).
So. That's why there's been no movement on this blog (or my other blog on The Big Idea)... nothing's been happening! But we're back to the big smoke tomorrow, and I see the creative crowd are cranking up for the year, and a few deadlines are looming for me...
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
I am the 1%
I am the 1%. I am the daughter of a doctor. I grew up in Remuera, the suburb many of our leaders, industry heads and politicians choose to live; I went to a private girl's school. I had access to the best education money can buy, my parents ensured I had the space and energy to study. I got into medical school on my own merits, but all the good role modelling and encouragement must have helped.
At university, I was encouraged to question accepted truths, to look for evidence with my own eyes, and to read and think widely. I was taught how to identify if someone was sick and how to look after them. I was taught about risk factors, pathology, microbes and the doctor's role in society.
But this training did not prepare me for when I entered the real world, with real people. People who were not in hospital because of a simple 1+1 =2 equation, but a far more complex sequence of events which sometimes started before they were born. People whose health was almost nothing to do with pathology and microbes but much more to do with where they lived and how much education they'd had. In my first year dealing with real patients, I learnt more about being a doctor than in 6 years of medical school.
I've since learnt many more things. How health is determined by the manner in which our society looks after its members. How a small intervention early on, such as support for a struggling parent, or a good education, can save lives and money down the track. How the most valuable interventions come from the community itself, working together in cooperation. How much we know now compared to twenty years ago and how much we still have to learn.
I am the 1%. But please don't look down on me for it. I am trying to learn. I know there are others, too, who don't automatically accept what our colleagues in power tell us. After all, we received the best education money can buy. So please accept our help. Talk to us. Teach us. Tell us how we can cooperate together to make things the best they can be for our society. Then there doesn't need to be a 1% and a 99%; there will only be the 100%.
At university, I was encouraged to question accepted truths, to look for evidence with my own eyes, and to read and think widely. I was taught how to identify if someone was sick and how to look after them. I was taught about risk factors, pathology, microbes and the doctor's role in society.
But this training did not prepare me for when I entered the real world, with real people. People who were not in hospital because of a simple 1+1 =2 equation, but a far more complex sequence of events which sometimes started before they were born. People whose health was almost nothing to do with pathology and microbes but much more to do with where they lived and how much education they'd had. In my first year dealing with real patients, I learnt more about being a doctor than in 6 years of medical school.
I've since learnt many more things. How health is determined by the manner in which our society looks after its members. How a small intervention early on, such as support for a struggling parent, or a good education, can save lives and money down the track. How the most valuable interventions come from the community itself, working together in cooperation. How much we know now compared to twenty years ago and how much we still have to learn.
I am the 1%. But please don't look down on me for it. I am trying to learn. I know there are others, too, who don't automatically accept what our colleagues in power tell us. After all, we received the best education money can buy. So please accept our help. Talk to us. Teach us. Tell us how we can cooperate together to make things the best they can be for our society. Then there doesn't need to be a 1% and a 99%; there will only be the 100%.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Tuesday Poem: The Problem of Descendants by Tim Jones
They reassort your genes
and sort through your things when you're gone.
They ask: why did he keep that ridiculous hat, those
palaeolithic music magazines?
Half to the tip, half to the Sallies,
plus a small urn on the mantelpiece,
three photos, the fading diaries
they can't quite bear to throw away.
They remember you at birthdays, Christmas.
You recede into scrapbooks,
the photos growing faint, your children's children
forgetting why they know your name.
File formats are rendered obsolete.
Anthologies go out of print.
In a provincial library, behind a rack of shelves,
your last book battles silverfish.
Ashes, vanity. The years
scroll past like autocues. Yet,
scavenging the ruins, or terraforming Mars,
still someone somewhere has your nose.
I love this poem - funny, poignant and sad, it taps into our small hidden fears and anxieties. It's just one of the many wonderful poems published in Tim's recently launched collection "Men briefly explained". i was lucky enough to attend the Auckland leg of the book tour and to hear Tim read. I also interviewed him for The Big Idea: http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/news/blogs/talkwrite/2011/oct/105031-cultural-storytellers-tim-jones
and sort through your things when you're gone.
They ask: why did he keep that ridiculous hat, those
palaeolithic music magazines?
Half to the tip, half to the Sallies,
plus a small urn on the mantelpiece,
three photos, the fading diaries
they can't quite bear to throw away.
They remember you at birthdays, Christmas.
You recede into scrapbooks,
the photos growing faint, your children's children
forgetting why they know your name.
File formats are rendered obsolete.
Anthologies go out of print.
In a provincial library, behind a rack of shelves,
your last book battles silverfish.
Ashes, vanity. The years
scroll past like autocues. Yet,
scavenging the ruins, or terraforming Mars,
still someone somewhere has your nose.
I love this poem - funny, poignant and sad, it taps into our small hidden fears and anxieties. It's just one of the many wonderful poems published in Tim's recently launched collection "Men briefly explained". i was lucky enough to attend the Auckland leg of the book tour and to hear Tim read. I also interviewed him for The Big Idea: http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/news/blogs/talkwrite/2011/oct/105031-cultural-storytellers-tim-jones
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The Bone Feeder trailer (behind the scenes)
Us in rehearsal last week! The singing is now much better ;)
Monday, November 7, 2011
Radio NZ panel discussion on Asians in the arts
This is only the second time Roseanne and I have been in a panel discussion together, although I think more and more people are twigging onto the idea of 'the sisters in the arts'. We've never properly worked together, but we do bounce ideas off each other and swap contacts. In this panel discussion, our friend Sonia Sly interviews us, along with a discussion with visual artist Liyen Chong.
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