Another Beautiful Day Indoors to highlight a picture please click itBook reviews are usefulA freebie newspaper from the Wellington Regional Council is regularly dropped into our letter box. In the issue of a week or more ago I found a page of book reviews. One of them was of Another Beautiful Day Indoors. Within a few days I picked up the book from my local library. I read it right through, went back and grinned (or frowned with worry) over many of the compositions then chose three to quote in full in this week's post. I didn't want to just highlight bits. I want you, my readers, to get the full impact of at least a tiny handfull of complete poems. Studying the Myth of the Flood
Buildings filling up. Imperceptably?
The Invention of the Shovel
Breakfast
Early Evening at the Coal PlantI was all alone at the coal plant. The final hour of the day had gone by quietly, like a horse wearing slippers. As my co-workers processed out I said: bye, Rolf―bye, Elaine―bye, Barry―bye, Ed―bye, Lakshmi. No one made me leave even though I was never the last one out. Where was the night shift? I didn't know if I should stay or go, so I watered some sick plants. I rolled a screw in slightly unpredictable circles on a table. This made me thoughtful. I thought about how I had got work at the coal plant by accident. My one real qualification was that I was very good at shovelling. If I had made different choices I would probably be shovelling manure or shovelling snow or shovelling soil into graves. I imagined that scientists who wind up making biological weapons must feel the same way I do, that their powers have been misappropriated by shadowy forces. Scientists and me, both destroying the world against our wills, like rice water foaming out of the pot. Slim but fullThis slim book is full of poems. Here are some of the titles.
Intriguing titles? Yes. And content that has bite – real bite. Not all the poems will please. Some will annoy those who don't think every day about issues which threaten to spike our way of life or cause harm to the earth. But I think that's what they are meant to do. IgnorantAnother Beautiful Day Indoors is Erik Kennedy's second collection of poems but I didn't know that. This collection is my first Kennedy encounter. And that has made me head for the library to look for his first collection, There's No Place like the Internet in Springtime. I'm hoping to find more bite! □ John McInnes Friday 27 May 2022 Attribution: Another Beautiful Day Indoors, Erik Kennedy, Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2022. Three poems quoted in full. With permission. Photo credits: Flood – unsplash; Shovel – Depositphotos; Coal – Depositphotos ##########
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