23-3-2011
In Voice and Music at the TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre...
Top Auckland Poets At Pah Homestead.
Funny, challenging, ironic, heartfelt – expect to hear some great words and ideas when Auckland poets Siobhan Harvey,
Iain Sharp and Reimke Ensing head the line-up at the April afternoon of performance arts at TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre
(2-4 PM, April 16, free entry).
The main gallery – the homestead’s beautiful former ballroom - provides a classy setting for spoken word, music and
moving sculpture The White Wall, as part of the gallery’s monthly cultural calendar presented by spoken word producers
Printable Reality.
Siobhan Harvey will read from her newly launched collection Lost Relatives (Steele Roberts, 2011). She is also the
editor of the book of literary interviews, Words Chosen Carefully: 15 New Zealand Writers in Discussion (Cape Catley,
2010) and Our Own Kind: 100 New Zealand Poems about Animals (Godwit, 2009), is poetry editor of Takahe magazine and a
poetry editor of the International Literary Quarterly.
Iain Sharp is a prolific and highly-entertaining columnist, reviewer and critic and practiced performer of his poetry.
Sharp is well-known for his humour and good-natured satire of the high serious of his own literary heritage, and many of
his poems draw on the lyric tradition. He has published several volumes of poetry and non-fiction, including Real Gold:
treasures of Auckland City Libraries (where he is a specialist librarian).
Poet Riemke Ensing has distinctively synthesised European and New Zealand influences. Ensing was editor of the first New
Zealand anthology of women poets, Private Gardens. She has published numerous collections, often engaging with art,
politics and other poets, and her selected poems were published in 2000 as Talking Pictures. Ensing has taught New
Zealand literature at Auckland University and in 2002 she received the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship.
Sue Reidy has written short stories and novels and has won prizes, awards and the 2000 Buddle Finlay Sargeson Writers
Fellowship. Her first short story collection was set in South East Asia, defying notions of realism with often humorous
results. Her first novel was set in the context of 1960s New Zealand Catholicism. Reidy has also worked as a
practitioner and teacher of design and illustration. Her poetry often casts an ironic eye at language and popular
culture.
Newcomer Jim Carraher’s Irish heritage strongly influences the rhythms and natural flow of his strongly rhyming
narrative verse. He writes of his country of origin and his newer home with equal affection, and reads with humour and a
strong brogue.
Their poetry, and music from classical guitarist Kotara Nishishita and guitarist/singer Emma Skellern, can be enjoyed
alongside works from the Wallace Trust’s collection. The monthly events are produced by Printable Reality which supports
and creates opportunities for poetry/spoken word artists and facilitates artistic collaboration across different
disciplines.
In VOICE and Music
2-4 PM, SATURDAY APRIL 16, TSB WALLACE ARTS CENTRE.
ENDS