‘Vibes-based poetry': Ray Shipley and Erik Kennedy in conversation

The Spinoff

15 hours ago

Poets Ray Shipley and Erik Kennedy discuss New Zealand's poetry scene ahead of National Poetry Day on Friday.
Ray Shipley: Kia ora, Erik! Strange to be talking to you semi-formally through this Google doc when just days ago we were at the pub with a crowd of poets discussing the ethics of honey and whether one could truly know a bee. Anyway, congratulations on the publication of Sick Power Trip! What a title, what a cover, and of course what a collection of poems – your most 'personal and vulnerable', it says on the back, but as always it's deeply funny and cutting and political and full of a sort of simmering rage at the way things are, too. It makes for compulsive, feverish reading (I say as a compliment!).
What was it like to write? Did the process feel different to your previous collections?
Erik Kennedy: Thanks, Ray! I'd like to say that by book number three it's easier to marshal poems together into a manuscript, but I think I keep setting higher and higher expectations for myself, so it was actually just as much of a challenge as ever. Additionally, I had a lot of critiques and ideas that I knew I wanted to jam in there – about the conditions of life under late capitalism, etc, and it's tricky to find the right balance between message, entertainment and song.
And there are a number of long Covid poems in the book – in fact, that's how it opens and closes – and obviously the experiences underlying pieces like that weren't fun. But somehow the book was enjoyable to write and edit anyway. I wouldn't do it if it made me miserable!
RS: The balance of message and entertainment, song! What a task! Is that the responsibility of poetry now, do you think, or more of a personal task you've set yourself?
EK: I think it has always been the task of the poet! Maybe sometimes forgotten since poetry has become more institutionalised. (He says, as someone who is technically an adjunct fellow in an English department.)
I'm hardly the first person to advocate for poetry as a properly public-facing art, but I do believe that it should be. One of the great things about writing poems, as opposed to other forms, is that we get to respond in something like real time, to jump into the discourse.
You run a beloved reading series in Ōtautahi, Ray Shipley's Late Night Poetry Hour … do you think live poetry is a useful tool in getting points of view across? Can we go so far as to say it does things, or is that too far?
RS: I think it can be a useful tool for getting points of view across – but to who, to where? The longer I host LNPH, the more I wonder if what we're all actually doing as poets is saying, mostly to each other: I'm thinking / I'm working it out / I'm boiling over and responding with I hear / I'm listening / I understand. I wonder if most of the people that might most benefit from any 'message' in our poems are not often in the room or picking up the book.
I still think that means it's doing something though! I am trying not to sound cynical. My experience is that the community of people who gather around the writing and sharing of poems are being strengthened by that process in all kinds of ways that may not be to do with the words themselves. Does that make sense?
EK: It does make sense. But it's funny to think that some of what poetry does isn't actually about the words! As much as we labour over every decision to do with technique and style, there are actually intangible things occurring that have a big impact on reception. Vibes-based poetry. Still, I like to give audiences credit for being clever. I'm surprised sometimes that ambitious or slightly complicated poems can go over well in performance. I think people want rich and filling work, not just a diet of sugar.
RS: Oh, I'm not surprised by an audience's appetite for rich and filling work! Hooray for ambitious and complicated poems! I think I'll always prefer poetry live though – it's the shared gasps and laughter and rapturous silence and finger-clicks and conversation afterwards that has always drawn me into poetry, and that's only gotten stronger as the world feels more isolated and divided.
Anyway, I think we're agreeing with each other! We want it all. Can you tell me about some of the poetry (live or in print) that has stuck with you recently? And what you're looking forward to?
EK: I really like Gregory Kan's and Philip Armstrong's and Anna Jackson's new books. I've been on a Selima Hill kick, and she has, like, 20 books, so that can keep a person occupied. Oksana Maksymchuk's Still City, about the Ukraine War, is unmissable. I know Sheila Heti's Alphabetical Diaries is probably 'not poetry', but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't recommend it. So good.
As far as forthcoming things go, I worked on Frankie McMillan's new book, Eddie Sparkle's Bridal Taxi (what a title), so I have to give that a shout-out. Helen Rickerby has a book on the way called My Bourgeois Apocalypse, which is another title so good that it should be illegal. New Nick Ascroft in September. If we think about overseas work, there's a new Richard Siken on the way. A new Heather Christle. Shane McCrae has edited a new volume of uncollected Dream Songs by John Berryman, which is undoubtedly of literary historical interest. I suspect the poems aren't first-rate, otherwise Berryman would have done something with them, but you never know!
RS: Far out, that's quite the list. For me I was thinking about Liz Breslin's launch of Show You're Working Out at Te Wā over the weekend – such a cosy celebration, not just of that collection but of some of the incredible poetry coming out of Ōtautahi. And every month when Claudia Herz Jardine's Ōtautahi Lit Scene Zine comes out I'm just blown away by what's on offer. How has the scene developed since you've been involved? Where do you hope it'll grow to next?
EK: The most nourishing literary relationships I have are the ones I have here. In terms of change, it's not just that there is more happening than there used to be (there is), but also the organisations that represent continuity have evolved since I arrived in 2013. The Canterbury Poets' Collective, for example, which I have been on the committee of since 2017, programmes its two annual reading series in a necessarily more modern way, because audiences change.
Poetry changes, for that matter! If there's anything I want for Ōtautahi, it's maybe a little more recognition from people in other centres that we have a vibrant scene with a lot of things happening.
RS: Hmm … I'd love to pick your brain about what 'necessarily more modern' means to you, but we're running out of space! As for more recognition, I'm not sure that I hope for that, personally – it already feels to me that what's going on in Ōtautahi is a significant part of the wider Aotearoa poetry community.
For me, I'm really looking forward to seeing what grows from the Word – The Front Line youth slam, which has been gaining momentum here for a few years now. Again, I find myself most galvanised by communities of poets, of being in a room together, listening to each other, feeling and responding to a big scary world in our own ways. All welcome! More please! etc. Anyway. Thanks for chatting, Erik.