Tuesday Poem - Taonga Puoro

In October 2008, I was one of ten artists invited to participate in the Caselberg Trust's inaugural Breaksea Girl Residency. Our group of painters, poets, a jeweler, a filmmaker and a composer spent six days and nights on board the conservation yacht, the Breaksea Girl, exploring the dark and dramatic waterways of Western Fiordland. 

Before setting sail from Dusky Sound, our Captain Lance suggested that should any one of us feel a need for space, we should speak up and he would drop us off on a convenient rock for as long as might be deemed necessary.

"Can’t you just picture it," said Gillian. "Ten artists. Ten rocks?"

TAONGA PUORO*

for Gillian Whitehead

This unsteady place of black water and red kelp insists

we lay down our tools and listen.

From where I stand, spine to the rope, I catch her

in the act – eyes closed, head back – undisturbed by silence

or squall, the sharp/flat cadences of weather.

She’s with us on the Breaksea Girl, but music

is her separate boat.

See how her face is wet

with notes, her throat a waiting bird.

Taonga Puoro surge in her chest like waterfalls.

How strange I should remember here a line I read

long, long ago; bees in Mykanos hum in a minor chord.

Here, the scale is unpredictable, the thrum

that of a sailor’s cap, an incidental island,

a glissando of salt scattering the shadows of dark-bellied fish.

We sail through contrapuntal seas -

our private charts, our common geography.

Ten artists, yes, and at least as many rocks. But

in this unsteady place of black water and red kelp

                   we do as we must. We lay down our tools and listen.

      

        CB 2009 

       

*"Taonga Puoro are the musical instruments of the Maori people of Aotearoa, New Zealand. The name Taonga Puoro means 'singing treasures' and denotes how highly the instruments are valued, both for the beauty of the sound, the instrument itself and the story of the Taonga. There are many different types of Taonga Puoro, from shell trumpets, to unique types of flutes, spun instruments and bird callers. All instruments are seen as individuals as they have their own unique voice and decoration. They are grouped into families according to how they were created in the ancestral past. These stories are shared through the sounds of the Taonga and the carvings on them. There are many different uses for Taonga Puoro, from open entertainment to sacred ritual use. In either context, when played, they somehow transmit an appreciation for the spiritual dimensions from which they come. . . " 

If you would like to learn more about Taonga Puoro - and to see and hear them, click here.

Meet Gillian Whitehead here and enjoy her compositions here, here and here. 

For more Tuesday Poems, please click on the quill. This week's editor is TP curator Mary McCallum with the poem 'Home to You' by Michele Amas 

Aaah. . . 'tis good to be back.

  

Tuesday Poem - fragments from F-/Wh Fugue

Camelot River, Bradshaw Sound, Western Fiordland

. . . When dawn comes and the ruru* 

return, we will cast our bodies

on your banks and

with spines to the ground

and eyes wide open, wonder

at the tenacity of moss, 

the complex miracle of breathing. . . 

CB 2008 

Sketch book page for F-/Wh- Fugue** (4th stanza)

(Text - CB; composition for piano, bassoon, solo alto and bass chorus - Gillian Whitehead)  

These fragments come from a longer text written in response to Camelot River, an ancient black waterway in Western Fiordland, one of New Zealand's most magnificent and inaccessible areas of primordial forest and uninhabited coastline. The Sounds are referred to by many as the 'birthplace of waterfalls'. I lost - and found - my heart there during a creative residency in 2008. One of the artists on board the conservation yacht was composer Gillian Whitehead. We returned to Dunedin much affected by our experience; our F-/Wh- Fugue is one of several collaborative projects that came out of that time. 

It opens like this - 

Your dark waters ask much of us, Camelot -

A day's encounter leads to nights of melancholy dreams,

Your fertile banks are a birthing place

for best and worst intentions - black mountains' glare

and forest's gaze; a poetry of pauses.

Old river, your dark waters ask much of us. . . 

*

*ruru - New Zealand's only surviving native owl, known for its haunting, melancholy call.

** In the Maori language, the letters Wh sound as an F does in English; the chorus in this piece called on Wh- and F- sounds for their cultural, linguistic and percussive effect (amongst many others, the bass chorus featured the words fecund forest fragile fauna falter fathom fall whanga wheku whanau whenua whetu. . . The intention was to evoke a sense of ancestral voices.) 

Sample page of Gillian's score

. . .  and a wee snippet of the fugue's first rehearsal (sans instruments) with a drawing in the making. . .

PS. I've been a flat fish - a flounder - lately. . . If today's post comes across as a bit of a deep sea dive (or an archeological dig?), that'll be because I've spent the last however many hours doing something I've wanted to do since November (flotilla time); i.e sift through old drawings, fossick through studio drawers; rummage through old folders of poetry. . . I've dug through computer archives, watched old work-related video clips, revisited past projects and past times. . . had a bit of reconnection time. I'd begun to wonder if the creative me had packed up and gone. It feels like a century since I spent a good stretch of unbroken time in my studio - or worked quietly at my writing desk. So, it was enormously helpful to look over where I've been and to see again the things that have fired me in years past; it was helpful to be reminded that I am a passionate person, that I do still have plenty of ideas to work with and there is a firm foundation beneath me even though the ground has felt shaky for an uncomfortably looooong time. 

I have yet to find traction in the studio this year - and must. There are two conferences coming up and a solo show seven months away, so there are several big things to sink teeth into. Today's rustling (my grandfather's term for 'purposeful rummaging') was really, really helpful.  One day soon, I'm sure I'll  return to the blogosphere with writing tongue and tail wagging. I read you all with appreciation each morning but have been at a complete loss for words. 


I've wondered about leaving a 'personal pebble' -  )O( - a sign that says 'I've been here', 'hello', 'yes', 'thank you', 'soon-soon'. . . when words prove elusive? Perhaps each of us could come up with a 'silent signature' for such times?  

To enjoy Gillian Whitehead's piano piece Arapatiki (performed by Stephen de Pledge), click here. Of this piece, Gillian says "Arapatiki, which translates as 'the way of the flounder', is the name given to the sand flats in the Otago Harbour in front of my house. Material suggesting the inexorable ebbing and flowing of the tide and the call of the korimako (bellbird) are the basic ideas propelling the piece."

*

For today's Tuesday Poems, please click here.