The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature
Page 98
The nannies are coming! Let it
be said: they’ve caught on.
They are moving into the backyards
of our town. They glow
under the greatcoats of our generals
making slight invasions to the
centre of our sleep. They polish
their treads under the dark in
yards of iron. Collecting landscapes
to whine through, they hum themselves
to sleep; they are counting people.
(1975)
Whaddarya? The Eighties
For many New Zealanders, the 1980s were a time of trauma and upheaval. From the Springbok tour protests of the beginning of the decade, to the economic restructuring of the mid-decade, to the stock market crash of 1989, familiar social structures were questioned, changed or swept away. It was an equivocal process. While an older generation of politicians, rugby administrators and Kiwi blokes seemed both dangerously potent and ridiculously outdated, and their demise to be celebrated, the illusion of New Zealand as a place free from materialism or consumerism, a homogeneous community of supportive and non-competitive values, was also swept aside.
The literature of the 1980s reflects and contributes to these political issues, often satirically or by allusion rather than as straightforward polemic. Encouraged by the work of local historians, some writers engage in a process of cross-fertilisation where the past is seen as a way of energising the literary and enabling the present to be talked about in terms of symbol and indirection.
There is an awareness of the interaction between the world as it is and the world as it has been written about. Reading the landscape and using the literature of elsewhere to colour or re-present experience—the literature of memory, nostalgia, and of comically alien forms—complicates and makes subtle the local. The establishment voice and establishment positions and values are undercut by alternative voices and narratives, and this process encourages and enables new and experimental literary forms.
Women’s writing, after the legislative successes of the 1970s, becomes playful and ironic, seeking a change in personal rather than legal relationships. Māori writing, hitherto occupying a relatively narrow and exclusive space, now converges with the mainstream and in doing so attracts international as well as local readership, as parallels and associations with the postcolonial literatures of other countries attract notice. Māori once again are used as a marker of mainstream national identity, though, unlike the Maoriland movement in the late nineteenth century, its authors now are Māori and its representations less romanticised and more authentic.
Overseas travel being an increasingly common experience, especially for the young, the experience of being overseas becomes part of the acceptable subject matter for a local writer. Unlike the one-way expatriation of Katherine Mansfield’s generation, being away may also involve coming back again. There is an enjoyment of the disconcerting perspective of being in strange, unsignposted surroundings; and at the same time there is the frisson of regarding New Zealand from the perspective of elsewhere.
National Anthems
David Eggleton, ‘God Defend New Zealand’
When young men no longer pick the peaches at the beaches
and the West Coast coal veins have been taken too far,
when the gold and orange dreams leave the crayfish pots
and supermarkets stop leaking Classical Gas,
God defend New Zealand.
When the Golden Gorse hums no more with bees
and blue heaven’s blackberry delights fail to please,
when old ladies brush their hair into atomic clouds
and Auckland pubs lose their sweating crowds,
God defend New Zealand.
When teenage yahoos quit going on the razzle
and Sharon O’Neill’s poster eyes give up their dazzle,
when the cow-nipple of green Taranaki ceases to spout
and the neon sky-writing of Newmarket goes out,
God defend New Zealand.
When Henderson’s purple river of wine won’t flow
and the waving wheat carpets of Canterbury don’t grow,
when the fruit machine of juicy Nelson breaks down
and bobby-calf trucks buzz off from one-horse towns,
God defend New Zealand.
When the salt lake vanishes from lonesome Marlborough
and Otago’s blooming cherry trees no longer bother,
when Japanese power tools blow up as they shape the land
and kids will not play on the crystal sand,
God defend New Zealand.
(1988)
Maurice Shadbolt, from Once On Chunuk Bair
BASSETT begins transcribing message.
CONNOLLY Private South?
FRED comes down from crest.
FRED Yes, sir?
CONNOLLY While Corporal Bassett copies out the latest Comic Cuts, I want an errand run. Feeling fit, lad?
FRED (nervous) Fairly, sir.
CONNOLLY If we ever get off this hill, we’re all going to sit round yarning at reunions for years, pretending we were brave. Know exactly what I mean, don’t you?
FRED Think so, sir. Yes, sir.
CONNOLLY Now’s your chance to enjoy being scared.
FRED Sir?
CONNOLLY A man who can’t is only half alive. He’s never lived. Get out there to Lieutenant Harkness. Go like the clappers. See how things stand out there. Then back here smartly.
FRANK moves swiftly down from crest.
FRANK I’ll go.
CONNOLLY He’s my runner, as I understand it. Your brother. My runner.
FRANK It’s getting thick out there. If Harkness has been hurt, someone will have to take command. And pull them back.
CONNOLLY I make that decision, sergeant.
FRANK All the same ….
BASSETT I have the message, sir.
CONNOLLY Message?
FRANK All the same I’m right.
CONNOLLY (irritable) Bugger it, then. All the same you probably are. If Harkness … never mind. I want to know their situation. And I decide.
FRANK begins shedding rifle and gear, ready to run.
BASSETT It’s something relayed from General Sir Ian Hamilton himself, sir.
CONNOLLY (surprise) Hamilton?
BASSETT Himself, sir.
CONNOLLY What brings this honour?
BASSETT Chunuk Bair I’d say, sir. You want me to read it?
CONNOLLY Anything to pass an idle hour.
FRANK pauses, waits to hear message read. BASSETT’s reading is rather laboured and awkward, with wrong emphases.
BASSETT General Sir Ian Hamilton regrets that thus far the offensive has failed to take Achi Baba or Koja Chemen Tepe, but he rejoices in the shining triumph upon Chunuk Bair by—I’m sorry, sir, you aren’t going to like this.
CONNOLLY Go on.
BASSETT By the magnificent Australians ….
CONNOLLY The what? The who?
BASSETT (apologetic) By the Australians, sir …. (Weaker.) The—magnificent Australians.
CONNOLLY What Australians? Where?
BASSETT He doesn’t seem to know it’s New Zealand up here, sir.
FRANK So long as he’s got someone getting done.
BASSETT You want me to check, sir? To see if there’s been a correction?
CONNOLLY No. Good for us. It’ll make us try harder.
BASSETT Harder, sir?
CONNOLLY We’ll make our own bloody correction.
BASSETT (reading again) He says in humanity’s huge hour of trial, the British Empire’s audacious feat of arms on Chunuk Bair has been a tonic.
CONNOLLY Whose?
BASSETT The Empire’s, sir. The British Empire’s audacious feat of arms.
CONNOLLY In your considered opinion, Corporal Bassett, does it get any worse?
BASSETT Hard to say, sir. (Reads again.) He says where so much is dark, where so many are discouraged, he feels both light
and joy. He is uplifted, ennobled. Chunuk Bair, he says, will do.
CONNOLLY Will do? Will bloody do?
BASSETT (reading) Will do.
A blast over the summit. BASSETT, while reading, tries to protect his exposed head.
CONNOLLY Nothing about uplifting and ennobling his twenty thousand fellow countrymen in Suvla Bay? Getting his brother British generals off their arses?
BASSETT (consulting notes) No mention of arses at all, sir. He asks that you continue to strive with the utmost vigour and fury and an utter disregard of life. Chunuk Bair must be held to the last man if need be.
CONNOLLY To the last Fernleaf.
BASSETT He asks have you got colours, flags—a Union Jack—to make a bold show.
CONNOLLY To help Turkish gunners find our range?
BASSETT And a band to keep your spirits up.
CONNOLLY A what?
BASSETT A band.
CONNOLLY is baffled.
A musical band.
CONNOLLY is incredulous.
Rum tah tah rum tah.
CONNOLLY You’re inventing this, corporal.
BASSETT I couldn’t, sir.
CONNOLLY To think I was a simple son of the Empire.
BASSETT Yes, sir. He wishes to remind you that today God is bearing keen witness above.
CONNOLLY God?
BASSETT G-O-D, sir. He says to remember God is about His celestial spring cleaning, and is now scrubbing our star bright with the blood of His bravest and best. End of message.
CONNOLLY With a poet for a general, who needs colonels?
FRANK I told you. He needs us for his memoirs.
CONNOLLY Shut up. I talk the sedition around here, sergeant.
FRANK Sir.
CONNOLLY You say something?
FRANK I said sir, sir. I could have a salute coming on too.
CONNOLLY Get over there. See how much of Chunuk Bair is being scrubbed bright.
FRANK goes over the crest. CONNOLLY turns back to BASSETT.
I want to speak to our revered Brigadier-General Johnston, if he’s finished licking boots.
CONNOLLY grabs receiver from BASSETT.
Hello …. Get me Brigadier-General Johnston. Connolly speaking. Well, tell himself to make himself bloody available. Fast. Bloody fast.
A blast over crest. Smoke. CONNOLLY crouches briefly, rises again.
Sir? Connolly here. What? Indeed, sir. Indeed we’re bloody well holding on. You’ll soon have no colonial louts left to lead. Yes, Fernleaves, man. Not Australians. Not Britons. New Zealanders. No, sir, as a matter of bloody fact I don’t see distinctions as invidious within the great Imperial cause. Not when Britain has thousands of fresh troops basking in the bloody sun. What the hell’s happening? … Well, ask. Demand …. Yes, I know you’re pig in the middle—sir. I just want you to tell Hamilton to get off his elegant bum and go bite it …. Listen—sir—I’ll tell you who I think I am. I’m a bloody New Zealander …. Yes—sir. Then—sir—you go bloody bite yours …
CONNOLLY holds receiver out from his ear.
… too.
For those around him, he is calm again.
It seems the line’s cut again. Or our diplomatic brigadier’s gone back to talking to a bottle.
BASSETT I’ll check, sir. Here.
He takes receiver.
Hello, hello. Not a peep, sir. I’ll have to look along the line again.
(1982)
Greg McGee, from Foreskin’s Lament
FORESKIN I was born of the same mothers as you—all! I was part of a whole generation that grew up on wintry mornings running from between mum’s warm coat ends on to dewy green fields that seemed as vast as the Russian steppes. And we’d swarm, this way and that, the ball a nominal focus, and the rows of earnest parents our sidelines, having no idea of how to score, how to win, or lose, or even which way to run if we got the ball, except away … from all that attention. But even then, ambition wasn’t far away, we could feel it rising in steam-breath from the screaming sideline mouths.
Kill him!
There were times of closeness, father and son, brother and weary brother, waking very early on cold mornings, huddling together under a blanket in front of a wireless waiting for it … wait for it, wait for it!—and for a whole generation god was only twice as high as the posts.
We who know our history by itineraries—the cold war of the ’50s you say? Oh yes, we remember it well, those front-row problems, Skinner and Bekker. ’59? A melange of O’Reilly’s creamy thighs. Jackson’s jink, DB’s size 13s, and a sheep-dog retrieving the ball in a cowpaddock in Morrinsville. Froggies in ’61, Poms again in ’66—bloody awful!—those artistes of ’68 Villepreux and Jo Maso, a Pinetree bestriding the ’60s with a sheep under each arm, the Bokkies in ’73—the ones that didn’t come, that never more will come. The old order never would have changed. We were DBed, JJed, BGed, jardined, cooked, nicholled, elviged, fred allenned, otagoed in ’49, bayed through the ’60s, and through all of it, hot and cold wars, ’51 strikes, recessions, depressions and the booms that gave them depth, hippies, yippies, and all the determined dog-paddling through our little backwater, there was one thing we knew with certainty: come winter, we’d be there, on the terrace, answering the only call that mattered—c’mon black!
Then, later, a lot older, slower, more in need, standing on bare boards in cigarette smoke, a cold sausage roll in one hand and a warm jug of beer in the other, listening once again to one for the ref and one for the ladies’ plates. And an arthritic future to look forward to in the myths of old, criticisms of new; while the nectar flowed till you could almost see the reflection of your youth in its dregs … passing … passing.
I know the lore. I know the catechism. It’s funny. I look at you all. I was born of the same mothers as you. And now … I’m wondering what happened after that. Why am I now so … unaccustomed?
Oh, I escaped from all that—I think that’s probably where I left you. I went from here and wandered … I seem to have wandered drunken through that life, sometimes vital and frothy as a jug, sometimes slack-jawed and despondent, sometimes almost … original! Tortilla-flatted in the university ghetto; winoed the night under cherry trees too cold to blossom, butch cassidy bi-cycled buxom blonde bergen birds, arse on handlebars … and, intellectually … awakened—
bellowed at, barthed, pynched on, coovered into submission
my words
my life
parenthesised.
Calvined at conception
a press-ganged preterite
what could I possibly say that was original
write that was not already Khayamed
pray that was not already pregato
breathe that was not already oxidised
think or shrink that was not thurbered vonnegutted
a perelmaned pun
behanned and bowied
burgered goebelled and
stymied stanley
kubricked in kinky—
my violent reaction already
slow motion peckinpahed.
Oh yes, there was the option—
withdrawal to burroughs
garboed in solitude
rasputined into perversity
heroined insularity
pneumatically welched and squelched in water pipes
kerouacked into speed
keseyed into acid
rubined into protest
cleavered
luthered
black-mailered into mystical honesty!
But never, ever, blessed with the absence of resonance—
someone else’s naturally.
Always the other
where the hell was I?
Ah, but I came back.
I think you saw me, playing fullback I was,
a rugby player of some small note
pirouetting upon the green sward
parading all those vanities—
adidas boots with yellow day-glo insets,
ca
ndy-striped socks, rippling quads
being smitten hip and thigh
believing the lie
doing the osteo crunch!
Smacks fist into palm and stamps foot on floor on ‘crunch’.
Being jones-buggered, bokked
scrummed rucked mauled hooked jinked
cauliflowered around the ears
skinnered on the knees
brained on tremaine
DBed and chocolate wheaten beaten
for our own god whose own we were.
And now the dance is done.
I’m hanging up my boots—whaddarya?
kicking for touch—whaddarya?
chucking it in—whaddarya?
kicking it in the guts
shimmying away on the blind-side
just … couldn’t … hack it.
Vicious raking movement with his foot.
Can’t play the game.
Can’t play the game
or anymore wear the one-dimensional mask
for the morons’ Mardi Gras
where they ask you whaddarya
but really, really don’t want to know.
Well.
Why?
What are you?
Mm?
Eh?
Whaddarya?
Whaddarya?
Whaddarya?
Whaddarya?
Whaddarya?
Whaddarya?
(1980; 1981)
Cilla McQueen, ‘Living Here’
Well you have to remember this place
is just one big city with 3 million people with
a little flock of sheep each so we’re all sort of
shepherds
little human centres each within an outer
circle of sheep around us like a ring of
covered wagons we all know we’ll probably
be safe when the Indians finally come
down from the hills (comfortable to live
in the Safest Place in the World)
sheep being
very thick and made of wool and leather
being a very effective shield as ancient
soldiers would agree.
And you can also
sit on them of course and wear them and eat them
so after all we are lucky to have these
sheep in abundance they might
have been hedgehogs—
Then we’d all be