Tim Wilson

Q. Let’s start with a conventional question. Who are the past or present writers (poets, novelists) that you are drawn to? And what is it about their work that draws you to them?

As a festering 13 year old, my English teacher at Whanganui High, Hal Smith (an American with Robert Lowell glasses) introduced me to T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Wasteland’. My head and heart exploded. I was drawn to the music of the words, thoughts and sentiments. I’d never heard anyone write or speak like that. I wanted more. So I’m invigorated by work that engages me for various reasons; it might be intellectual, emotional or spiritual. For my 21st birthday, I asked my Gran to buy me The Cantos by Ezra Pound, A by Louis Zukofsky and The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson. Since then, I’ve relished (and disagreed with) Sylvia Plath, Marie Howe, J.D. Salinger (the short stories beat the novels); James K. Baxter (whose picture adorned -if such can be said of his bearded visage- the wall of my room as a teenager), Tony Hoagland, Flannery O’Connor (particularly her prayers), Peter Porter, Philip Larkin, Allan Ginsberg, Rainer Maria Rilke, Tracey Slaughter, Bob Orr, Hera Lindsay Bird and Jenny Holzer (‘Protect me from what I want’). I had an extended Proust phase, which culminated in visiting his actual bed in a museum in Paris, the very one which he wrote the 3,000 or so pages of ‘In Search of Lost Time’. It was tiny; I mean, the bed was. Such is my problem. I went to New York aged 35 with five or six books, and left 11 years later with more than 600. Tragic.

Q. What have you been working on in more recent times that has taken up most or all of your creative focus?

With my darling wife Rachel, who is the true poet of the family though her medium is music, our current focus is on four frenetic, funny, foul, poetic, gentle, bright, tearful, roaring Philistines named Roman, Felix, Wolfie and Otto: our sons. They’re gifts; the best poems we’ll ever write. And as parents will know, they’re also rewriting us, constantly.

Q. I’d love to know about your first poem. I’m not talking about the ones that childhood thrust us, e.g, Roses are red, violets are blue. I’m talking about the first time you thought, ‘I’m going to write a poem’. Can you remember what it felt like? And here’s a biggie, what drove you to write a poem in the first place?

My first real poem, 30 Seconds Over, was published by a New Zealand literary journal Parallax  when I was 15, amongst work by real academics and poets. I couldn’t believe my luck, fulminating in Whanganui, so far from the action. I remember walking to the mailbox to receive the confirmation letter that it would be published, then -a few months later- receiving the journal itself. Blame Hal Smith, or T.S. Eliot, or -my hero by then- Ezra Pound. I wanted to create something like I was reading, so took my father’s Imperial 66 typewriter and bashed it out. Oh, the 70s American punk band Pere Ubu also had a big effect on the music of the poem. I can still remember the beginning: ‘Einstein on the beach, Einstein on the beach. The sea could be lead and the sand glass…’

Q. If you were to review your poetry today, could you describe it? And if so, what would that description be?

I would hope for the adjective true, even if humiliatingly so; emotional… the feelings can be BIG; also, unexpected (I’ve written a poem about Hera Lindsay Bird, Philip Larkin, James K. Baxter and Sappho living as flatmates in Brooklyn; it has yet to be published). Can I add funny? Tony Hoagland’s What Narcissism Means To Me is one of the best titles I’ve seen, though Tim Upperton’s The Night We Ate The Baby also contends strongly. Ideally counter-cultural, i.e. I’ve found I like endings to rhyme, a vice I possibly need to suppress.

Look, enough talk… here’s an example: An Unbeatable Offer

(P.S. note from David, there is also the poem I Married a Yeti to read)

Q. Can we touch upon poetry overall in New Zealand. For someone (me) who doesn't know that world, what is your view on the current health of poetry in NZ? (this can cover everything from the platforms for it to appear, the public’s appetite for original work, the strength of the poetry itself, how the interest in poetry all compares to days gone by and so on).

I may well not read widely enough, but poetry seems to be enjoying a renaissance of sorts. There are plenty of platforms (both nationally and internationally; I’ve been published in both), including social media, and -finally- plenty of poets. Why is poetry ascending? It’s short and often sour rather than sweet. It’s intense. Language is remoulded. The internet seems to value authenticity; legacy platforms were more performative… oh, wait, actually the internet is incredibly performative, albeit an excessive way that attempts to create the appearance of authenticity through exacerbation. Golly, I threw around a few $60 words there. Sorry. I do think there’s been a decline of trust in the explanatory power of rationalism (as opposed to wider explanations) to unpack the human condition. The word often bandied about is ‘spiritual’. Poetry is the natural bucket for such qualities. Might the general public care? Probably not.

Q. Onto your novels. You handwrote the first draft of your second novel, News Pigs. It can only lead to a natural question: What is your pen of choice for writing? And a second question being about the paper you wrote it on. Are we talking thin-lined A4 pad? Or vintage parchment from Paris? I think I’m fumbling around here trying to ask: Does the quality of pen and paper affect the quality of your writing?

A. At present I write with a Parker gifted to me by my birth father and family in 2020, after I’d tracked them down by spitting into a cup and sending it to Ancestry.com. I write into a notebook that was a Christmas present from my in-laws. As for News Pigs, I’m pretty sure I wrote that using disposable felt tips obtained from the stationary cupboard at TVNZ, where I was working at the time. Medium nib. I used old exercise books bought in second hand shops; I remember one in particular: a hardback with green covers. I also write on FB messenger on my Samsung Galaxy, but find the terse nature of the line space available produces a different sort of voice. Handwriting is crucial; it connects my head, heart and soul to my body; we are fearfully and wonderfully made: that must be expressed in how and what we write.