nzepc - 12 Taonga - Julia Allen

new zealand electronic poetry centre

J U L I A A L L E N

12 Taonga

Bio:

Julia Allen was born in Christchurch in 1952. She has been an actress, a drama teacher, a law student and a part-time lecturer at the University of Canterbury. Her poetry has been published in Morepork, Landfall, Climate, Poetry Australia, Untold, Takahe and the New Zealand Listener. A solo collection, Midas Touch, appeared under the Nag’s Head imprint in 1990.

Biblio:

Look for the wart in your cottage cheese pottle (with Stuart McKenzie and Laurens Van der Lingen), Christchurch: d’PRESS’d, 1984

Midas Touch (with illustrations by Kate Bowes), Christchurch: Nag’s Head Press, 1990

Recording:

Flax
lo-fi (rm : 76KB, streaming)
hi-fi (mp3 : 417KB )

Flax

flax
whips
air

flickering red at the edges

and as for Dionysus
(in articulo mortis)
at the point of death

a veil falls
over the eyes
light flickers
over the eyelids

and as for that statue
that you pray to
that inarticulate Mater
you pray to, say

flax
cracks at the water
and lashes
at the water’s edge

[Midas Touch (Christchurch: Nag’s Head Press, 1990)]

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Last updated July 15, 2004