Stylus interviews Bernard Gadd, a long time fixture on the New Zealand writing scene.  Teacher, poet, editor, and publisher, Gadd has been a great promoter of 'the word' in educational and artistic circles. 

 Interview: Patricia Prime

 

You are a teacher, editor, publisher and author of numerous books, articles, reviews and poetry.  Could you please tell me a little about each of these activities?

I’ve been doing poetry on and off all my life, it seems. The other activities began when I became head of English at a working class, multi-ethnic high school in Auckland in 1971. The print resources for English I inherited were very much oriented towards middle class pakeha conventional schools which Hillary College was not. I began to remedy the situation by collecting various NZ short stories into a series of anthologies which brought working class, Maori, Polynesian and to a lesser extent Chinese lives to the forefront. These were published by Longman Paul as being perhaps the first of their kind. Stockton House, a small press publisher, brought out an anthology I compiled of Island and Maori writing aimed at high schools. I also began writing stories, and Heinemann published some of these. But when I added novels on the Moriori, Lapita culture ancestors of Polynesians, and the land wars of the 1860s, publishers baulked ... who would buy them? So three colleagues and I set up a publishing collective to publish them plus a series of 30+ small reading encouragement booklets I wrote and which others illustrated. We also published a short story collection by a fine Maori writer, Atihana Johns, and a book of Cook Island legends in Cook Island Maori and English by the late Kauraka Kauraka.

 

The other literary anthologising I was interested in was to put into print the stories and poetry of new writers and less well known writers. Two volumes of the Voices series came out published jointly by my own Hallard Press and Brick Row. Hallard Press also published an anthology of work by eight poets, a first book of poetry by a young Chinese New Zealander, and shadow-patches, probably the first international collection of haibun by myself, Catherine Mair (then co-editor of winterSPIN) and the well-known Australian haijin, Janice Bostok.  I also published a bi-lingual Spanish-English collection of poems by Estaban Espinoza.

 

At Hillary College I became keenly aware of the social class and ethnic biases of NZ’s public exams. For a few years I was annually on TV and in the newspapers, as well as in the secondary teachers’ journal, exposing the results of the bias – kids at schools in rich suburbs scooped the exam result pools while kids attending school in poor suburbs generally failed - and suggesting and putting into practice an alternative system. I was also aware of other effects of poverty and discrimination and that got me into writing articles on other issues, and these days into letters to the newspapers.

I’ve been asked to review from time to time by editors of some literary mags, perhaps the most interesting being the occasional review of NZ, Australian or Pacific writing I get asked to do for a massive magazine, World Literature Today.

 

 

When you began your career as a writer, would you agree that New Zealand literature was in the hands of an elite few?

 

 Probably. Because it is such a relatively small world, NZ writing has always been dominated by university people as writers, publishers, critics, and literary gatekeepers of various sorts.  But publishing and book selling had not in the 1970s been taken over by huge transnational corporations, and I got to know several publishers who were willing to take a punt of an unknown who was providing what were then novel kinds of anthologies and fiction.

 

What was the situation like in New Zealand schools when you began teaching?  Was there a potential willingness to teach New Zealand literature?

NZ writers were not greatly featured. To some degree there also was an attitude (derived from universities, many of whose lecturers still retain this attitude) that NZ writers must be inferior to almost any overseas writer. But also the paucity of NZ literature was partly because the number of writers was still comparatively small. But the 1960s began a burgeoning of NZ writing and publishing. I was one of several anthologists and writers providing schools with a much greater range of NZ and Pacific literary materials.  And now of course it is almost an act of economic and cultural treachery not to include several kiwis in a school’s reading list!

 

What are your own experiences with publishing your poetry?

 

 Until I began to focus almost entirely on poetry from the later 1980s, my poetry was of a conventional, rather conservative kind in technique. There were quite a variety of publications accepting poetry, including the Post Primary Teachers association magazine edited by a poet, the late Lauris Edmond, and little regional magazines like Northland. It wasn't hard to get into print. My poetry has changed considerably, and for the better I hope, but it’s become less easy to get into print. The number of kiwis writing poetry has greatly increased, whilst the number of literary magazines has not (even if we include those on-line). At the same time, popular magazines which include the odd poem keep in mind the need for sales, and publish only easily readable and usually quite trite poetry. I also have a leftwing conscience and sometimes approach to topics, things not greatly appreciated in free marketeer New Zealand. Sales of my own poetry collections are modest. Maybe they’re viewed as a little too intellectual or simply not in tune with the times. But I very much don’t believe in adapting the poetry into something I don’t want to write or say just for the sake of marketing.

 

 

Did you feel it was necessary to publish overseas to be recognised as a  poet?

 

Recognised by whom? And recognised in what way? I suppose that name recognition is usually a pre-requisite to being read. But I doubt if most people who are somewhat interested in reading poetry have heard of me, nor will all poets have. And this would be true for a great many – maybe most - kiwi poets, including some who are very competent indeed. I seldom try for publication overseas or on-line. I write for New Zealanders ... whether they want it or not! But I don’t think that a record of overseas publication is necessary for work to be appreciated for its quality by NZ editors or publishers. 

 

 

What are your thoughts on vanity publishing?

 

 This is a bit of a put-down term. Many poets, even famous ones, over the centuries have published their own work. And in a small society like NZ, it’s inevitable that many poets, perhaps most, will have to pay part or all of the costs of publishing their work, no matter what publisher lends a name to the project. I started my own Hallard Press to publish my own books and then for a while – till it became too costly and time consuming – published work by others.

 

 

Could you please tell me something about your anthology of New Zealand poetry, Real Fire?

 

 This began as a splenetic reaction to a large university publication, The Big Smoke, which claimed to present the kiwi poets of the 1960s- 80s who brought Modernism to NZ poetry. I found the collection highly selective. So Trevor Reeves, poet and publisher, encouraged me to gather a smaller anthology of important or interesting poets left out of the larger volume and also left out of the several anthologies intended to sample NZ poetry. I also noted that Big Smoke ignored developments like haiku, concrete poetry and the translation of traditional Maori poetry into contemporary instead of Victorian English. I wanted a collection that was fun to read, worth reading, and which could offer a different ‘take’ on that interesting period of NZ history. Some of the people left out of Big Smoke were so surprising – poets like Gary Langford and Stephen Oliver who have gained recognition in Australia after moving there – that I assume the larger book was as much a celebration of an in-group and its mates as an attempt to present a serious piece of literary history.

 

 

As co-editor of the New Zealand haiku magazine kokako, an offshoot of the poetry magazine SPIN, could you tell me about your involvement with the magazine and why you thought it necessary to publish haiku separately from SPIN?

 NZ had and has no magazine specifically devoted to haiku and other Asian originating genre. Catherine Mair, editor of the mid year edition of SPIN, decided to focus on haiku as well as including more usual kinds of poetry as a way to meet this need, and bought her considerable haiku writing experience to bear on selecting which haiku/senryu to include. I joined her and since she retired Pat Prime and I have co-edited the magazine and kept following the direction Cath Mair had established. Now haiku is a little more widely accepted by NZ poetry magazines, but Kokako remains the main forum. We’ve published some excellent haiku, senryu, tanka, haibun and other genre. The high standard is the result of the efforts of the three editors who have been involved. I hope that Kokako can encourage haiku etc which depends less on the Japanese originals and fits more into modern English language poetry whilst retaining the essence of the original. I’ve always in fact resisted the idea of a separate haiku etc magazine and a separate haiku poets group since haiku etc are simply forms of poetry and don’t actually need to be separated off but in fact need to be seen as part of the ever broadening range of approaches to poetry writing both by writers and readers.

 

 You have been very active in the literary scene for the past forty years. Do you meet other writers on a regular basis?

 

No, I’m something of a loner. I enjoy meeting writers from time to time but steer clear of groups and organisations other than the NZ Poetry Society. I want to do my own poetic thing and to feel no pressure to conform to some group’s notion of poetry. I shouldn't say this but I also steer clear these days of famous writers since they talk so much about themselves and their latest work! 

 But I hope I still am active in encouraging writers who contact me or who send in work for Kokako.

 

 

How would you characterise the literary scene in New Zealand at the moment?

 

 Very commercial in its public face but also very varied. One serious problem for writers especially poets and short story writers is the way that publishers and the book trade have been taken over by huge transnational corporations whose approach to literature is to treat it the same as pop music and to insist on books fitting into a limited range of ‘market slots’, and who encourage the search for ‘star’ writers who are hyped up and promoted and whose work then sells well. At the moment the new trend in poetry is towards accessible poetry that’s undemanding to read but which only too often slips into the banal, the trite, and says not very interestingly what’s been better said a thousand times before. Even the state funded literary magazines are affected in some way by this marketing approach, as well as by a felt need to be seen by fund givers as including in all issues not only both genders, but also Maori and youthful writers.

 

But on the other hand, PCs and desk top publishing and sheer stubbornness means that the actual, as opposed to the book trade/media portrayed, world of literature in NZ is lively, with many small presses, several very small magazines, and many networks of writers who encourage and support one another.

What’s lacking in NZ at present is a freely accessible up-to-the-minute catalogue of current writers and their works to let those interested find out what they can read. And we lack anything like the broad Australian approach to funding poetry publication. NZ funding is bureaucratic, snobbish, and highly selective (though not at all necessarily for quality).

 

 

From reading your poems, I am impressed on the influence of New Zealand history on your poetry.  Could you say something about this?

 

 I’m fascinated by history. And I tend to see the layer on layer of history within our institutions, and lives, attitudes and selves. At the same time, I have the sense that people of the past were so alien in their mentalities and everyday lives ... without being totally incomprehensible. I’m intrigued to see now the world trying to run a second 19^th century of free trade and its sweatshops, slavery and wars. I enjoy satire and its barbed encouragements to reassess one’s assumptions and contentments ... though satire, ambiguity and irony are rapidly disappearing from minds in the instant-fix world of the market. And I am interested to see the history professionals struggling (the best of them) to surmount their pre-conceptions to try to make sense of what they locate of the remote or recent past.

NZ history is brief ... maybe a thousand years ... but full of variety and the unexpected. And of course I’m keenly aware of all the ways that history shapes us kiwis today, sometimes in ways we don't suspect. I’m both appalled and intrigued by modern re-writings of history to serve contemporary purposes of various political elites. I know that some readers respond to the history in the poetry while others find it quite outside their interests or experience.

 

 

Can you describe your poetic concept, your ideas for revitalising poetry?

 

Every few years poets come back to the same old questions: how to make poetry accessible and relevant to people, how to make the language closer to everyday speech (or at least intelligible) yet also able to carry the poetry. The arts as a whole have become specialised crafts (professional or not) separate from everyday lives. Some of today’s poets hope to bridge that gap by making their poetry easy reading and by abandoning the innovations of the past few decades. Many contemporary poems read to me like modern language versions of early 20^th century poetry.

My own interest is poetry that invites the reader to contribute. Poetry which is some ways is incomplete. I notice I tend to write more a series of images or lines like a series of mini paragraphs, leaving the reader to put them together. I very much think that poetry which can be readily turned into prose is poor poetry.

I think the way ahead for poetry is to focus on the unanticipated (by writer and reader) elements side by side which the imagination and memory produce, and on those words and images that can resound in that mysterious thing which is the mind. I trust imagination, intuition, and the creativity of memory.

 

It would be interesting to learn more about your method of working.  Do you have a strict regime that you work to when writing?

Not at all. I sometimes write nothing for a week or more. Ideas for poems, or the poems themselves, sneak up on me. Once I have an idea or a subject, poems may come quite fluently and quickly ... though the revision may be a protracted, painful process. I think the ‘unconscious” is more important than logic in making the poetry, but both are needed. I value editors who can critique my work intelligently .. and also editors who can point up the little mars of spelling, lay-out and so on. I write first in a notebook then transcribe onto PC to begin the process of reassessment, and of revision or rejection.

 

 

What are your literary projects at the moment?

 

Various:  another collection of poems;  I have a small collection of poems based on the diaries and letters of an uncle killed in France in 1918 ready for when the publisher has the money;  with two other people I’m gathering a collection of poems by residents of Manukau City giving a sense of the city, a ‘popular poetry’ project;   I’m waiting for a much-revised version of a fantasy novel set in an alternative historical NZ of about 400 years ago to be posted on-line at Southern Ocean Review;  I have an idea about a multi-poet collection(s) vaguely at the back of my mind.

 

 

 What do you see for the future of New Zealand literature?

 

Increased variety of kinds of poetry, and perhaps of readerships or more likely of audiences to hear poetry; poetry in different languages; a growing corporate take-over of publication and the book trade and in reaction growing small press and self-publication, and thus a widening gap between literature as presented in the media and literature as experienced by those who really value it. I see multi-media literature moving into genre we can’t predict including computer collaborations around the globe, plus a blurring of traditional literary boundaries of all sorts. In haiku/senryu in particular I see NZ writers emerging as pace-setters over the next few years with even US exponents coming to esteem us more.