bad prose on poetry

Oh hallo Blog.  There you are!  I missed you while I was absent for five or so minutes.

Manhire to Music at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival last Friday was excellent.  Bill Manhire's poetry is lovely, redolent of place/whimsy in a way I found delicious. 

I love this, for example: 'On Originality' Bill Manhire, via New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre (I can't reproduce without permission, so I won't.  But please to follow the link and enjoy for yourselves.) 

They closed the piece with Hone Tuwhare's 'Rain'.  I can't find a link that doesn't make me feel all suspicious about copyright/attribution, but I walked past that poem every school day for the five years of my undergraduate study, and I think it's eaten it's way into my skin, living in the subcutaneous fat, an unacknowledged part of me.  That's also probably a breach of copyright, but then, nominal damages only?  It's beautiful. 

(oh - the Hone Tuwhare Charitable Trust site is here and features a copy.)

It was lovely to have the poet read aloud, lovely and emotive to hear those words set to music.  But I also wanted a copy of each poem in front of me so that I could devour the shape of it, study it further, use more of my senses.  Goes without saying I bought the book, hey?