Phantom Blog

12/12/24

Tell us about your journey into poetry. When did you start writing, and what drew you to it?

I wrote some poems as a child that pleased my mother. Later I did a Masters degree in English Literature, but it wasn’t until one day when I was commuting to work on the London Underground and saw a poem in a vacant advertising space – part of the Poems on the Underground series – that I thought about how poetry worked from the perspective of someone who wanted to write it. The poem was Robert Graves’s ‘Love Without Hope’, one short stanza that gives body to what hopeless love might look like. I learned that poem by heart. My first published poem was in the now defunct literary magazine, Sport. It was a lucky fluke – I didn’t publish another poem for a year or two – but it made me think that poetry was something I could perhaps write.

Two of your children are also poets. What’s it like sharing that with them?

Bill Manhire signed one of his books for me once, and he said, ‘I see your son Oscar writes poetry.’ Then he leaned closer and whispered, ‘Watch out!’

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received, whether about writing or life in general?

The best advice about writing, I think, is by way of example: you read something that fascinates you – Wallace Stevens’s ‘Anecdote of the Jar’, say – and you ask yourself how he did that. And your next question is, can I do it? I remember reading Sylvia Plath’s poem, ‘Medallion’, which uses a 7-syllable line and a terza rima rhyme scheme. I knew nothing about terza rima, but I tried to do what she did, and wrote ‘Seasonal’, one of the first poems I published in America. As for life in general – I think if I’d listened to advice I’d have avoided a few fixes I’ve found myself in. 

If you could have any artist or musician (living or dead) use a poem of yours to create something in their genre, who would it be and why?

Maybe Thom Yorke? For his meandering, dreamy voice. Or Nick Cave, in his murder ballads era? Some years ago I would’ve said Morrissey, but I’ve gone off him.

If you could leave one line of poetry as a permanent installation in Palmerston North, what would it be? 

I have a poetry installation in Palmerston North already, opposite the main entrance to the public library. It’s made of industrial-strength steel, so it isn’t going away any time soon, unless vandals take to it with a crowbar. I like the final line of that poem: ‘You come closer and closer away.’ Maybe that one.

We hear you’re an expert gardener. Do you see parallels between cultivating a garden and crafting a poem? Does gardening influence your creative process? 

I’m not an expert gardener by any means – see that poem, ‘Seasonal’, which catalogues my gardening failures. My sister Katrina is much more knowledgeable about growing things than I am. But I really enjoy it, and it pays better than poems do.

Who are your top five writers or poets to read?

I don’t think I have a top five, or top ten – there are poets I read for certain reasons, such as their use of metaphor, or a distinctive tone, or just because I’m in a particular mood. I love Keats and John Clare, but among living poets I really admire Frederick Seidel – who is about as remote from Keats as you can get, but who sometimes has a peculiar sweet sentimentality that I like. I read a lot of creative nonfiction, and especially admire the work of Annie Dillard, Helen Garner, and Jenny Diski. And Mary Ruefle’s Madness, Rack, and Honey. Among novelists, the writer T.F. Powys is a neglected genius. I’ve tried to interest others – mostly unsuccessfully – in his masterpiece, Mr Weston’s Good Wine.

Bio: Tim Upperton is a writer and gardener. His latest poetry collection is A Riderless Horse (Auckland University Press, 2022), and his other two collections are The Night We Ate The Baby (Haunui Press, 2014) and A House on Fire (Steele Roberts, 2009).He lives in Palmerston North, New Zealand, with his cat, dog and half a dozen chickens.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, Wellington ain’t dead.

Sure, the weather this summer has been slightly questionable, and the wind clearly isn’t going anywhere but nonetheless the city is as alive as ever.

The summer brings out the best is us all, and sometimes even allows us to bask in the cities cultural ambience.

As the city changes and our street poster network evolves, we’re always looking for ways to increase our engagement within the cities we inhabit, whether thats supporting cultural movements, celebrating art or ensuring that our in house team evolves with the times.

So…

We’re also extremely stoked to announce that we have a new account manager on the ground in Wellington. It’s been a long time coming, and we’re glad we waited.

Ruby O’Neill joins us with a wealth of experience in fashion, retail and as a celebrated artist to continue to grow our footprint in Wellington.

As Ruby is an artist, she had this interview published a while ago, and we feel its a perfect summary of exactly why we wanted her as an account manager in Wellington.

A glimpse into the mindset she will be bringing to the capital city.

Get to know Ruby below, or reach out to her directly at ruby@0800phantom.co.nz.

My daughter, Hope, passed away two years ago on February 3rd.

I have two marvellous grandchildren.

What Hope did in the last months of her life was to package up presents for her boys, Isaiah (13) and Jaya(11), for each birthday and Christmas up until they reach the age of 21.  Each present comes with a special card.

Not everyone has it in them to do something like this and I think it’s really special.

For this Xmas Isaiah and Jaya received a Volkswagen model each. They had to put them together like they were jigsaw puzzles. This brought them a lot of joy because it was like they were touching their mother and listening to her as she told them how much she loved them. They could hear Hope laugh, she had a very special laugh. She laughed often, even as she was dying. Hope reached over to add something to the puzzle and the warmth of her permeated the room. The boys were born lucky.

Hope did love her boys, she was a very loving and sincere woman.

I can remember one time walking along George Street in Dunedin with my mother. I must have been four or five years old. My mother was wearing a long luxurious coat with a fur collar. I was holding her hand, it was very warm. The air was filled with her special smell and I felt like a little prince or even a King. It was a very special feeling of closeness and safety. Though the street was very busy, I paid little attention to it. All that really mattered was the feeling between my mother and myself. We got a taxi home, a Mark 2 Zephyr, and it went in a special way, much different from the cars we had at home. We had “old bombs” and the Zephyr was luxurious, much like the day. The taxi driver was wearing some kind of sweet smelling aftershave and he was friendly and well-spoken. He even opened the door for my mother. My mother wasn’t used to this type of thing. In that instant she became even more beautiful. She glowed.

These things are what love is about. This rhythm moves backwards and forwards between people. This rhythm is encouraging and nurturing, it takes away the loneliness of everyday life. There is not a machine on earth that can convey the same feeling. Love is slow and it is beautiful, it casts aside time. My grandsons were incredibly lucky to have Hope and it was very cruel that this love was shattered when she died. But they are still in touch, still holding each other. It’s a love that lasts forever. Blessed people know that, they breathe it.

True love is hard to find. When it is discovered it saves us. We go from a bitter world to one of softness. When we have that love when we are little nothing fazes us. Life becomes easy as it goes along. We are always surrounded by the softness of our mothers. It is bliss.

And now for the fish and chips.

In true love everything tastes better. When I was at Arthur Street primary school in Dunedin I’d often walk down that huge hill down to Rattray Street and buy fish and chips at lunchtime. I forget how much they cost but they were wrapped up in newspaper and the idea was that you’d rip a hole across the top and eat them as you walked back to school, up past Speights Brewery, then past Otago Girls High School and on to Arthur Street.

Fish and Chips never tasted better. I have been unable to secure that taste since those days.

I was very lucky to have tasted those sincere Fish and Chips.

Have a good year everyone. If you like my blog please put a recommendation on the Phantom Billstickers page. Our idea, which is a sincere one, is to take New Zealand Arts, Music and Literature out to the world.

Good Luck!

Murray was one of my very best friends for such a long time.

He died around five years ago. He had some kind of aneurysm at a traffic light in Melbourne. He was working delivering Heroin for one of the gangs. They didn’t offer health insurance as part of the plan.

I called Murray up in the hospital. He was semi-conscious but recognised me straight away even though we hadn’t talked for more than a decade.

He spoke in the soothing way he always did: “James…..”

He asked me if I knew when the nurses would be bringing him his Methadone.

It was touch and go.

His wife arrived from the middle east where she had been nursing within a couple of days. Murray pointed her in the direction of the Heroin in his flat.

She overdosed and died.

Murray died too.

Sadness, grief and loss is part of the daily diet of a drug addict, as is ecstasy and joy.

No one really knows what particular bundle will arrive and at what time. Nothing is secure.

Last week in the papers it was reported that a 61 year old psychiatrist was seeking to have a driving conviction pardoned after 40 years or so. He was a notable sort of bloke and had spent time motivating the All Blacks.

But the gig was that every time he travelled to the USA he had to have a “waiver of ineligibility” to enter and when he travelled to Australia he had to declare his conviction which, no doubt, held him up in the line.

“When I do right no one remembers, when I do wrong no one forgets.”

-Paparua Prison Tattoo.

When you have been painted black by part of the government apparatus then you stay black and life becomes difficult at the oddest of times.

The psychiatrist’s appeal for a pardon was not allowed.

We are living in the time of the Orange Jesus where if you have political ‘clout’ you can get away with anything. The old saying is true, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

I don’t expect to be pardoned for my sins. I have a waiver of ineligibility to enter the USA but everytime I go there I am referred to “Secondary” (a second interview) and I must wait sometimes hours to face a grim faced officer who is usually in a sour mood and who watches Clint Eastwood movies over and over in his downtime.

I always get the feeling that what the officer really wants is for me to lose my temper. I feel prodded and pushed and spoken down to. I feel taunted and harassed. It doesn’t matter how old my convictions are (my last one was more than thirty years ago) or how kind I’ve been, nor how successful I have been in business.

I am a bad guy.  I don’t know Joe Biden nor Donald Trump. I am just a bad guy.

But I have people who love me even if the bureaucrats don’t. Junkies often love each other in a very deep way. They face common enemies. Sometimes they laugh and they cry together. Murray and I did that. We loved each other.

Merry Xmas! 

In light of the fact that The Little Street Art Festival is happening RIGHT NOW, we caught up with Reuben Woods, creative mastermind behind the festy to share some golden insight into the creative scene in Christchurch and just what makes The Little Street Art Festival so epic.

Dive right in.

So, we’re here to talk about the Little Street Art Festival, but for those of us who don’t know, why don’t you give us a bit of background about yourself?

I am the creative director of Watch This Space, we are an Ōtautahi-based urban arts trust – our mission is to champion and celebrate the impact of art on streets by connecting artists and audiences with opportunities to make and experience street art. Personally, I am also a writer and curator, specialising in urban art – in 2023 I curated SHIFT: Urban Art Takeover at Canterbury Museum, which was a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

And where does Little Street Art fit into that / Where did the idea come from?

I love large-scale murals and they have transformed the landscape in cities around the world, but they are also only one aspect of street art’s lineage – many artists add colour to the streets at smaller scales and using different approaches. The Little Street Art Festival is a way to platform those types of expressions – a great accompaniment to mural festivals. We see the Little Street Art Festival as an invitation to look closer, to see art in different ways and to explore how it can become an embedded part of our experience – providing whimsy, wonder, humour, subversion and lots more…  

What’s the creative/arts scene feeling like in Christchurch at the moment? 

I feel it is in a good place, there is a small community, which makes collaboration and cross-pollination easier. There also seems to be a lot of initiatives to build the infrastructure around the arts, recognising the wider ecosystem. From the urban art perspective, it is really positive – the Council have invested funding into a multi-year programme for street art, which we are lucky enough to be collaborating on with the Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival, this is a really massive gesture that acknowledges the impact street continues to have here… 

What are you most excited about for this years festival? 

I always love getting to talk with artists about their ideas and projects – the nature of this festival means it is more low-key logistically (no scissor lifts or traffic plans), so it really is about the art projects and how to engage the audience. We have Smeagol Doesart subverting the expectations of the historical Arts Centre with his sculptural pieces, Sofiya R is creating a beautiful zine and poster installation on one of the Phantom bollards – which is a perfect synthesis! We have a public comic book by Jay ‘Daken’ Skelton, that unfolds as you follow its path along Manchester Street. Klaudia Bartos is creating some incredible sculptural pieces that will surprise people when they come face-to-face with them, and Razor Taser Laser is completing a series of paintings that playfully riff on our evolving use of language in the digital age. They each have their own unique qualities and I’m excited for them all!

What can the audience expect? 

The unexpected! We pride the Little Street Art Festival on engaging with the audience in a variety of ways, including those who don’t know anything about it! We love the way it reminds people to take in your surrounding environment and to see it as a site of potential – to that end we also have walking tours, workshops and an artist panel, as well as a heap of giveaways that will encourage people to get out and about… 

Lastly, the good people of Christchurch may have seen your posters dotted around the city, what is it about street posters that works as part of your marketing plan for Little Street?

I think the best thing about street posters is that they exist in the real world – they don’t exist in a digital vacuum – they are tactile and present in our urban landscape – which is the same as our installations – in both cases, we want people to get outside and explore! We really want to shout out the Phantom team for all the support – we see a fantastic kinship between our roots and Phantom’s!

Any final thoughts? 

Follow us on socials @thelittlestreetartfestival (Insta and Meta) for more information – all our events and activations are free and accessible (some require bookings, so head to Humanitix) – we love seeing people get inspired, so join in!