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Geoff Cochrane

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NZ & US Poetry Takes on the World!

An initiative by Phantom Billstickers* to provoke some thought, while putting some beauty back into the world’s streets, has seen POETRY POSTERS featuring poems by New Zealand and American poets plastered all over New Zealand as well as Sydney, Paris and several American cities including Nashville, Knoxville, Portland, Seattle, Chicago and Philadelphia.

Jim Wilson, founder of Phantom Billstickers, says “Some of the most beautiful, striking and intuitive poetry in the world has been created by Kiwis. Phantom Billstickers feels a responsibility to help New Zealand artists of all types to be heard at home and abroad, so we came up with the idea of the Poetry Posters. A different set of posters is rolled-out nationally each 4-6 weeks, and each poster in the set features a different poet’s poem. Simultaneous to the poster roll-outs in New Zealand, we’re making our way around the world, plastering poem posters as we go and exposing the international community to New Zealand and American poetry.”

The first poster was pasted-up in Auckland on 2 June 2009 at an event compeered by New Zealand’s inaugural Poet Laureate, Michele Leggott. This launched the first roll-out of Poetry Posters by NZ poets Tusiata Avia and James Milne (aka Lawrence Arabia) and US poets J.D. McCaleb and Michael White. For just over a month these posters were seen on all Phantom Billstickers’ sites in Whangarei, Auckland, Hamilton, Rotorua, New Plymouth, Gisborne, Napier, Palmerston North, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill.

A second roll-out, this time launching in Wellington, began on 22 July and featured poetry by NZ poets Bill Direen, David Eggleton, Michele Leggott, Otis Mace and Frankie McMillan and US poet Josie McQuail.

The third roll-out launched in Christchurch on Janet Frame’s birthday on 28 August and featured, as well as a poster of Frame’s poem “The End”, poems by an all NZ line-up: Ben Brown, Hilaire Campbell, Geoff Cochrane, Rhian Gallagher, Gary McCormick, Campbell McKay, Pablo Nova, Jackie Steincamp and Nicholas Thomas.

The fourth New Zealand roll-out launches in Dunedin at 12pm on Monday 16 November at 468 George Street (by Obelisk), with Michele Leggott officiating. The featured NZ poets are Sandra Bell, Jay Clarkson, Sam Hunt and Brian Turner, while the American poets are Robert Pinsky (Massachusetts), Marcie Sims (Washington), and Joe Treceno (New York City).

Wilson says he’s delighted to be launching the latest selection of poem posters in Dunedin, under the gaze of Robbie Burns’ statue. “Dunedin is a real hotbed of creativity,” he says, “and we’re certainly featuring an interesting selection of poets in this roll-out. Alongside some of New Zealand’s best, we’re honoured to have American poet Robert Pinsky submitting his poem “Samurai Song”. Pinsky is one of the foremost poets in the US – aside from being a prolific writer and the recipient of numerous prestigious awards and fellowships, from 1997 to 2000 he was the US Poet Laureate, and he currently teaches at Boston University and is poetry editor for Slate.”

* Phantom Billstickers has been giving New Zealand a good pasting for 27 years. Jim Wilson started the company in 1982 and has the rights to the leading poster sites in the country.

Diary of a Billsticker – Princeton, USA

On this run, I was carrying poetry posters by four or five New Zealand poets. The poems were by Hilaire Campbell, Michele Leggott, Campbell McKay, Geoff Conchrane, and Janet Frame. I’m always proud to do this.

The day was very pleasant as I set off from Lambertville, New Jersey and up I-95 to Princeton. The trip takes about thirty minutes. Princeton is a beautiful town. The main street (Nassau Street) is good and wide and is dominated by the University. The town somehow just feels open and like there’s a good, clean breeze blowing through it.

Then, as I’ve often said, I enjoy poster runs and always come back feeling refreshed. There is an immediacy to the media. I believe in posters. The air always feels better to me after a poster run.

What do we know about Princeton? Well, this is where the physicist Albert Einstein lived from the late 1930s until his death in the mid-1950s. This chap helped engineer a letter to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in about 1940 that lead to the birth of the Manhattan Project (The Atomic Bomb). Through fellow scientists, he was alerted to Nazi progress on a similar scheme.

Einstein said many great things. He said:

“Imagination is more powerful than knowledge.”

“You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for War.”

“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”

The poster run took three hours and I covered the notice-boards in the cafes, restaurants, bookshops, banks etc. I also placed posters on the bollards and through the English Department at Princeton University. I made a difference.

I was back in Princeton a few days later. I was just walking along when I noticed a poster on Nassau Street which stated that the author Joyce Carol Oates was giving a reading at the University. That’s the power, the spontaneity, and the immediacy of the poster for you. I set off for the lecture hall. Joyce Carol Oates is at the top of her league and has more than twenty books in print. She is legendary for her output.

‘JCO’ (as she is affectionately known) held everyone in the palm of her hand for forty-five minutes whilst she read a short story. I just thought that this reading was easily the equal of any live performance I have ever seen. I stayed afterwards for the nibbles and to get a book autographed.

I am thoroughly enjoying my time in the USA putting up poetry posters.

 

Keep the Faith,

 

Jim Wilson

 

Diary of a Billsticker – Lambertville, New Jersey, USA

I arrived in New Jersey about three weeks ago. I am living in a town called Lambertville which is about fifty miles from New York City. New Jersey has about nine million residents on .0015% the land size of Siberia. On the other side of the Delaware River, five minutes walk away, is Philadelphia. In this state, it is illegal to talk on a cell phone whilst driving, but motorcyclists don’t have to wear a helmet. What’s up with that?

I am still putting up posters of New Zealand poets and thoroughly enjoying it. At Phantom Billstickers, we have a system where a file is sent through to a photocopy shop in Princeton, New Jersey. That same day I can pick up posters. I cannot tell you how much photocopying has revolutionised street posters. The new digital printing of larger posters is doing the same, bringing a fresh immediacy to the media. It’s direct and it’s hard-hitting.

Soon after I arrived in Lambertville there was a poetry reading at a local cafe, River Poets Journal. I managed to get a Janet Frame poetry poster and a Geoff Cochrane poetry poster on either side of the podium.

Next, I covered the bookshops and music stores in the area. These included Labyrinth Books and Princeton Record Exchange in Princeton, Borders in Flemington, Doylestown Books and Siren Records in Doylestown, Pennsylvania and Farley Books in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Panoply Books in Lambertville has graciously offered to do a window display of posters of NZ poets. Phoenix Books here has a couple of poetry posters in their front door. I think people are interested in what happens in New Zealand.

After this, I started on the cafes and managed to get really good coverage in the area. Even most franchised cafes and fast food outlets have proper notice boards for posters.

In America, a lot of posters are stapled to wooden lamp-posts. A week ago I did the deed and bought an industrial stapler from a really cool, old-school hardware store called Finkles. This store has real character.

The next morning I stapled up poetry posters on all the main streets around Lambertville. I managed to place the posters on good angles for easy viewing so that no matter where you walk in Lambertville you will see a poem by a New Zealand poet. For years I’ve thought a lot about that notion of NZ artists (of all types) being ‘Stranded in Paradise’ and I think that is not now necessarily so. What a crook sentence eh? I meant it, too.

In New York City there is a guy doing something really interesting. When he sees poorly designed posters on lamp-posts, he takes them down and redesigns them. Then he puts the new design (which will work a long way better as a poster) on the same lamp-post. He probably even gives the poster better distribution. This method takes a cue from ‘Guerrilla Gardening”.

This past week I took some Janet Frame poetry posters back to Princeton. I placed some on the local postering bollards and then I went to the English Dept (McCosh Hall) at Princeton University. I managed to get excellent coverage through that department. I was delighted to be helping bring our finest writer to America. I call that “Freedom”. It was all just really exciting and I got excellent coverage in the hallways (where posters were displayed) and on the notice boards. Princeton was recently voted the number one University in the USA – first equal with Harvard.

This week I am away to Cornish, New Hampshire. I’ll be taking with me poetry posters by Michele Leggott, Hilaire Campbell, and Campbell McKay.

 

 

Keep the Faith,

Jim Wilson

 

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Diary of a Billsticker – Knoxville, Tennessee USA

Jim Wilson here, I own Phantom Billstickers.

On Monday August 17th, my friend George and I set off to do a poster run in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The significance of the date of this run is that it was 32 years and one day after Elvis Presley died.

I always remember what Elvis said about Memphis, Tennessee, he said: “They asked me what I missed about Memphis, and I said ‘everything.'” He must have said that when he was in the army or on tour. I love Tennessee. I love many things about it and particularly the music.

It was a really hot day (30 degrees Celsius) and the drive from Cookeville, Tennessee to Knoxville takes about an hour and a half. It’s always good travelling with George as we have a great rapport and I’ve always thought that one of the best things you can do with a person is a poster run. True character will come out. Walls will come down. Postering is a pretty genuine pass-time. It is a very earthly occupation. The bonus is that it works.

Knoxville is a beautiful city to me. What I love about it is an old downtown district which the local city council doesn’t seem to have taken the easy route to repair. The easy route would be to ‘town plan’ it to hell and whack in as much chrome as possible, then to have consultants and lawyers standing on every street corner with one stated objective: to suck the life out of the area and make the place as bland as possible. Maybe a few shopping malls would go in. In Knoxville, you have many people with unique businesses in that downtown area and it has become very interesting. You have lots of bright-eyed young people. You have good clubs and venues and my favourite is the ‘Pilot Light’ (New Zealand’s D4 played there a few years back).

We postered for our New Zealand poets (Bill Direen and Otis Mace) and also for Jeffery McCaleb from Cookeville, Tennessee. Knoxville doesn’t seem to have any legal poster sites and we just went on to what seemed to be time honoured sites. We used a broom and glue and also cello-tape in some areas. Staple guns are used on construction sites.

It took us about two or three hours walking around in the heat to put up one hundred posters, usually only four or six in a site. At the end of the run, I know we had made a big difference and George and I were both smiling. I get no greater joy than helping people in the Arts to be heard. The thing about postering is that you get to see instant and genuine results.

I am now in Lambertville, New Jersey. I am partway through a poster run of Janet Frame and Geoff Cochrane poem posters (and some Bill Direen and Otis mace ones thrown in as well). I shall report more on this in a few days.

 

 

Keep the Faith,

Jim Wilson

 

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Poetry on the Occasion of Janet Frame’s Birthday

The third wave of poetry posters were launched on Friday 28th August at Al’s Bar in Christchurch, on what would have been Janet’s 85th birthday.

This third wave includes poems from Rhian Gallgher, Gary McCormick, Jackie Steincamp, Hilaire Campbell, Pablo Nova, Campbell McKay, Geoff Cochrane, Ben Brown, Nicholas Thomas & Janet Frame.

Pamela Gordon of the Janet Frame Literary Trust was also present to announce the 2009 Janet Frame Literary Trust Awards to winners Geoff Cochrane (for poetry) and Alison Wong (for Fiction).

The two $10,000 prizes mean that a grand total of $85,000 has now been gifted to benefit New Zealand writers by Janet Frame’s estate from the fund the late author set up for that purpose in 1999.

Our part in all this is more modest than that but we have printed and placed 6,000 A1s of 20 different poems by 20 different poets from Whangarei to Invercargill over the course of the project so far.

We ran poems in the first burst from: Tusiata Avia, James Milne (aka Lawrence Arabia), M White & J D McCaleb.

And in the second burst from: Michele Leggott, Frankie McMillan, Otis Mace, Bill Direen, David Eggleton & Josie McQuail.

In keeping with the “why not” spirit of the whole enterprise, we’ve also placed posters in Paris, France; Sydney, Australia.; Nashville & Knoxville, Tennessee and Princeton & Lambertville, New Jersey.

Look out for the latest wave of poetry for the people on Phantom street poster sites in 13 centres New Zealand wide.

 

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