On entering

 I'm absolutely thrilled that an essay I wrote back in April, during NZ's lockdown, is published on The Clearing today. Ostensibly about hedgehogs' colonial history, it also includes a mention of my darling rabbit Thunderstorm, who was tragically killed by stray dogs in October, so it brought back some bittersweet memories. I've long admired The Clearing and enjoyed the essays in particular. My sincere thanks, therefore, to Jon Woolcott and Little Toller Books for helping me realise a little writing dream of mine. You can read 'On Entering the Wrong Carriage' here.

Everywhere is now

 

 

In 2018, I was commissioned to write a Comic about war. The editor ended up being replaced and my piece didn't see the light of day, so I'm publishing it here because it seems pertinent to the current period. It was after all written in response to Trump. I had been in America for the first weeks of Trump's inauguration in 2017, researching my Mary Taylor biography, and saw first hand the women's marches protesting against his presidency and the clap-back of MAGA advertisements on TV. 

 

It's not agatha christie

Thanks to Dr Jonathan Taylor for including my review of Nigel Pantling's It's Not Personal (Smith | Doorstop, 2020) over on Everybody's Reviewing, not least because I got to indulge my love of mystery writing. If you want to know what Miss Marple has to do with Hannah Gadsby, you may only find it in this review!

Dregs

 

My thanks to Editor Christopher Fields for including my 'Dregs' at the end of this thoughtfully curated issue of Neologism Poetry, technically the last of 2020 spilling into the new year.

Yes but what review

Many thanks to Dr Jonathan Taylor and the team at Everybody's Reviewing, for including my review of Ian McMillan's latest Smith and Doorstop pamphlet, Yes But What Is This? What Exactly?.

Tarot

Many thanks to Editor Kit Willett for including 'Rock Oysters' and 'Auckland, Good Friday' in the inaugural issue of Tarot Journal. I'm pleased to have my work alongside poems by Ria Masae, Siobhan Harvey, and others.

Riptide climate matters

 

 

Proud to have work in this important #ClimateMatters issue of Riptide Journal, many thanks to Editors Sally Flint and Virginia Baily.

 

The issue is free to download, but for anyone having difficulty accessing the site, here is my poem:

 

Letters to Dad 

 

I write to you, Dad, who will not read my letters,  

who memorised The Rime of the Ancient Mariner  

and knew by heart the one-eyed yellow idol,  

was never idle but for the hours mined 

 in front of the hearth with the tv casting shadows  

on your big chin. Your chin, I have inherited. In age,  

I have yet to surpass the numbers of your birthday  

the last time we shared cake, a tell-tale crease  

curves from cheek to cheek regardless, shapes 

 an image of myself in your face 

 when you moved to land your fist. 

 Did you feel like you were punching yourself?  

One letter away from dead,  

does guilt hang weighty like an albatross,  

like me aged kid with my arms around your neck, 

 asking you, Dad, please will you read to me?  

You told me two-dimensional stories out your head,  

had imagination and could build sheds from scrap, 

but sat on my homework because it remained flat for you, 

who, when I choked, held me upside-down, 

like the book you couldn’t read,

 until rind fell from my mouth like pressed flowers.  

 

 

Rachel Fenton 2020