Daffodil Day

Friday 31 August 2012 is Daffodil Day in New Zealand.

 

Since 1990 Daffodil Day has been used to fundraise for the Cancer Society, to promote their work and to raise awareness about cancer.

 

http://www.daffodilday.org.nz/donate/

 

Fresh frames

The latest issue of New Zealand Books is out (Vol 22 No 3, Issue 99, Spring 2012) and it contains a thoughtful and scholarly review of Gorse is Not People by Emeritus Professor Lawrence Jones. He clearly has relished getting to know "this fascinating collection" of stories which are "welcome additions to Frame's oeuvre". Lawrence Jones is of course very familiar with the background of some of the 'once feared lost' stories and is 'gratified' to discover that they have in fact been preserved by Frame. His review has the flavour of an academic introduction; he selects a few stories for closer analysis and in some cases for an exposition of their chequered history. He considers, for example, the first (and last) piece of work that Janet Frame ever showed Frank Sargeson:

Another outstanding early story printed for the first time in the collection is 'An Electric Blanket', the story that Frame in An Angel at My Table reported as having shown to Frank Sargeson when she was staying with him in 1955 and which he condescendingly told her was "quite good of its kind" -- but it is much better than that.

I was particularly interested to read the meaty paragraph in which Prof Jones considers the ramifications for the Eng Lit classroom of the story "A Letter from Mrs John Edward Harroway", which acts as a postmodern coda to one of Frame's best-known stories 'The Bath':

At the same time the speaker's request to the writer "to tell the truth and not invent things" is a naive wish contradicting what Frame herself knew to be true -- that even her most experience-based and/or autobiographical stories inevitably involve invention.

 

A birthday present to unwrap

Pictured above is  a copy of Janet Frame's typescript of the poem 'How I Began Writing' which was first published in The Goose Bath (2006). Today being Janet Frame's birthday, posting the poem seemed to be a suitable way to celebrate her long and fruitful career searching for "a truthful vocabulary".

Birthday wishes

Today would have been Janet Frame's 88th birthday.

 

This lovely vase full of flowering currant is on display at the Hocken Library, and the card reads:

 

Staff at Hocken Collections

take pleasure in commemorating

the birthday of Janet Frame

with one of her favourite flowers.

 

28 August 1924 - 29 January 2004

That's the trick.

And wink-quick manual Daniel

became Why-electric.


Scan the poster and hear the poet.

Typo!

Oh no! There's a typo in the new book! (At least, there is one that we have found...)

It seems to be that no matter how hard you try, and how many people read the manuscript and check the proofs, there'll always be something that lies in wait ready to leap out at the author or editor, only after the book is published...

And so it is. Call it an antidote to hubris, or a zen imperfection.

FYI the mistake that we discovered in Gorse is Not People is in the editorial notes at the back of the book - according to which, Frame published a story in 1965 and wrote it in 1966. Hmmm.

When I (sheepishly) mentioned our silly mistake to the publisher, she said cheerfully that we would be able to fix the error for any paperback edition that might follow the hardback first edition.

Today's news, that Gorse has appeared again on the NZ fiction bestseller list (it's at number 4, in its fourth week on the chart) makes it seem a little more possible that we'll be able to fix the typo for a reprint!

 

Scan the poster and hear the poet

A new Janet Frame poem poster is about to hit the streets - and I'll let the Phantom Billstickers Press Release tell the story:

Phantom Billstickers and the Janet Frame Literary Trust Present:

Scan the poster and hear the poet

 Rediscover New Zealand’s literary icon on her birthday, August 28th

 To celebrate Janet Frame's birthday, 28 August, Phantom Billstickers will be placing posters featuring her poem "Daniel" throughout New Zealand.

Look for the posters starting on Saturday the 25th of August and scan the QR code with your smart phone to hear Janet Frame reading the poem. Also look for a new book of short stories by Janet Frame, “Gorse is Not People: New and Uncollected Stories” launched on the 15th of August.

Phantom Billstickers loves Janet Frame. Ms. Frame passed away in 2004 long before the era of the smart phone. Now, a new generation of poetry lovers can hear her voice by connecting with new technology. A little bit of magic that. We hope Janet would have liked it.

Phantom Billstickers feels that QR Codes and other dynamic technology is the future of engaging people on the streets.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

 You can read about the Phantom Billstickers Poems on Posters project as well at http://www.0800phantom.co.nz/blog/poetry

(Personal note: In her later years Janet Frame was an enthusiastic early adopter of new technologies, and she was also very fond of gadgets, so I feel quite sure that she would have been intrigued by this new trick of changing "from manual to electric"!)