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About All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens
All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens is my second poetry collection. It contains 55 poems, many of them new. It's published by HeadworX, and you can read more about it on the HeadworX All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens page.
You can buy All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad (which serves both overseas and NZ residents).
What's it all about, then? Well, according to the distributors,
All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens is Tim Jones' second collection of poetry from HeadworX, following Boat People in 2002. It includes his poem "The Translator", which was selected for inclusion in Best New Zealand Poems 2004, and poems which have been published in the Listener, North & South, New Zealand Books, JAAM, and a number of other venues, including US and Australian magazines.
The poems in the book range all the way from Southland to Iraq, from a backyard telescope to Mars, from the Rapture to rugby league. Along the way, there's love, sex, children, and Motorhead. These poems are full of surprises. To quote one of them, "Summoning":
You never know.
That is the truth of every incantation.
You never know
what will come to the flame.
Ordering Information
TITLE All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens
AUTHOR Tim Jones
PUBLISHER HeadworX Publishers
DATE September 2007
FORMAT Paperback
EXTENT 80 pages
ISBN 978-0-473-12490-8
RRP NZ$24.00
DISTRIBUTOR: Addenda Limited, PO Box 78-224, Auckland, email addenda (at) addenda.co.nz
You can buy copies:
- From independent bookstores, or by ordering from chains such as Whitcoulls. In Wellington, the book is available from Borders, Dymocks and Unity Books.
- Through online booksellers, such as Time Out Bookstore, Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad (which serves both overseas and NZ residents).
- Directly from me - please see my orders page for details.
Poems Included
Poems published for the first time in All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens are marked with an asterisk. For prior publication details of the other poems, see my Poems page. I've included links to some of the poems available online.
Section I: Inside
Elfland
The Translator
Getting By*
Oprah Relents
After Ohio*
Tea with Maggie
Norah Jones or System of a Down
Tuesdays
Wind Walks the Hand
Fitness*
An Adventure
Sex in an Elevator*
What to Call Your Book
The New Dylan Thomas
In His Tower*
Bloody but Unbowed*
Dividing My Time*
Section II: Outside
Landscape with Poets
Two Creek Beach
Picking Myself Up*
Tethered Flight
That H-Shaped Hole*
1987A
Going Back
At Lake Sylvan
Brighter*
Love Scene with Monks
Succession*
Te Whanganui a Tara
Wellington
Screeched to a Halt
He iwi tahi tatou*
Slope Point*
The Wise Ape
No Oil
Watching the Birds
South
Section III: Farside
Death Gets Wheels
Replicant
The Rapture in Reserve Grade*
Summoning
New Live Dates
Flyboy at the Stadium
The Master at Work
Story of Princes
Queen Amygdala
Red Stone:
Stone
Ares Vallis, 1997-
Touchdown*
The Good Place*
The First Artist on Mars
Rebuttal*
Red Canvas
First Light
Good Solid Work
Reviews
Hamesh Wyatt reviewed the book in the Otago Daily Times on 26 January 2008:
His poems are quite compelling and infectious. Fortrose, Gore, Tuturau are some of the settings, but so too are Iraq and Mars. There are plenty of pop references from the Moody Blues, System of a Down and Motorhead. I enjoy how he manages to confuse and comfort in equal parts [as] in Wind Walks the Hand.
These are deliciously understated poems that offer something challenging and fresh. All Blacks Kitchen Gardens is a work of refinement, not reinvention. Since Boat People Jones' focus and expertise has grown. Love, sex and children might be mentioned more often than rugby, but this is an excellent little book.
Trevor Reeves had some nice things to say about the book in Southern Ocean Review 45:
I have always been an admirer of Tim Jones' work. Perhaps a bit of a late-comer to the trade of writing after being active as an environmental advocate. However, he brings much skill and craft to his writing tasks. This is the 39th book in HeadworX's 'New Poetry' series, highlighting some of our best writers. This is Jones' third book and it has me captivated. The tasteful photo in the front has been lovingly prepared. I liked 'Bloody but Unbowed' best, a short poem lovingly crafted, with pungency and feeling. The personal melds, rather than intrudes, in 'Two Creek Beach', a poem about Southland rivers. 'Tethered Flight' is bout keas and is well constructed and with some genuine feeling. There are gold nuggets aplenty in this gem of a book. Make sure you get your copy.
Good advice there from Trevor!
Here's some quotes from later reviews:
In the New Zealand Herald's Canvas magazine on 8 March 2008, Graham Brazier gave a favourable reviews to All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens. Despite insisting on describing me as a young poet (well, I look young, but I have this really dodgy portrait hanging in the attic), Graham said some very nice things about the book, describing it as a standout among the recent flood of local poetry publications, and saying "each poem stands on its own merit, a polar opposite of its predecessor". Given that Graham is the lead singer of New Zealand band Hello Sailor, it's perhaps not surprising that he draws particular attention to New Live Dates, my poem about an aging rock star strutting his stuff one more time. (NB: "New Live Dates" is the second poem at this link.)
In Poetry New Zealand 36, Owen Bullock introduces the book as "a second collection from this wry and insightful Wellington poet". He focuses on those poems in the book which incorporate some reference to the rich and famous, such as "Fitness" and "Oprah Relents", saying that "the results can produce a zen-like, frozen look at the ridiculous in life".
In Bravado 12, Michael Lee is kind enough to say that the last line of the opening poem in the book, "Elfland", makes his scalp tingle. He also notes the varied subject matter, and gives some extracts from his favourite poems in the book, concluding by saying that the book "gives us Tim Jones's lively, poet's mind".
In the March issue of a fine line, the New Zealand Poetry Society newsletter, Joanna Preston is less keen: she calls the collection "uneven", and particularly dislikes my poem "Oprah Relents". On the other hand, she does like "First Light" and several other poems, so it's not all bad news.
In Takahe 63, James Norcliffe looks in detail at the three sections of the book - Inside, Outside and Farside - and concludes that:
All Blacks' Kitchen Gardens is a most enjoyable read, full of intelligent poems intelligently arranged so that they set up echoes and conversations. Although at times there is the slight clunk of contrivance, there is more than enough here to surprise and satisfy.
Slight clunks apart, I'm pretty satisfied with this as a summary.
Email me at timjones@actrix.co.nz