Tonia's French novels
Once a French woman asked her
from which region of France she came?
Demurely, she said New Zealand.
Her accent honed by speech and reading
the novels she retired with, in French,
the question of French concepts
which were never less than profound
the words had shades of meaning like
moonlight on a set of kitchen knives
(she cooked in French as well, ragouts
boullibaisse and cassoulet)
while she read Duras or Houellebecq
savouringly, with Le Petit Larousse
beside her. Her head fell back
on a tower of pillows, pondering
the abstracts that the words proposed.
Later, in Paris, in a smoke-filled tabac
she could have slid onto a banquette
to join in the analysis of Nancy Huston
Nathalie Quintaine or Chloé Delaume
whose words she had laboriously unpicked.
Succès d'estime
The editor of a Christian journal
said: you may not make money
but have succès d'estime instead.
Besides poets have their reward in heaven.
There are poets wandering there, rooms and rooms
of poets wearing heavy wings
and murmuring to themselves estime, estime
wondering what rhymes with it
and what heavenly language it is in.
Ekleksographia:
Wave Two
October, 2009
Poems
Elizabeth Smither
Elizabeth Smither was New Zealand Poet Laureate from 2001-3 and was awarded the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry, 2008. She also writes novels and short stories.