Pittaway
Three physical conceits
Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec), Hamilton, New Zealand
Gail Pittaway
Three physical conceits
Biographical note:
Gail Pittaway is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Media Arts, at Waikato Institute of
Technology (Wintec) in Hamilton, New Zealand, where she has recently developed
both an Honours Stream and a Master of Arts in Communication. She has supervised
successful research higher degree projects in publishing, creative writing and
professional writing. A member of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs
executive committee for ten years, her research interests include writing poetry, reading
and reviewing contemporary fiction, and writing for radio. Gail is currently a doctoral
candidate at Central Queensland University, in the field of memoir writing.
Keywords:
Creative writing – poetry, biographical – biography – literary conceit
TEXT Special Issue 30: Creative Writing as Research IV, October 2015
eds Nigel Krauth, Donna Lee Brien, Ross Watkins, Anthony Lawrence, Dallas Baker and Moya Costello
1
Pittaway
Three physical conceits
Charm
(For Marie Flynn)
Apotropaic magic it’s called
when we say ‘bless you” after a sneeze
or “cross my fingers and hope to die.”
As you lay dying
I became uncharacteristically tidy.
Of course I gardened
but I scooped up weeds immediately.
Books went into a new book case
in height order
and my wardrobe found itself rearranged
according to cut and season,
while all the hangers were made
to primly face the wall.
At the clothesline I recalled your reputation
For organising pegs by colour,
then matching them to the clothes.
I drew the line at that,
but washing has been folded with particular care.
Apotropaic magic.
Auspicious, not superstitious
you’d have found it propitious
that a comet called McNaught visited
our southern skies in that of all weeks.
As you clutch that comet’s tail
perhaps you’ll look down and see
my rotary clothes line
like a rainbow tree fern?
In case, today, I’ll hang the clothes in colour bands
and size order, with matching pegs:
A Romany rag tree
A Tibetan flag
Your patterning in me.
TEXT Special Issue 30: Creative Writing as Research IV, October 2015
eds Nigel Krauth, Donna Lee Brien, Ross Watkins, Anthony Lawrence, Dallas Baker and Moya Costello
2
Pittaway
Three physical conceits
Forensic Jumper
(For Jenny and Mathew in London)
You return my French designed,
Italian wool jumper,
Animale, by Roger Duc,
after I rejected it,
too heavy for the flight home
to summer.
Now, unpacked, unwashed,
it traces northern nights, dark, long,
yet threaded
with metallic light.
There’s a whiff;
dark slime
wintry footpaths,
fire smoke
crisp air.
On the sleeve, a daub,
warm beer, spilled in laughter.
In front, a scab of milky sauce;
some not especially game bird
poached in cream and wine.
Hairs of an antipodean cat
spike out, three-toned
and, on the shoulder,
two of my hairs,
six months younger then.
Doubtless, too, residues of skin or scalp
around the neckline
could be scraped or plucked,
sent to laboratories:
all evidence of happy times.
TEXT Special Issue 30: Creative Writing as Research IV, October 2015
eds Nigel Krauth, Donna Lee Brien, Ross Watkins, Anthony Lawrence, Dallas Baker and Moya Costello
3
Pittaway
Three physical conceits
Swansong
(For Pamela Gray)1
Today, for you, I braved a storm.
Glutted gutters,
rain swept,
wind poured all over me
and the streets of my town.
Leaves locked on pavement
rubbish brushed at knees
litter collected cowering in corners.
And then you burst upon us
full sun-red, yellow-lined, blue-eyed you—
brandishing your eyebrows
winding up your voice
sliding down your ’cello
to make your swansong.
Ah, no swansong here, my friend—
more full-throttled, pounding,
new-hatched energy!
Homing,
I shrugged off the storm
like water off a duck’s back.
Endnote
1.
Pamela Gray is a New Zealand ’cellist, singer and composer, whose work Swan updated
Saint-Saëns’ The Swan, dying from an oil spill and pollution.
TEXT Special Issue 30: Creative Writing as Research IV, October 2015
eds Nigel Krauth, Donna Lee Brien, Ross Watkins, Anthony Lawrence, Dallas Baker and Moya Costello
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Pittaway
Three physical conceits
Research statement
Research background
These three poems are dedicated to people the author knows (or knew). All use the
idea of a conceit, which is commonly defined as an extended metaphor and is most
closely associated with the Metaphysical poets like John Donne, in the Seventeenth
Century, who often attributed spiritual qualities to earthly objects, or vice versa. Herz
has argued that, ‘Metaphysical poetry argues; it is complex and intellectual, and it
depends on surprise (but in Donne‘s case, a surprise that the poem often makes true).
Dexterity, inventiveness, the pleasure of and in the word, and the fusion, often
exorbitant, of the carnal and the spiritual, of body and soul: these are certainly the
essential ingredients of metaphysical wit’ (2006: 105). The pun in the title, Three
physical conceits, is an allusion to this metaphysical tradition.
Research contribution
These poems offer a contemporary approach to the extended metaphor, playing more
with friendships rather than courtship, and mundane objects and events rather than
cosmic or spiritual themes. While seeking to be witty, these poems attempt to
domesticate the device and avoid overt argument or complexity, concentrating instead
on expressing affection through conceits of obsessive order, forensic investigation and
clichés from bird life.
Research significance
These poems have been blind peer refereed and published in a major journal of
creative writing research.
Works cited
Chapple, G 1981 ‘Pleione’ Art New Zealand 19, at
http://www.artnewzealand.com/Issues11to20/pleione.htm (accessed 10 September 2015)
Herz, JS 2006 ‘Reading and rereading Donne’s poetry’ ed A Guibbory, Cambridge UP, London
Lodge, M 2014 ‘Summer of euphony’ in Jack: A Festschrift for Jack Body eds J Shennan and J Exley,
Steele Roberts, Wellington, at
http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/9456/Lodge_2015_Summer%20of%20
Euphony.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y (accessed 10 September 2015)
TEXT Special Issue 30: Creative Writing as Research IV, October 2015
eds Nigel Krauth, Donna Lee Brien, Ross Watkins, Anthony Lawrence, Dallas Baker and Moya Costello
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