Helen Lehndorf

Category: The Comforter

  • the greatest thing in the world

    (Book cover spotted in an op-shop.)

    Auckland writer and academic JACK ROSS reviewed my book (and Aleksandra Lane’s) for the Landfall Review Online. You can read it HERE.

    It is a terrifying moment when you first read a review of your work – I feel a bit nauseous, I sort of squint at the screen as I read…bracing myself for the worst…and there is definitely that ‘wearing your undies in public’ feeling of having something of myself examined and evaluated by someone I don’t know. It’s a very weird feeling.

    I’m especially grateful to Jack Ross for acknowledging that I have a long publishing history prior to my book coming out and that I’ve been working away at this writing lark for a very long time. When you publish your first book, people often say things assuming you have popped up out of nowhere and the book was written recently. The Comforter took me OVER A DECADE to write…because I had children in that decade and because I kept working and needling, editing and fidgeting, waiting for my work to be as ‘perfect’ as the vision in my head….eventually I grew weary of all the fiddling and opted for ‘good enough’.

    Anyway, this review means so much to me…and I am very very extremely very grateful. Thanks, Jack Ross.

  • the last

    I write about the seasons a lot, don’t I? I can’t help it. I grew up in a small town in the middle of farmland – my Dad was (still is) a hunter and fisherman and so we ate with the seasons and the seasons were meaningful in a way they may not be for city-folks. Most of my friends lived on farms, so the drying off of cows marked the start of winter, new lambs heralded spring. Because I do write about the seasons so much, the editor of The Comforter, Helen Rickerby, organised the book into seasonal parts. I still can’t believe it didn’t occur to me to do that – but that’s why you need a good editor, right? To show you things which are right under your nose but you can’t see because you are over-exposed to your own work.

    Anyhow, of all the seasons, autumn is my favourite. The harvest, the golden days with cold edges, the sense of melancholy. Garden fires, washing the woolens which have been in storage since September, quinces, feijoas, walnuts…picking apples – we have two apple trees at our place:

    In my book, there is a poem about the beginning of autumn, the final day of daylight saving. There is a point at the end of summer/early autumn, if you are a gardener and eat seasonally, like we do, where you know it is likely to be the ‘last’ time you taste that particular thing for some time. That final meal has autumnal melancholy all over it – it’s a farewell to summer. In the poem, ‘the last’ has a deeper resonance – because of my beliefs about the environment, I feel that anything could be our ‘last’ time, because our existence on this ailing earth is so precarious right now, and growing more so.

    Late summer this year, we ate corn for a good eight weeks, thanks to the 60 corn plants I grew – & no, I didn’t tire of it, like I do with some gluts. With the last of our fresh corn, I made a bean succotash which also contained the last of our tomatoes:

    Also, ‘last’ for the season – I made a ‘pistou’ or paste with the last of our bush basil, some pine-nuts, garlic, olive oil and salt. It’s always a sad day when the last of the basil goes. We ate it on pasta.  I like to grind such things up in my big mortar and pestle, rather than blitzing with an electronic device. It’s calming and meditative to hand-grind.

    (A Wellington friend who has never visited me at home was surprised to learn that I don’t live on a farm – he thought I did from reading my blog. I don’t know if it was just him, or if others have that impression as well – but just to be clear, I live on a very average not-quite quarter-acre section right in the heart of Palmerston North. You can take a girl out of the country, but she’ll bring her small-town/country ways to the city!)

    Anyway, here’s that poem I mentioned, from The Comforter:

    FALL BACK

    Insects everywhere – dead bees in the garden, moths

    stud the bathroom ceiling like dusty ornaments, praying

    mantises crawl out of the compost bucket. The flies.

    The last day of daylight saving. Everyone

    tired and wistful on Sunday. That feeling

    like you lost something all day.

    The last-day-of-summer pasta sauce – made with the last aubergines,

    last cherry tomatoes, the last zucchini. The garden now

    full of fledgling winter vegetables: spindles of cabbage, arrowheads of spinach.

    Manawatu gothic. Even these bright days are tinged

    with a kind of violence. There is a black velvet ribbon

    threaded through your head, collecting debris.

    The last dinner on the dehydrated lawn.

    *

  • manifest poetry

    Yesterday I found a bird skull in the garden while I was weeding.

    I like the way there is a little patch of feathers on the top of it’s head, like a macabre toupee.

    In one of those cases of art foreshadowing life, I wrote a poem a long while back about digging up bird skulls. It is in my book.

    I really did bury some bird bodies in the garden – however, that was at my old house, so this bird skull is not one of those that I buried.

    Since I wrote that poem, my cat died of throat cancer. I didn’t bury him in the garden, though. I had him cremated. His ashes are in a little white box on the mantlepiece, wrapped with a yellow ribbon.

    Here’s the poem:

    Latest Project

    I am curating the kills of my cat, collected

    with shovel, buried together in a yard-bird cemetery

    at the edge of the comfrey patch. Soil nourishment, for sure,

    but mostly because I want to dig up the skulls.

     

    A bird skull is a beautiful thing.

    Mechanics of bone, small sculpture with hinge of jaw,

    tiny teeth and spike of beak. When I dig them up

    I might make a necklace of skulls, like an urban Kali,

    goddess of change, of Your Time Is Up.

     

    Sparrow head, blackbird beak, thrush face,

    threaded on leather, fastened with wood.

    More likely, I would sit them in a neat row

    on a bookshelf in front of my orange Penguin classics.

     

    Or, more inevitably, I will forget.

     

     

  • The Comforter Cocktail

    The Comforter Cocktail

    We made this in a big punch bowl, but of course you can make it by the glass also.

    One part Blackcurrant Vodka

    Four parts soda water

    Enough rose-infused sugar syrup to make it pink and tasty. This is the stuff I used – it’s French, lovely and costs about $18 for a bottle at good bottle stores:

    Edible flowers – borage, calendula petals, rose petals, cornflowers, violas etc

    Ice

    Mix the wet ingredients, pour over ice, sprinkle edible flowers on top. Drink and feel comforted!

    This drink is pink, refreshing, tastes like summer and roses and good times.

  • ‘The Comforter’ launches (2)

    Launch one:

    The first launch was in Palmerston North at the City Library.

    The speakers were Helen Rickerby, my editor, Thom Conroy, friend and creative writing professor at Massey University, and Natasha Allan did a beautiful blessing of the book.

    This one felt like a slightly more formal, ‘family, colleagues, local community’ (and friends, of course) one.  People bought books, I had my first experience of signing books, like a proper writer and it felt weird and really wonderful all at once. I tried to write something meaningful in each book I signed, so by the end of the launch my hand was really sore.

    Launch two: 

    Launch two was the next day in Wellington at my friend Emma Barnes’s house in Aro Valley. Wellington turned on the sunshine for us and it was a stunning day. This one was at 3pm in the afternoon and because of the perfect weather and all the women who obliged my request for floral frocks – it felt like a luscious garden party, (Emma McCleary said it felt to her like a wedding!).

    There was good food, plentiful wine, The Comforter cocktail, Simon (Emma B’s partner) played live banjo, which was just beautiful. The guests were many different kinds of lovely!

    For the ‘formal’ bit at this launch, Helen spoke again, then Pip Adam and Maria McMillan spoke about my writing and said extremely humbling things, then I read poems and all that, and then Natasha Allan did a closing blessing, which set me off crying a lot.

    (Oh and there was a notable earthquake.)

    Both launches went without a hitch and were just (as far as I’m concerned) perfect. I really couldn’t be any happier. Sometimes dreams come true. Check out this cheesy grin:

    If you want to see more photographs, I made a set on Flickr HERE.

    *

    NEWS! My poem ‘Garlic Planting Time’ is the Tuesday Poem on the Booksellers Blog today, HERE.

    & I’m also the Tuesday Poet, on Winged Ink, Helen Rickerby’s blog, HERE. & Helen wrote a little bit about the launches on the Seraph Press site HERE.

    *

  • ‘The Comforter’ launches (1)

    It’s early Monday morning and I just said to my editor, Helen Rickerby ‘Isn’t love the best drug? because I am still high from all the love at the launches!’.

    Helen and I did two launches, in two cities in two days! They were both really beautiful and special in their own ways.

    For a taster of the Wellington launch, Emma McCleary has written a post about it HERE.

    I held it together pretty well through both launches, but at the blessing part of the Wellington launch, (the very end of the formal bit) I lost it completely and cried like a baby, which was a little embarrassing, but then my friend Ben said: ‘Don’t worry. It just made it more ‘Helen’.’ Interpret that however you like.

  • off, off it goes

    I’m launching my book in less than two weeks.

    I would love to see you there, if you are in Palmerston North or Wellington!

    Here are the details:

    Palmerston North launch: Friday, 2nd December, 6.30, Palmerston North City Library. Books available on the night for $25. There will be refreshments and general book related frivolity. All welcome!

    Wellington launch: Saturday, 3rd December, 3pm. The Wellington launch is at a private residence, so I don’t want to put the address on the internets, however, if you would like to come to the Wellington launch, email me: helenlehndorfATgmail.com – and I will let you know.

    ***

    I got my copies of the book in the mail on Saturday. It was a surreal and lovely moment. I immediately sat down on my bed and read the whole thing cover to cover – even though I know all the poems inside out.

    It looks like a real, proper book! and I feel very proud of it. It IS a real, proper book.

    I’m very much looking forward to, with the help of friends, giving it a good send off into the world at the launches. I’ve organised lively speakers and a blessing of the book. At the Wellington launch there will be some live music!

    It’s really happening. This thing I’ve hoped for since I was a teenager. Someone pinch me!

  • ‘The Comforter’ has a cover!

    My book is going to print at the end of this week! I can’t believe it.

    Helen Rickerby, who owns Seraph Press and edited the book, has somehow made the process of editing and co-ordinating the book (seem) effortless AND even fun. She is a wonderful editor who really gets behind the poets she publishes, deeply engages with the writing and works to present the poetry in the best possible way.

    So anyway, drum roll please, here is the cover! (There is much more to Sarah Laing’s design than just the front cover – there is a beautiful back cover, book flaps, inside cover and illustrations within – however – I want to leave some of it as a surprise for the ‘in real life’ experience of the book!)

    So for now, here’s the front:

    The textile art is by Melissa Wastney, a friend whose artwork I love very much.

    I wanted something for the cover that combined my love of nature and textiles, and which was elegant and understated. I think designer Sarah Laing has more than achieved that. Thanks so much, Sarah! I love the texture and wrinkles of the slubby linen and the way the trees look like they could be underground…

    (The book will be launched in Palmerston North on the 2nd December and in Wellington on the 3rd December. Launch details to come.)