In the Frame: Opening WORDs celebrated Janet Frame on the 100th anniversary of her birth. Janet's quote “Imagination is a form of courage” is the theme that drives the evening, and it does motor along - in all sorts of unexpected directions.
After warm welcomes, author Rachael King comes on stage to announce the winner of the Janet Frame Prize. Janet always advocated for her fellow writers, and in her afterlife continues that mahi. She "bequeathed her copyright to the Janet Frame Literary Trust and directed that the ongoing income from her endowment fund be used to give grants to New Zealand writers of poetry and imaginative prose". The Trust has awarded amounts between $3000 and $10,000 to 19 other authors (including luminaries Tusiata Avia and Catherine Chidgey).
Rachael knew Janet. Her father Michael King was one of Janet Frame's biographers. She met Janet when in her 20s, and bonded over cats and a shared loathing of housework.
This year's prize winner - the 20th in 20 years - is poet and author Airini Beautrais, who will receive $10,000. Airini isn't there (but will be at WORD later), but is understandably honoured to get this award. She's a Frame fan, and reckons Janet "always true to herself and her creative work".
Programme director Kiran Dass then introduces us to tonight's stars, Catherine Taylor (UK), Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe (USA), Tayi Tibble (Te Whānau ā Apanui, Ngāti Porou) Talia Marshall (Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne o Wairau, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Takihiku) and Airana Ngarewa (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāruahine, Ngā Rauru). I rather enjoy her assertion that:
Janet Frame isn't that meme-able.
First up, it's superstar poet ...
Tayi Tibble
(Libra)
Tayi rocks on with astrological info about herself - archetype Libra - pretty, just, fair, fashionable, romantic, airhead, "away with the fairies".
This leads into a discussion on the various imaginary games she played as a kid. Usually alone, but one involved her cousin Sarah because she got the vibes (and was indeed a "deliveryman of vibes"). In this game "Clubbing" they were 14-year-olds with 16-year-old boyfriends, and they were part-time bartenders and hiphop dancers. Wearing one shoulder tops. They'd put on a NOW cd and have a jolly drink.
The audience is fair hooting with laughter. The next game is"Spies" and the main plot point is the possession of a poison lipstick. And the antiodote.
The last game was a doozy - it involved her Nana's alcove library and a shelf of 1970s Reader's Digest hardbacks. Tayi played the role of a poor young girl with an ice bucket as a lantern, a rugby ball standing in for a dragon's egg and a footstool as a furnace to keep the egg warm and hatch it. This was a story and a half - a library business, repo men, village pillage, a horse (vacuum cleaner).
The poet beside me says after "I wasn't expecting that". INDEED!
Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe
(Gemini)
Next up, Sasha tells us she was going to talk about reimagining hard histories, but then wrote something about the orca stories that have influenced her and got into her dreams.
When orcas come to you, it is important.
Sasha is from the Upper Skagit and Nooksack Indian Tribes in the U.S. She shares some of the stories, the orca wife, the orca brothers. These are sad and hard stories, about death and predation and seas being destroyed. About the courage of her people who speak up when the world doesn't listen.
If they dismiss it as a native problem, they are not paying attention.
She finishes with a work in progress, a poem about the orca with the devastating line "Still nothing could have prepared us for you".
Talia Marshall
Talia starts off with a diss of the theme - it made her grumpy with all the abstract nouns. Then she is off, talking about Janet Frame:
Everything she wrote was so fresh and ancient.
Talia read Faces in the Water when she was 13, and loved the quote:
There is no past or future. Using tenses to divide time is like making chalk marks on water.
This, Talia reckons, is Te Ao Mārama, everything happening at once.
She saw Janet in South Dunedin. It was like the air around her was electric.
Talia drew threads and connections - told the story of her grandfather, in a South Dunedin resthome where one of the residents was June Frame (sister of Janet). She told us about Seacliff Asylum, death, Dunedin, imagination as escape and retreat. A relative who lived in Seacliff died and only left behind a bible and a brooch - "Imagination is a duty to those people".
She left us with the final words from her amazing essay on Janet:
Janet Frame was not crazy, or rather to say she was is to condemn us all to madness but it’s true there will never be another writer like her. Even if the real setting of “Swans” is not Waikouaiti but some better place, she made living there for me more bearable with the clarity of her voice. Our national bird should be the bellbird, the korimakō were my grandfather’s favourite singers and he always stopped to listen for them when they punctured the air and struck the bell of the bay, stopped to feel for the cows running through the paddock like water, for the cry of the seagull with its keel and kool and the impossible chalk marks on the water telling us there is no such thing as the past, present or the future there is only the turquoise bird rising from the tangerine fire of her hair.
Airana Ngarewa
(Leo)
And now for something completely different. Airana is a writer and former cage fighter. He told us about his origins in Pātea, claiming to be part of the only family that wasn't in the Pātea Māori Club because they couldn't sing. He saw imagination as a means of survival, and as hope.
He showed us a video of his cage fighting days (with the musical backdrop of the Bomfunk MC's banger Freestyler).
Airana had plenty of funny tales, culminating in a book launch where his Grandad came and spoke, doing karate and dancing. Then his Dad tried to do one better, and claimed to be the best gamer in Australasia. He ended with mic drop as his Dad mistakenly said something super off-colour, leaving it to the next guest to explain the meaning of that rude phrase. But she was smart, and deftly deflected.
Catherine Taylor
(Taurus, Gemini rising, moon in Capricorn)
Catherine Taylor spoke wonderfully, diving right back into her family history and "dual personality" (nationality). Her mum's origins were in Helensville and the U.K. She spoke of revisiting New Zealand as a nine-year-old, getting a library card and visiting the Devonport Library. Meanwhile back in England, her father left the family:
Abandonment can feel like a kind of murder.
Her story was woven around the idea of the right of authors to tell their own story, and the courage required to be the hero of one's own life.
She talked about teaching, reading, and writing as an escape from brutality for her mother. It was her mother who introduced her to the writing of Janet Frame.
The guests went back on stage for us to give them a well-deserved cheer. And from the audience chatter, they gained a bunch of new fans who will hope to see them at other WORD sessions.
Watch this session on demand until 29 September.
Photos
Photos from In the Frame: Opening WORDs
Janet Frame
One of Aotearoa New Zealand's most renowned authors, she wrote novels, short stories, and poetry. Janet Frame is also known for her three-volume autobiography An Angel at My Table, made into a movie by Jane Campion. Janet Frame won numerous literary prizes both in New Zealand and internationally. She was awarded a CBE in 1983. Janet was made a Member of the Order of New Zealand in 1990. University of Otago Ōtākou Whakahu Waka has just announced that Frame’s papers have been accepted into the UNESCO Memory of the World Aotearoa New Zealand Register, which seeks to recognise items of recorded heritage that have national significance.
- By Janet Frame
- About Janet Frame
- Janet Frame centenary brings special recognition University of Otago Ōtākou Whakahu Waka, 27 August 2024
- Official website of Janet Frame's Estate
Festival guests who appeared in Opening Words
Catherine Taylor
The Stirrings
Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe (USA)
Thunder Song
Tayi Tibble
Rangikura
Poūkahangatus
Talia Marshall
Whaea Blue
Airana Ngarewa
The Bone Tree
Patea Boys
More WORD Christchurch
- WORD Christchurch website
- Follow WORD Christchurch on Instagram, Facebook and X FKA Twitter
- Our WORD Christchurch 2024 page - event reports and books by Festival writers
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