Storytelling Starters ~ Small she-goat
Maybe you’ve experienced it too. You’re looking at something in the distance. You’re sure you know what it is – cat, man, rock or whatever – and then it suddenly dawns on you that it’s something entirely else. Well, that’s the subject of Biography, the poem which occupies this blog this week. To me, it’s very much a storytelling poem and it’s by the great New Zealand poet, Lauris Edmond, who died in the year 2000.
Lauris Edmond had only become a published poet after raising her family, so quite late in her life. From the day I met her at the Bay of Islands Festival the first time I was a guest storyteller there, she began to become a very dear and important friend. Her fun, her charm, her absorbing love of talk, her zest for life – all were reasons why she was so loveable. Another thing I valued about her was her honesty. For instance, she was very clear about this: “You don’t go into the arts for the money.” And the fact that she could say that so openly was something I found both reassuring and encouraging. It drew attention to the many good reasons why one does go into the arts.
So here’s the poem. As well as being full of Lauris’s imagination, perceptiveness and love of words, it also abundantly conveys her love of a good story. When one of Lauris’s daughters, Frances, wrote to me recently to ask for a contribution to The Essential Lauris, a new book currently being put together in Lauris’s memory, I knew it would have to be the poem I chose.
Biography
I saw a small she-goat, skin tight
over her bony frame, and sharply white
among clumps of dun grass on the hill;
I admired the delicate angle of her head
and thought of her usefulness – all day
eating that scraggy stuff (with summer,
the fire season, on the way) and now
digesting it sensibly in the pale, late light
of afternoon. A good creature, fitting
her own rules to ours. I liked her so much
it hardly mattered that when I came round
the hill again there was only a white plastic
bag hung ballooning over a thistle stalk
up there. It was short then, my little
goat’s life and work. But ah, glorious.
P.S. My pictures this week were taken in two different places, one in Brockwell Park, one on a roadside down in Wales. Both are of something that looked like something else at first glance until I realised they were stranded kites.
Tags: Lauris Edmond, plastic bag, poet, she-goat
January 24th, 2016 at 2:02 am
I have been searching for that poem since it appeared in the New Zealand Listener in around 1991 I think. It resonated with me because I’d moved from Auckland to a small rural settlement called Flag Swamp. I too saw animals that turned out to be plastic bags, and plastic bags that turned out to be animals and birds. Thank you so much for printing it. I feel as if I’ve struck gold.
January 25th, 2016 at 4:50 pm
Dear Lindsay, thanks so much for getting in touch. I felt very moved by your message and the feeling of communication it brought about. Lauris Edmond was important to me as a person and for her work and it’s brilliant to know that that poem of hers is significant to you too. It makes the world feel small! Apropos of which, I’d be interested to know how you found my blog. I’m always keen to extend the readership of it and would love to know if any particular connection brought you to it (maybe through someone in New Zealand?)or if it was just happenstance. Do let me know if you’ve got a minute. Best regards, Mary