Strong Words 2019: The Best of the Landfall Essay Competition

NEALE

Introduction

As a first-time judge for the Landfall Essay Competition in 2018, I struggled mightily to deliver a shortlist to the publisher, as so many of the 90 essays entered deserved a wider readership. Initially, I thought this was just being a new-kid-on-the-block, experiencing speed wobbles on my rollerskates as I adapted to the context, and that the standard would inevitably be higher than, say, a fundraising poetry competition. Very few people confuse the formality of an essay with the unstructured outpouring of intense emotion that often appears in community-outreach or charitable-cause writing contests.

I knew the essay competition would chiefly attract driven, passionate and experienced writers; and that winnowing the best from the almost-best was going to tie my dendrites into the kind of contortionist knots we expect of earphone wires. So I was delighted when Rachel Scott, co-publisher at Otago University Press, suggested that there could actually be a book in my struggle. (Not exactly Knausgård, but ‘battle’ is too military; so let’s leave the pun and forge on. All the authors published herein must have high tolerance for this kind of micro-analysis of word choice.) There was hardly a semi-tone off-key in the selected essays.

The range of work entered—and, I gather, in earlier competitions also— suggests that the local literary scene is teeming with perspicacious, perceptive, thoughtful essayists. We’d be delighted if Strong Words 2019 was the first in a regular series to grow out of the Landfall Essay Competition. But for now—like a host doing party introductions—I need to tell you a bit about the individual minds circulating here, trusting that you’ll find some you’ll want to forge a long-term connection with, hunting down their past publications, or keeping an eye out for future work.

In the New Yorker of May 2018, Jia Tolentino argued that political and social pressures meant the online boom in personal essays was over. Yet many New Zealand/Aotearoa writers—on the evidence of the Landfall Essay Competition—beg to differ. They still seem to agree with Virginia Woolf’s view in 1905 that an essay, brilliant or profound, dealing with anything ‘from the immortality of the soul to the rheumatism in your left shoulder … is primarily an expression of personal opinion’.

Even if we accept that an essay’s subject, no matter the costume, is the essayist—the genre is immensely protean. It might explore medical crisis, or expound on the diversity of sex lives in aquatic animals. It can collect factual evidence to support a political argument; it can run so seamlessly in poetry’s slipstream that it seems camouflaged as poetry itself.

As Woolf says elsewhere, compared to the poem or the novel, the essay is an almost formless form. In 1905 the novel and the poem might have been easier to define—‘A novel has a story, a poem rhyme’—but even if we expand our definitions of these, Woolf’s question about the essay still holds: ‘… but what art can the essayist use in these short lengths of prose to sting us wide awake and fix us in a trance which is not sleep but rather an intensification of life?’

In other words, there is not much an essay must have. It doesn’t need a narrative; it doesn’t need prosody or line breaks; it doesn’t even need an argument. It can be, in the words of one of our most prominent new essayists, Ashleigh Young, an existential meditation, an exploration of shifting angles, something that can enact the way a mind shapes thought.

That last quality is something poetry excels at, too. When it comes to spotting genres from the post-postmodern cycle lane, it can feel as if we’re trapped on a roundabout, never able to make a smooth, non-perilous exit out of a circular argument.

So what exactly was I looking for?

By the time I had read about 60 essays that adhered to the idea that the self was the true subject, I began to want work that could also use the experience as a gateway to travel elsewhere; as a way into understanding a culture, a social climate, a time, a common experience. The catch even then, of course, is that style and craft had to be smooth, the ‘argument’ or opinion backed up with crisp and credible evidence; the link between, say, historical incident and current social phenomena a comparison that sings in the same register—comparing apples to apple pies, not oranges to swivel chairs.

Entries in the 2018 Landfall Essay Competition featured a radiant spectrum of often deeply affecting topics.

Alice Miller’s winning essay, ‘The Great Ending’, on World War One and the armistice, manages to pick out both telling and comic detail that illuminates the past, and also to summarise a mood and an era. The balance she achieves, and the poetic tone she attains, make reading her essay feel so different to the memories I have of trudging through the textbooks I tried to read as a teenager, as a result of which I made the deeply regrettable decision not to study history formally. Alice Miller’s deceptively light and agile style manages to be both informative and sharply moving, as does the way she lets the idiosyncratic, the apparently frivolous, the unfamiliar, sit down quietly beside the tragically altered and the massive, terrifying cogs of war and political conflict. The way the essay deftly flick flacks between things as disparate as ‘ladies’ hosiery’, children’s games, burning effigies of the Kaiser, declarations of the end of civilisation and spiritual revelations, shows us the immense range and variety of human feeling. Alice Miller’s work impressed with its teeming yet elegantly controlled catalogue of international and national, Pākehā and Māori historical events; for the lyricism of the prose which glides from moments of understated comedy to those of stark horror. All the contraries are held in a delicate web that says we humans contain and withstand multitudes; that out of our shared and personal history we struggle and try to rise; that we are composed of innocence and futility, vision and foolishness, tragedy and desire.

In second place was Susan Wardell’s breath-stopping work, ‘Shining Through the Skull’. I admired its ability to confront personal qualities and choices with such an unforgiving eye; to be confessional—to seriously study identity—without veering into the prurience and narcissism of TMI social media posts and feeds that can leave the reader feeling used and ground down. The essay glints with poetry as it also touches on a number of potent themes, darting away again in a manner that emphasises the burning coals beneath: ambition, religion, vanity, charity, privacy, exploitation, the pitfalls in the anonymity of the internet, consent, shame, sexual fetishes.

Sam Keenan’s essay ‘Bad Girls’, on teenage sexuality, transgression, the expectations of and dictates to female children in the 1980s, when second-wave feminism tried to empower young women at the same time that society still often blamed them for encouraging or inviting male abuse and violence—has a poignant sense of retrospective understanding, of only fully seeing some constrictions with the wisdom and long view that time lends. It gives a sense of how some fears and habits can be not only a natural aspect of differing personalities, but also so deeply imprinted by the social climate of our youth that they are never fully shaken off. Keenan’s essay is understated yet powerfully affecting, perhaps particularly to another reader shaped by the 80s, when we asserted equality at the same time as fighting off lecherous bosses, strangers, relatives, friends-of-the-family, colleagues; rapists, abusers. The #metoo movement has made many women reflect hard on their own experiences, and decide whether or not to confront the abusers of their past—if those perpetrators are still alive. The essay made me wonder whether young women will always have to temper their urge for freedom with a precautionary approach, or whether the issues raised in this essay will one day become alien and purely historical in a highly welcome sense.

Comedy seemed rare in the submissions. Perhaps the word ‘essay’ makes writers want to put on their formal wear, like old Oxbridge dons in their teaching gowns—and for that reason Tobias Buck’s lovely study of a small-town sauna and its role as ‘psychological pressure valve’ and site of ‘temporary casual integration’ as an antidote to disconnection and winter blues was a welcome respite. There are some affectionate and wry character portraits—‘Conversation with Tony is serious and endlessly varied as long as you enjoy talking about whitebait’—and a gathering sense that the vulnerability of disrobing for a steam can produce both an urge to confess and also, perhaps, greater tolerance for others. ‘Though dissenting in close quarters might cross your mind, this is usually outweighed by a more egalitarian need to simply interact and allow someone to be, even momentarily, heard.’

Two vivid essays on pain made me experience a weird sub-species of Schadenfreude—shakily almost appreciative that Bryan Walpert and Tracey Slaughter have both experienced their different afflictions—because the experiences have had such electric expression. In Walpert’s case it is accompanied by a sardonic sense of humour and an implicit criticism of ‘appearance fascism’; in Slaughter’s by a searing lyricism. Tracey Slaughter discusses how language fails in the face of physical pain, particularly in reaching certain doctors she encountered; yet it reaches the reader so acutely that I found I could only read this essay in small bursts; as if I had to rebuild the ability to bear the agony and isolation it describes. At the end, the cry from the valley of pain becomes paradoxically almost as joyous as a child’s kite flown on a cold, windy day. It reminds me of Katherine Mansfield’s line (which I’ve had pinned to my study wall since my father died)—‘Hanging in our little cages over the gulf of eternity, we must sing—sing.’

Tim Upperton’s elegant and easy glide from stepping stone to stepping stone of the concealed and the revealed—ranging from insect life to the secrets of another person’s thoughts, and the layers of mystery in certain poems—is a meander where every apparent digression actually gets us closer to a source of light. His essay seems as if it should enjoy rubbing shoulders here with equally moving pieces by John Allison and Fiona Clark, which—among other topics—also bear witness to the healing strangeness of poetry, its ministering use of both music and silence.

While it might seem obvious that a judge and editor who writes poetry would be drawn to excellent essays on literary subjects (such as those by both Derek Schulz and Louise Slocombe), I was also hungry for work that could shred the veil of my own reading habits and preconceptions; essays that could expose the world in a new skin. Work by several other authors did exactly that: Justine Whitfield, Madeleine Child, P.J. Stanley, Jocelyn Prasad, Kirsteen Ure, Mikaela Nyman, Jane Blaikie, Cait Kneller. Every one of these writers has filtered into my thoughts as I’ve moved from desk to errand to chores over the months since first reading these authors. I’ve found myself revisiting everything, from the subtle, compressed expression of loss, the stunning, clear-eyed lyricism of ‘Pūriri Moth’, to the more thunderous and sometimes satirical rhetoric of Jessica Maclean as she explores the nature of time and identity from a bicultural perspective; to the links between mother, culture, craft and clothing in Jocelyn Prasad’s ‘Uncut Cloth’, to the tension between ecological guilt and economic exigency, personal boundaries and the human need for touch in Justine Whitfield’s ‘The Klimt Bubbles: Contemplating concealment and connection’.

The other authors here have made me puzzle over the nature of bilingualism and the role of song; the scrim (and crims) behind the walls of national myths; the ongoing effort to fit in socially; the painful and persistent psychological contrail of addiction; the quirks and fascinations of scientific obsession; or the bewilderment and dislocation of being cast out by a parent because of religion, and over where religions shade into cults—and about how even in apparently diffident Aotearoa New Zealand, religion often both still shapes many lives, and splinters families.

There’s a vivid, varied and sometimes confronting gallery of ideas here. There were more essays that I wanted to include but whose authors were unable to grant us publication rights for various reasons. If your appetites for fine and moving essay writing are sharpened by reading this collection, scout around bookshelves and the internet for Nadine Anne Hura’s essay on learning te reo as an adult student; Lynley Edmeades’ work on grammar and identity; and Steve Braunias on mangrove swamps and preparing for the apocalypse. Or hold on tight for results from the next Landfall Essay Competition. I’m hopeful that Otago University Press will need to have some more strong words with you.

Emma Neale

July 2019

REFERENCES

from the immortality of the soul … Virginia Woolf, ‘The Decay of the Essay’.

but what art can the essayist use … Virgina Woolf, ‘The Modern Essay’.

an existential meditation … See Ashleigh Young—5 Questions, ‘These Rough Notes – VUP News’, 2 August 2016: http://victoriauniversitypress.blogspot.com/2016/08/ashleigh-young-5-questions.html

ALICE MILLER

The Great Ending 1918

1.

The story of the great ending begins with a mistake and ends with a miracle.

On 8 November a century ago, when the announcement came that the Great War was over, it was dusty in Balclutha. Dust from running children, dust from motor cars, dust from men’s shoes as their owners ran down the main street, blowing tin whistles. All the townspeople were out of doors. ‘It was as if,’ a journalist wrote, ‘a highly strung violin string had snapped’:

every bell clanged its utmost, whistles blew incessantly, and every empty petrol tin in the precincts of the town seemed to be called into service. A favourite practice was to tie a string of tins to a motor car or cycle and set off at a good bat up the street. A scratch band was raised, and, with tin whistles, trumpets and sirens, this was an effective, though unmusical, addition to the outburst of sound.

When the crowd were told that the report was premature—that in fact the Great War had not yet ended, the armistice was still not signed—the mood didn’t change. ‘The general feeling was that if the armistice was not signed, it jolly well ought to be, seeing that we had gone so far.’

Four days later there was still some uncertainty:

NO NEWS YET

GERMAN SURRENDER CONFIDENTLY PREDICTED

SHOULD GERMANS REFUSE TERMS

WILL BATTER THEM INTO SUBMISSION

—Otago Daily Times, 12 November 1918

Thursday’s error had made everyone nervous. But by 9am the government confirmed that the armistice was signed at last. The national headlines became bolder: GERMANY OUT OF THE WAR; GREAT WAR ENDED; JOY ALL OVER THE WORLD.

Finally, the real celebrations could commence. In the small, landlocked town of Levin an ambitious two-day programme was planned. The signal would be given by the ringing of all bells, including the firebell and buglers in motor cars. All flags were to be hoisted, and all cars, bicycles and other vehicles to be carefully decollated for the parade. At 3pm the grand procession would assemble in Post Office Square.

The procession was ordered into fourteen groups, beginning with RETURNED SOLDIERS in uniform, followed shortly after by TRAINING FARM BOYS and PATRIOTIC AND RED CROSS WOMEN. The last two groups in the procession were NATIVES IN NATIVE COSTUME and CITIZENS IN DECORATED CARS.

But that Monday, the end of the war was not the only news. From London came the report that a game of soldiers’ rugby football between Australia Headquarters and New Zealand Headquarters had been won by New Zealand.

A steamer travelling from San Francisco to Manila had been struck by lightning. Forty out of forty-six of the crew were missing.

Closer to home, Mrs M. Moody of 69 Roxburgh Street ‘was walking along Lambton-quay, just outside the Gear Company’s shop, when she slipped and fell, fracturing her left leg. John Condon, a fireman on the ferry steamer, fell in Abel Smith-street and suffered severe concussion by striking his head on the pavement.’

And in Vulcan Lane in Auckland, the well-known secretary of the Takapuna Jockey Club was knocked down by a four-seater motor car. The car stopped with one of its front wheels resting on the man’s abdomen. A number of bystanders helped to lift the car, and the secretary was rapidly extricated from underneath. His clothing was severely torn and he was dazed; however, his cigar remained lit and he continued to smoke.

There was another problem, that Monday, that overshadowed all others.

At one of Auckland’s largest private hotels most of the staff were struck down by influenza, to the extent that several very distinguished guests took over the duties of the domestic servants. Some guests had to make their own beds. There was even the very odd spectacle of a titled gentleman working the lift.

Māori settlements in the north were badly hit by the epidemic. In many regions, hospitals were overflowing and schools were rapidly converted into hospitals. Many appointments were postponed, including the Church of England annual sale, a card evening at the Bell Tea rooms, and the fancy-dress ball of the Arowhenua Maori Soldier Day Committee.

Lemons became wildly expensive. People of means were requested to donate citrus fruit. Those with motor cars were asked to lend them to the effort.

Schools were closed, as were moving picture theatres and ordinary theatres, dancing halls, billiard saloons, concert rooms and shooting galleries.

Children’s demonstrations on Armistice Day were also postponed.

What stayed open late were chemists’ shops. The shops quickly ran out of bottles, and urged the public to bring their own. They also requested that nobody follow the example of one particular (unnamed) lady, who ran into the chemist at the height of the epidemic, demanding cosmetic face powder.

Strangely, it was people in their twenties and thirties who were most susceptible to the influenza virus. Soldiers returned from months of foreign battle only to die from the flu. After death, bodies often turned dark purple or black.

Levin’s Peace Programme, however, remained unaffected; influenza or not, the show would go on. Day Two of the Peace Programme consisted of a sports gathering and district picnic, all held at the Levin Park Domain, with numerous attractions including a Punch and Judy Show. Hot water, tea, milk and sugar were provided free of charge on the grounds. Guests brought their lunch, along with the family teapot.

The Fisk Jubilee Singers were still scheduled to sing at the Oddfellows’ Hall on 13 November, with a programme featuring ‘popular airs’ and ‘coon songs’.

The Otago Daily Times offered a useful suggestion for ‘when you get into a frame of mind that makes life seem one tiresome duty after another’. The suggested product promised to ‘tone up the entire system, help make the blood rich and red, strengthen the nerves, increase the appetite, put colour in the cheeks and lips, and drive away that unnatural feeling’. Just ask for Dr Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People.

A writer to the Auckland Star suggested that when a son reaches a ‘critical age’, a father should ‘place in his hands a standard book of advice to young men, and let the mother act likewise for the daughter’. This being done, children will receive ‘necessary knowledge re. their sexual nature … in a safe and thorough manner’.

On the evening of Day Two of Levin’s Peace Programme all shops were lit up. There was a monster torchlight procession from the post office at 7pm, a free impromptu concert, and the burning of an effigy of the Kaiser.

Towns everywhere had rigged up their own effigies, some adorned with an iron cross and ‘ignominiously dangled’. The Kaiser was doused in petrol and set alight, and the townspeople cheered as he burned.