Fancy some fairy bread with Frank O’Hara? Read what is on Sam Duckor-Jones’ bookshelves and join us for the launch of Sam’s debut poetry collection, People from the Pit Stand Up (VUP), launching at Unity Books along with Tayi Tibble’s Poūkahangatus (VUP), 6-7:30pm Thursday 12th July 2018.
Sam Duckor-Jones is a sculptor and poet who lives in Featherston. He won the Biggs Poetry Prize from Victoria University of Wellington in 2017. People from the Pit Stand Up is his first book.
This is the voice of someone who is both at home and not at home in the world. Sam Duckor-Jones’s wonderfully fresh, funny, dishevelled poems are alive with art-making and fuelled by a hunger for intimacy. Giant clay men lurk in salons, the lawns of poets overgrow, petrolheads hoon along the beach, birds cry ‘wow-okay, wow-okay, wow-okay’.
‘Gorgeous and contrary.’
—Jenny Bornholdt
‘If attention is an act of love, then this is a collection that attends to art and life in such a way as to collapse any distinction between the two.’
—Chris Price
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING AND HOW DID YOU DISCOVER THE BOOK(S)?
Donald Barthelme, pinched from friend’s bookshelf.
Lucia Berlin, left by friend on kitchen table.
Therese Lloyd, liked her voice on RNZ.
Franny & Zooey, again, for comfort.
WHO ARE YOUR FAVOURITE WRITERS AND WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT THEM?
Sherman Alexie. He makes me cry.
Lorrie Moore. She cracks me up.
Helen Garner. I know those houses.
Frank O’Hara. He sounds like the inside of my head if the inside of my head was smarter, braver, friendlier, less easily distracted by jokes.
WHAT BOOKS ARE ON YOUR BEDSIDE TABLE?
Oh, some hipster wankery about the art of shadows, it’s quite good. Donald Barthelme & Lucia Berlin & Franny & Zooey.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE BOOK-TO-FILM ADAPTATION?
Rain by Kirsty Gunn into Rain by Christine Jeffs.
WHAT BOOK HAVE YOU RE-READ THE MOST AND WHY?
Bliss by Peter Carey. It’s dank, absurd and totally real. I like these hyper Australians who reek of frangipani and semen. Plus I tend to enjoy that whole ‘woman unraveling’ narrative arc.
WHO IS YOUR FAVOURITE LITERARY CHARACTER?
Geryon
Crow
A Leunig duck
WHAT BOOK HAVE YOU ALWAYS BEEN MEANING TO READ BUT STILL HAVEN’T GOTTEN AROUND TO?
Mrs Dalloway
Just Kids
WHICH THREE WRITERS WOULD YOU HAVE OVER FOR DINNER?
Frank O’Hara, David Trinidad, Chris Tse. We could talk about Billie Holiday, Dusty Springfield, P J Harvey.
WHAT WOULD YOU COOK THEM?
Fairy bread.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE LITERARY QUOTE?
“I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love. Even the trees understand me! Good heavens, I lie under them, too, don’t I? I am just like a pile of leaves” – Frank O’Hara
Photo credit to Ebony Lamb
