The pizza poetry party proposed below sounds like much fun. Join us to celebrate the launch of Oscar’s debut poetry collection, New Transgender Blockbusters, along with Madison Hamill’s debut essay collection, Specimen, (VUP). 6-7:30pm Tuesday 3rd March. All welcome.
ABOUT NEW TRANSGENDER BLOCKBUSTERS
The dead should come back changed, or what’s the point?
Why do you hide your head beneath the bedclothes?
Doesn’t everyone name themselves?
Is your house a bottle? Are you trapped in there?
Isn’t it nice to be this close to someone?
Can we go back to our notes? Please?
Urgent, witty and unnervingly beautiful, Oscar Upperton’s first collection takes familiar language and makes it uncanny. Suns detach. The ocean climbs a mast. Someone forgets where their haunted house is. These poems are vitally human and consoling; they reframe the ordinary as something to yearn for.
Cover photograph: Russell Kleyn
T-shirt: creepwear
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Oscar Upperton was born in Christchurch in 1991, and grew up in Whangārei and Palmerston North. He now lives in Wellington. In 2019 he was awarded the Creative New Zealand Louis Johnson New Writer’s Bursary. His work has featured in Sport, The Spinoff, Metro and Best New Zealand Poems.
WHY DO YOU WRITE?
Unsure. I’ve never tried not to. Possibly if I didn’t a lot of thoughts and feelings would have to come out some other way.
WHERE AND HOW DO YOU WRITE?
At my desk at home, on a laptop.
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING AND HOW DID YOU DISCOVER THE BOOK(S)?
I just finished Ali Smith’s Autumn and Winter (and I’m looking forward to Spring). The covers caught my eye at the library. Before that was Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo, which was a Christmas present.
WHO ARE YOUR FAVOURITE WRITERS AND WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT THEM?
Ursula Le Guin because she writes complete worlds. Elizabeth Knox because Xas is the best. Tayi Tibble because her poems are electric.
WHAT BOOKS ARE ON YOUR BEDSIDE TABLE?
I don’t have a bedside table but beside my bed is Te Hao Nui: The Great Catch – Object Stories From Te Manawa. It is a great collection of non-fiction essays but also a great object to balance a laptop on while watching TV, hence its beside-the-bed location.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE BOOK-TO-FILM ADAPTATION?
The Princess Bride.
WHAT BOOK HAVE YOU RE-READ THE MOST AND WHY?
I have read The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst probably ten times. By the time I get to the end I want to relive the beginning again, so I’m never not reading it.
WHO IS YOUR FAVOURITE LITERARY CHARACTER?
Xas from The Vintner’s Luck (and even more so in The Angel’s Cut. Spoiler alert but Dad Xas is the best).
WHAT BOOK HAVE YOU ALWAYS BEEN MEANING TO READ BUT STILL HAVEN’T GOTTEN AROUND TO?
All those Russian novels that people talk about, by the authors whose names end in Y.
WHICH THREE WRITERS WOULD YOU HAVE OVER FOR DINNER?
Assuming translation facilities are provided and death is no obstacle – Sappho, Matsuo Basho and Ursula Le Guin.
WHAT WOULD YOU COOK THEM?
I would order pizza because delivered food would impress Sappho and Basho, putting me in a good light.
HOW ARE YOUR BOOKS SHELVED AND ORGANISED AT HOME?
Two shelves. Bottom shelf is unorganised but at least the books are standing upright. Top shelf is haphazard piles of books that I am currently in the middle of reading, or that I refer to often.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE LITERARY QUOTE?
It’s impossible to understand the weight of this quote without context, but ever since I read it I’ve had it stuck in my head (from The New Animals by Pip Adam):
‘Come round,’ Duey typed in the reply field, and then she looked and looked at it.
author photo: Russell Kleyn
