Fourth, entry, day eight of the NZ Book Month challenge….will catch up by the weekend.
Not a massive Curnow fan, and not a fan of poetry which is self-conciously about ‘nationhood’ or anything like that.
But I love ‘The Unhistoric Story’, one of Curnow’s early poems. The continued refrain ‘something different, something nobody counted on’ does, it seems to me, say something about New Zealand.
Here’s the first and last stanzas (I love the last stanza):
Whaling for continents coveted deep in the south
The Dutchman envied the unknown, drew bold
Imagers of market-place, populous river mouth
The land of Beach ignorant of the value of gold:
Morning in Murderers Bay
Blood drifted away.
It was something different, something
Nobody counted on.
…
After all re-ordering of old elements
Time trips up all but the humblest of heart
Stumbling after the fire, not in the smoke of events;
For many are called, but many are left at the start.
And whatever islands may be
Under or over the sea
It is something different, something
Nobody counted on.
