This episode is the first in a three-part series celebrating the publication of AUP New Poets 5 edited by Anna Jackson and published by Auckland University Press.
(Image of Carolyn DeCarlo by Tabitha Arthur)
Launched in 1999, AUP New Poets first introduced readers to Anna Jackson, Sonja Yelich, Janis Freegard, Chris Tse and many other significant New Zealand voices. Relaunching this year under the editorship of Anna Jackson and with a bold new look, AUP New Poets 5 includes substantial selections from the poetry of Carolyn DeCarlo, Sophie van Waardenberg and Rebecca Hawkes.
In poems about limpets and mangroves, beauty and hunger, ‘love, actually’ and earthquake preparedness, the poets’ work stands out for its fierce intelligence, formal command and dazzling vivacity. AUP New Poets 5 is the perfect introduction to the lively diversity of New Zealand poetry today.
We start the series with a conversation with Carolyn DeCarlo whose section in AUP New Poets 5 is called ‘Winter Swimmers’. I asked Caro to chose a poem by herself and one by another poet as a starting point for our conversation. Caro chose her poem ‘Spy Valley’ which opens her collection and Zachary Schomberg’s series ‘Inside We Make Children Sandwiches’ which opens his collection Pulver Maar: Poems 2014-2018
Carolyn DeCarlo lives in Aro Valley in Wellington, New Zealand, with her partner and cats. She has a BA from Georgetown University and an MFA from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of four chapbooks, most recently Green Place (Enjoy Journal, 2015) and Bound: An Ode to Falling in Love (Compound Press, 2014), which she co-wrote with Jackson Nieuwland and won Best Literary Zine at the 2015 Auckland Zinefest. She is a founding member of the Wellington-based reading collective, Food Court. Her passions include film, art, tattoos and plants.
Poet and translator Zachary Schomburg was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and raised in Iowa. He earned a BA from the College of the Ozarks and a PhD in creative writing-poetry from the University of Nebraska. His books of poetry include The Man Suit (2007), Scary, No Scary (2009), and Fjords vol 1 (2012). He has said of his work, which is known for its absurd, tender humor, “Mostly I want my poems to generate their own energy through confusion. I want my poems to confuse the reader. Not a confusion in a cognitive or narrative sense, but in an emotional sense.” Schomburg co-edits Octopus Books and lives in Portland, Oregon.
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Ep 66: Part 1 AUP New Poets 5 – Carolyn DeCarlo talks about Zachary Schomburg’s ‘Inside We Make Children Sandwiches’ and ‘Spy Valley’ by Carolyn DeCarlo
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