Of poetry, blogging and death

On 4 April 2013, my friend Diana Neutze died, after defying multiple sclerosis for well over 40 years.

Diana Neutze (center) with friends on her 70th birthday, 9 March 2009

She had survived for decades by micro-managing every minute of her life, training and instructing a team of dedicated, hand-picked angels (known as carers). 

Inevitably Diana also planned every detail of her death, funeral and burial. The funeral was just right and left me feeling downright happy. 

I was one of those she asked to give a short talk. Others gave a full picture of her life and personality—both of which were vivid and triumphant. I decided to talk about just two things, her poetry and her blog. These reflected my role in her life, which was highly specific: I published her last two poetry books (Furthermore and Reflect); set up a web site for her when requested; set up a blog for her, against her will; and communicated with 53 of her friends and relatives each time her carers posted another blog entry—which, as it turned out, was quite often!

To me these were light burdens because my daily work is all about online communication, accessible web content and the social web. My purpose was to keep the creative part of Diana alive and active and goal-orientated. 

We are lucky if we find a way to be useful that returns more than we invest. My reward came from the "Blog Alert" group—they were hugely appreciative of this simple way of keeping in touch with Diana, and I felt plenty of love coming my way.

The text of my talk follows. I was trying to convey in very few words how writing and social media combined to enrich Diana's life, both inwardly and socially. And I wanted to share snippets from some of her 53 blog-alert supporters.

Farewell to Diana

She did warn us:

… as I have lived, so I will die: fiercely and with full intent.

I want to talk about two features of Diana’s life: her poetry (an individual activity) and her blog (a group activity).

Writing is not just recording a feeling or thought or other experience. Writing is a dynamic process that sculpts and illuminates and transforms experience. As Diana wrote:

my poetry is a good listener, 

and even a teacher,  

skewing my words sideways 

to create a different pattern, 

a wake-up call. 

Writing a poem can make sense of the incomprehensible, and it can help to make the intolerable tolerable. It is a spiritual exercise. Diana wrote:

there is no escape. All journeying must be inward.

But writing became more and more difficult, until everything had to be “written” in her mind and then transcribed by her carers.

Unlike most of you, I am one of the few people who managed to make Diana do certain things against her will—mainly remove the odd semi-colon, and above all, to start a blog. She was vehemently opposed to the blog. She despised the very word blogging. But miraculously, she obeyed me. After that, she could share her poems instantaneously with a large audience.

Diana’s blog gave us all an extraordinary opportunity.  She looked death in the face and invited us to look over her shoulder. This was terrifying, but it was also a privilege.

Strangers also read her blog. For example, she has never met any of the Otaki Ukulele Group.  But last Thursday, when they heard about her death, they played two songs in her honour.

The end of poetry coincided with the end of life.

Dead End

The particularity of pain   

takes over the mind  

right to the very edges, 

an amorphous sludge  

which leaves no space for poetry.

Some of the Blog Alert community wrote valedictions in advance, and I'd like to read some of their words.

Vivienne Stone: All the way through her life’s journey, Diana has actively chosen how she wants to live.

Miriam Frances: Meditation has enriched Diana’s life, and poetry has illuminated it.

Abie Horrocks: She has such an amazing capacity to listen and be cheeky and wise and honest and realistic and prophetic and a little scandalous—sometimes all at once!

Diony Young: Her words and poems always open doors to new places.

Jacquie Pryor: In her poetry, she doesn't avoid the difficult issues, especially the one that is hardest of all: death.

Maureen Eppstein: The clarity of her vision shines through her poems like the light through her walnut tree.

And finally John Chambers speaks for us all about Diana's legacy.

John Chambers: Every time I'm at a difficult juncture, I spontaneously think of her, I hear her words in my heart, I feel the courage and the caring and the power—and I will always think of her, and I will always hear her words.

9 April 2013

These web sites and Diana's publications will be managed by her literary executor, Gabrielle Faith, in future:

Diana Neutze's blog, with many poems

Diana's web site, with more poems

Do you really love those old books you have kept?

Shelves of dusty yellow books of some significance.

Lurking in the hallway are a bunch of old books that have been important to me for one reason or another. And this morning Kim Hill interviewed poet Mary Fuefle, poet, who lavishes white-out on old books to reveal a morsel of poetry on each page. The concept of erasure art appealed to me. I immediately invested in a bottle of liquid paper: not something one would normally use in this digital age.

Surely among those Harlequin romances, Proust, Japanese novels, books on sumo and and other miscellany were plenty of candidates for erasure art?

I picked up one at random—Time on our Side: Growing in wisdom, not growing old by the distinguished psychologist Dorothy Rowe. And inevitably began reading it.

I remember loving this book in 1994 and nodding over insights that lived up to the title. Yet today I could barely be bothered skimming a few chapters.

One interesting chapter is "Fearing to grow old", describing how our concepts of young, middle-aged and old vary wildly according to our own age. Even this chapter I could barely read, because the benchmark has shifted so radically since the date of publication. Reading about people in their 60s being treated as geriatrics (and regarding themselves that way) was more than I could stomach.

Life expectancy rose dramatically last century. That is truly wondrous, a miracle. But it makes this book, doubtless profound in its time, irrelevant to my impatient mind today.

The irony doesn't escape me: I am applying ageist prejudices to a book published 20 years ago.

Will I use this book for erasure art? Couldn't bear to. 

From scanned PDF to OCR to Word to ebook: not so fast, mate

I have been trying to explain to a friend why she can't just take a scanned PDF of a book, get it converted into a Word document with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and send it straight to Smashwords.

Now, Smashwords is fantastic, and every author should check it out. Starting with your Word document, the Smashwords software (which bears the splendid name of Meatgrinder) converts a single source manuscript into every popular form of ebook, including epub, iBook, Kindle and of course the familiar PDF.

And OCR is fantastic. Who would have imagined  that software could virtually read photographs of the pages of a novel and translate the squiggles into pages of words.

However, OCR has its limitations.

Every few months when I have a spare minute, I puddle away at preparing my backlist for distribution as e-books. My plan is to put the old novels up for free—no hurry, though.

Yesterday The Limits of Green had my attention. That was my first novel, published by Penguin in 1985. Below is a sample of how it emerged from the OCR treatment. Characters were indeed recognised, but not always correctly. OCR is more like willing puppy than an expert.

I see at least 13 errors in 16 lines, not counting the formatting. Yes, a human hand is needed—and I am happy about that. I'm thoroughly enjoying my copyediting chore because this involves re-reading a novel I wrote in my youth. Such exuberance! Such reckless confidence! Such mobile-phone-less ingenuity! I look forward to releasing this baby into the wild.

Yet another poem about a dead cat

In this case, the splendid British Blue Takanohana. She spent her days in a state of catatonic inertia, barely bothering to twitch. But then again, the wildlife in my apartment is pretty limited.

That cat

That cat is a capital cat,
a most satisfactory cat.

That cat may act like a mat
but she isn't exactly flat.

That cat billows and flows,
a cloud that grows and grows.

That cat is a regal cat,
a womanly cat, a curvy cat.

But you'd better not call her fat.
She doesn't like that.

Rachel McAlpine

You may share this poem freely, but always include my name as author.
More poems free (for now) to a good home on Smashwords

Love poem from a cat that hunts

Cats are in the news right now as instinctive hunters who slaughter New Zealand's precious wild life. And they do. They do.

I have my own companion cat, but her hunting is safely limited to cicada safaris in the apartment and on the deck and roof.

I enjoy the ambivalence towards cats shown in the poem, Offering. Hope you do too. At least this moggy catches a mouse-poem, not a bird-poem.

Offering

for months now
I have brought you nothing

but today you will see on the step
a slight grey poem
barely flecked with blood
so lightly was it caught

this purse of fur contains
bones of flute
notes of flesh
palpitation quelled

it is the only gift
for one as quick as you
despite your speed
you cannot hunt like me

still I would swallow the lot
if you rebuked my purring
if you did not stroke my neck

Rachel McAlpine

You may share this poem freely, but always include my name as author.
Rachel McAlpine on Smashwords: poetry books are free—for now.

The bravest poem you'll read this year

My friend Diana Neutze has been using poetry for years as a life-saving outlet for her creativity and communication. In the process she has kept her brain athletic and inspired many others.

Diana is now, after decades of suffering inflicted by multiple sclerosis, frighteningly debilitated. Yet she is still writing some of the bravest poems you'll ever read.

Today she posted on her blog a poem setting a deadline for her death:
The Third Bell, by Diana Neutze

At the same time she sent a supplementary letter to her friends giving a realistic picture of her physiological state. Nobody could read those medical facts and still imagine that there is any other future for Diana but a painful death, perhaps a lot sooner than 40 weeks.

Without those facts, you may be tempted to imagine, "Oh if only she could do this or that—take this new treatment—be more optimistic."

No. This is not a whim, not a decision taken lightly. Diana faces facts, makes a rational decision, then processes tragedy into spiritual growth.

I think you will marvel at her courage, honesty, and skill with words.

Diana's blog: Diana-Neutze.blogspot.com 

Love poems free to a good home: Smashwords

Need a love poem? Most people do at some time in their lives.
I'm sharing a book of love poems.

Lover Poems by Rachel McAlpine on Smashwords

Poems for lovers, happy or not. In this book of love poems, certain lines may express precisely what you feel but cannot say. The delicious agonies of longing. Confusion when a love affair goes wrong. The frivolous, funny, and comforting aspects of love. Enjoy!  You'll know when to use the following poem...

Love Song

Your forehead

is the curve

of the world.

Through your eyes

I slide

into a jungle

a tangle

of flying vines

of blood feasts

of jagged cries

of silent

silken

steps.

Your blood

has the beat

of the sea.

It pulls

to the pulse

of the moon.

If I die

before I lie

with you

rocks will rain

from heaven

on my grave.

Rachel McAlpine

You may share this poem freely, 
but always include my name as writer.

Get the whole book. Free.

P.S. Lover Poems is in the Smashwords Premium Catalog.