Wild Iron: New Zealand Poetry Adapted to Song

by Lorenzo Buhne

Wild Iron: New Zealand Poetry Adapted to Song cover art
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  • Wild Iron: New Zealand Poetry Adapted to Song

    Welcome to Wild Iron, a CD of New Zealand poetry adapted into song.
    Wild Iron includes some of the preeminent figures in New Zealand literature past, present, and future: Katherine Mansfield, ARD Fairburn, Charles Brasch, Allen Curnow, Fiona Farrell, Sam Hunt, Bill Manhire, Vincent O¹Sullivan, and Jo Randerson.

    Includes immediate download of 14-track album in your choice of MP3 320, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.

    Buy Now  $34.95 NZD

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about

Wild Iron: New Zealand Poetry Adapted to Song is presented in an elegant collectors edition hard cover digi-book, which includes a CD alongside a 40-page booklet containing the full text of the poems, Lorenzo Buhne's composers notes, musician credits, and a forward from the projects Editor and Literary Advisory, Marco Sonzogni.

The cover features the artwork of Dunedin collage artist Peter Lewis. The booklet features photographs of vintage letterpress type from Wai-te-ata Press at Victoria University, which has published many of the poets involved in this project.

The format of the book is designed for listeners to not only hear the music - but experience the text of the poetry in its original form, in order to reflect on the poem's meaning, and Lorenzo Buhne's interpretation.

Lorenzo says, "It is my hope that in uniting poems and melody into song, Wild Iron will introduce these poems to a broader audience, and allow those in the literary world to hear them in a new light."

credits

released 15 February 2012
Produced by Lorenzo Bühne and Kedron Parker

Mastered by Mark Wheaton at Catasonic Studios, Los Angeles, www.catasonic.com

Contributing musicians: Andreas Lepper, Ateo Bühne, Charley Davenport, Dan Yeabsley, David Long, John Rae, Kedron Parker, Lucien Johnson, Nick van Dijk, Patrick Bleakley, Richard Klein, Tristan Carter, Vivien Reid, Vito Lo Iacono, and Warren (Woz) King

Cover Image by Alternative History of New Zealand
by Peter Lewis,  www.warpart.co.nz

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about

Lorenzo made a name for himself in the U.S. and Europe playing with legendary punk bands FEAR and The Dickies. After moving ... more to New Zealand in 2003, he released two aadventurous Italian albums, 2005’s Sotto Sopra and 2008’s Buon Giorno.

Lorenzo then turned his attention to New Zealand poetry, and began a journey which has culminated in Wild Iron, his most ambitious and beautiful work to-date. less

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Track Name: Wild Iron
Wild Iron
Allen Curnow

Sea go dark, dark with wind,
Feet go heavy, heavy with sand,
Thoughts go wild, wild with the sound
Of iron on the old shed swinging, clanging:
Go dark, go heavy, go wild, go round,
Dark with the wind,
Heavy with the sand,
Wild with the iron that tears at the nail
And the foundering shriek of the gale.
Track Name: Elegy : again
Elegy: again
Vincent O’Sullivan
You are on a railway platform
in the driest country we had ever seen.
We stand in the heat by a row of shagged
pot plants and I think how green
was always the colour as you came to mind,
a green coat once by a corner in Florence
when you didn’t see me, leaning towards a match.
You are ten yards away and ah, the distance,
even then; or our lying side by side,
your hair that I joked was like a fire
stalking a step behind you, a smoky
brilliance even now, when words like ‘desire’
are husks, shells, dead tongues,
as once we reached them down from the living
tree, the green sky, and our hands
brushing like something scorched, loving
without the palaver of having to say.
And the utter ashes of it now, the same
as if I’d read about someone else, un-
moved. And you, caged in freedoms beyond flame.
Track Name: Aubade
Aubade
Bill Manhire

His heart still bled.
So he woke within a ballad.

‘Come soon, if that is what you meant.
I am lonely,
I am rough and insufficient.’

Oh he was certainly pale
and later he was pallid.

And oh his poor heart bled.

Verse or refrain?
Th ere was a single willow
and then the wind from Spain.

Yet what came fi rst
and what was after?

All he remembered was he left her
by a stream or tree, or underneath a star,
he left her beside her laughter.
Track Name: Charlotte O'Neil's Song
Charlotte O’Neil’s Song
Fiona Farrell

You rang your bell and I answered.
I polished your parquet floor.
I scraped out your grate
and I washed your plate
and I scrubbed till my hands were raw.

You lay on a silken pillow.
I lay on an attic cot.
That’s the way it should be, you said.
That’s the poor girl’s lot.
You dined at eight
and slept till late.
I emptied your chamber pot.
The rich man earns his castle, you said.
The poor deserve the gate.

But I’ll never say ‘sir’
or ‘thank you ma’am’
and I’ll never curtsy more.
You can bake your bread
and make your bed
and answer your own front door.

I’ve cleaned your plate
and I’ve cleaned your house
and I’ve cleaned the clothes you wore.
But now you’re on your own, my dear.
I won’t be there any more.
And I’ll eat when I please
and I’ll sleep where I please

and you can open your own front door.
Track Name: Signals
Signals
Charles Brasch

No two bodies taste alike or smell alike.
Your cat will tell you so sooner than I can,
But not more certainly.

You are not what you were before we knew each other;
I cannot explain the diff erence, but
All my antennae report it.

Nor can I put my fi nger on the diff erence in myself
Now we have learned to answer signals
We did not receive once.

Your skin tastes and smells of tropics where I walked
Barefoot, nostrils wide and fi ngers
Winged over waves,

Where shadows drew me in through their like leafi ness
Th at is yours now, leafy, woodier to taste
And salt with the salt we share insatiably,

Yours, mine, still distinguishable though mingled
As limbs are, as breathing is,
As tongues that taste each other.
Track Name: Children
Children
Bill Manhire

The likelihood is
the children will die
without you to help them do it.
It will be spring,
the light on the water,
or not.

And though at present
they live together
they will not die together.
Th ey will die one by one
and not think to call you:
they will be old

and you will be gone.
It will be spring,
or not. They may be crossing
the road,
not looking left,
not looking right,

or may simply be afloat at evening
like clouds unable
to make repairs. That
one talks too much, that one
hardly at all: and they both enjoy
the light on the water

much as we enjoy
the sense
of indefinite postponement. Yes
it’s a tall story but don’t you think
full of promise, and he’s just a kid
but watch him grow.
Track Name: Why Our Washing Machine Broke
Why Our Washing Machine Broke
Jo Randerson

On the first day of school I missed my mother. I
had home-made beef-roast sandwiches but I missed
her. There she was at home-time and it was all okay,
all of it.

On the second day of school, I missed my mother.
I had home-made beef-roast sandwiches but I still
missed her. At home-time she was five minutes late
but it was all still okay, it was all pretty much okay.

On the third day of school it was making me cry.
There was no beef-roast today and the school
lunches tasted yucky. My mother came at home-
time but the luncheon taste was in my mouth, pinky
smelly luncheon and it tasted yuck.

On the fourth day of school they gave me poison. I
am sure of it. I was sick all day and sick when I got
home. My teacher said it was nothing. My mother
said it would pass. The poison said eat me, eat me
all up.

The next day of school I got very confused. When
I tried to draw a seagull it just looked like a straight
line and I didn’t understand how that big wooden
box could be called a horse. When I looked around
everyone was bigger and taller than me, and I felt a
little dribble of something come out of my ear. I
felt sick and I couldn’t eat my meatloaf. I got told
off. I had to eat all the leftovers.

That night while I was sleeping my brains leaked all
over the sheets. My mother was angry that she had
to wash them but she said it wasn’t my fault. It is no
one’s fault. Some of us are just dumber than others.
Some of our needs are very special indeed.
Track Name: I'm Older Than You, Please Listen
I’m Older Than You, Please Listen
ARD Fairburn

To the young man I would say:
Get out! Look sharp, my boy,
before the roots are down,
before the equations are struck,
before a face or a landscape
has power to shape or destroy.
This land is a lump without leaven,
a body that has no nerves.
Don’t be content to live in
a sort of second-grade heaven
with first-grade butter, fresh air,
and paper in every toilet;
becoming a butt for the malice
of those who have stayed and soured,
staying in turn to sour,
to smile, and savage the young.

If you’re enterprising and able,
smuggle your talents away,
hawk them in livelier markets
where people are willing to pay.
If you have no stomach for roughage,
if patience isn’t your religion,
if you must have sherry with your bitters,
if money and fame are your pigeon,
if you feel that you need success
and long for a good address,
don’t anchor here in the desert –
the fishing isn’t so good:
take a ticket for Megalopolis,
don’t stay in this neighbourhood!
Track Name: The Ring
The Ring
Katherine Mansfield

But a tiny ring of gold
Just a link
Wear it, and your heart is sold
…Strange to think!
Till it glitters on your hand
You are free
Shall I cast it on the sand
In the sea?
Which was Judas’ greatest sin
Kiss or gold?
Love must end where sales begin
I am told.
We will have no ring, no kiss
To deceive.
When you hear the serpent hiss
Think of Eve.
Track Name: A Young Woman Forsaken By Her Lover
A Young Woman Forsaken By Her Lover
Anonymous

Look where the mist
Hangs over Pukehina.
There is the path
By which went my love.

Turn back again hither
That may be poured out
Tears from my eyes.

It was not I who first spoke of love.
You it was who made advances to me
When I was but a little thing.

Therefore was my heart made wild,
This is my farewell of love to thee.