Bipolarisation. We’ve been working with it a while now, and it feels like it ought to be a word. If ever words should be oughted, in fact, it’s top of the list. It’s meant an interesting range of things to contributors – geographical, medical, literal. Some of the poems were even bipolarisational themselves. Or so they seemed as we sat together in the kids’-playhouse-under-the-kitchen-table (escaping the chaos of family life around us) and read them aloud. We took turns, swapping voices, swapping accents. Like unpacking presents. Drip drip drips of information. We now know what Chorography is, but still don’t understand a thing about the Higgs Boson.
There are visual treats here – blind men dancing. And soundings. Scouse lullabies. Lavender butterflies. But one voice we did not get to share with you in this issue is that of poet Larry Matthews. Sadly, there is no longer a tiny, candlelit, ivorytinkled {lanyop} lagniappe art gallery in George Street, Dunedin, and no longer a Larry to share it with us. Thank you Larry – you’ll be missed by poets, artists and couchsurfers alike. Good words and good coffee weren’t good enough. But they help. Sometimes.
Thanks to all contributors for sharing their truths with us for Issue 30, and to Doug for letting us take it on. As an experience, it’s actually been whatever the opposite of bipolarisational is.
Together, with our two different voices, with gratitude,
Liz & Laura
