Review of Riemke Ensing's New Volume of Poetry Dear Mr Sargeson (Cape Catley Press, 1995) and LIKE I HAVE SEEN A DARK GREEN LADDER CLIMBING (The Pear Tree Press, 1995)

Lucy McAllister
Department of Engish
University of Otago
New Zealand

Deep South v.1 n.2 (May, 1995)

To the delight of lovers of Riemke Ensing's poetry, two new slim volumes have recently been published. Dear Mr Sargeson and LIKE I HAVE SEEN THE DARK GREEN LADDER CLIMBING are remarkably similar and yet individually unique. The former text was ceremoniously launched at Sargeson's cottage in Auckland and at the "Wordstruck! writers festival" in Dunedin in April. In contrast the latter has made a decidedly modest debut into the poetry world. My knowledge of its existence is due to the literary grapevine and only by writing to the poet one can secure a copy of this beautiful book.

Both texts are delightful in their appearance: each printed on textured paper in muted colours. A pale grey white for Sargeson, and Ladders has cream. The edges of the latter are torn as if the paper was rushed from the paper making tray to the printing press before the trimmers were used. Both texts are lovingly printed and with accompanying images: Dear Mr Sargeson is brought into the realm of fairy tales with Neil Duggan's photographs, and their fuzzy edges recreate the magic and nostalgia in the poems. Likewise the Ladders poems are punctuated with the occasional top of a ladder protruding from the bottom of a page.

As the title implies, Dear Mr Sargeson is a tribute to an esteemed New Zealand writer. The poems are the poets' thoughts and "conversations" with Frank Sargeson. They are not historical: in the introduction the poets' comments upon her first meeting with Sargeson and the joke he told which she did not like. However this initial challenge to her immigrant sensibilities has not dissuaded her from writing about him at a later date.

The conversational tone of the poems suggests a spiritual relationship, yet the poet does not commend her subject, recognise his literary achievements, discuss his works or analyse his method. The reader of Dear Mr Sargeson is subjected to whimsical insights into the contents of his house, the photos on his walls, the texture of the wood of his dresser, to name but a few. As well as referring repeatedly to the contents of his cottage and the garden, Ensing gives some indication of Sargeson's status within the literary community. This is achieved with references to other New Zealand writers as well as Shakespeare, Milton, Catullus and Proust. Artists also feature: references to Picasso, Nigel Brown, Munch and Hokusai punctuate the predominantly concrete images in the poems.

LIKE I HAVE SEEN THE DARK GREEN LADDER CLIMBING also combines the literary with the artistic: Eion Stevens' painting "Ladder" was given to the poet by the artist and inspired the poems. Ensing also pays tribute to Twentieth Century poets: William Carlos Williams in "After the Wheelbarrow a Ladder", Frank Sargeson in "Hedge", James K Baxter in "Ladders", and ee cummings in "a long way to go". This new text is then remarkably similar to Ensing's other poems, her interest in art which is epitomised in Spells from Chagall and The K.M. File and Other poems with Katherine Mansfield.

In this text Ensing chose the ladder as the central metaphor, the poems rely on a blend of the concrete and the abstract: the physical climbing of a ladder, with ideas of the ladder as a means of travel or movement from the physical, concrete reality of earth; to the realms of abstract and imagination in the air and sky.

The primary difference between these texts is that one focuses upon the life of Frank Sargeson and the other gives insights into the life of the poet Riemke Ensing, but unequivocally both are a delight to the senses and the intellect.