Small Holes in the Silence

Music and poetry are almost always part of the opening night of Going Wets, and this performance from 2017 brought the two together in a remarkable set of spoken and sung poetry and jazz - Small Holes In The Silence

The poems performed, in order, are:

• Rain by Hone Tuwhare 

• Warehouse Curtains by Bill Manhire

• Wild Iron by Allen Curnow - By kind permission of Tim Curnow

• Blue Rain by Alistair Campbell - Copyright © the Estate of Alistair Campbell

• I Met a Man by Janet Frame - By kind permission of the copyright owner The Janet Frame Literary Trust.

• Buddhist Rain by David Mitchell

• Yellow Room by David Mitchell

• 1950s by Bill Manhire

• Making Baby Float by Norman Meehan

Live on stage in Henderson, Bill Manhire reads a selection of classic New Zealand poems with accompaniment by a jazz ensemble including Norman Meehan on piano, Hannah Griffin on vocals and Blair Latham on saxophone.

While the performance takes its name, Small Holes In The Silence, from Hone Tuwhare’s beloved poem Rain, Bill Manhire notes that “New Zealand’s most famous, most loved, poem, owes itself to Spike Milligan”, as Tuwhare drew inspiration for the line from Milligan’s poem There Are Holes In The Sky.

--

Permission to set to music the poem I Met a Man from The Goose Bath (2006) by Janet Frame was granted courtesy of the copyright owner The Janet Frame Literary Trust. 

The Goose Bath has been reprinted in Storms Will Tell: Selected Poems by Janet Frame (Bloodaxe Books, 2008).

Support Aotearoa culture and literature by getting books by Going West writers at Unity Books