A new poem by novelist and poet Dominic Hoey.

writers festivals are fucking weird eh

before i put out my first novel

i’d never been to a writers festival

i didn’t understand why anyone would pay to listen to writers talk

it’s like asking musicians to be on time

or fine artists to have a moral compass

 

but about 7 years ago my first novel comes out

i start getting invited to festivals

it’s exciting

cos i’m thinking i’m going to be on panels

where they’ll ask me to talk about all my brilliant ideas

‘tell us Dominic, how did you come up with your main character?’

‘well you see it’s me . . . but i changed the name’

 

but instead i keep doing the same 3 events over and over again

 

the first panel discussion is called something like

Manly Men Discuss Masculinity

and i’m like

‘ummm excuse me

you know i write poetry

and i can’t change a tyre

and i cry in public all the time’

 

and they nod and smile

‘that’s great Dominic,

but you didn’t go to finishing school at the IIML

and you have heaps of stupid fucking tattoos’

 

i remember being backstage at this one event called

Big Men Small Books

just before we go out the presenter is like

‘oh by the way, there’s a men’s group here, and they’re not very happy’

i walk out and sure enough there’s the lonely men’s club taking up the front row

and we sit down and start chatting and the men’s group are getting all worked up

hitting themselves in the face with their Jordan Peterson books

and i’m like ‘look, i know life’s not fair and society has treated you like shit

but you’re not angry at women, you’re angry at capitalism’

which didn’t go down very well

 

afterwards they’re all pissed off and try and do that trick

where they get the littlest one

to come and get smart so they can all jump me when i react

but i could see the dumb motherfuckers round the corner

i’m like ‘bro i grew up in Grey Lynn in the ’80s

you’re not going to get me that easy’

so i call an uber and jump in

as we drive off

i wind the window down

and yell

‘gender’s a construct dickheads’

 

the second event is a poetry night in like a shoe shop

called Urban Street Poetry Straight From the Gutter

and i’m like

‘ummm excuse me you know i’m a middle-aged man

with a small dog

and a hybrid, right?’

and they nod and smile

‘that’s great Dominic, but your work is just so controversial and raw,

the way you investigate the lives of poor people’

investigate? i’m just writing about what i know

they make it sound like I’ve got a notebook and magnifying glass

knocking on the doors of broke cunts

‘excuse me, sorry to bother you, i’m writing a novel about paupers like yourself, would you mind if i pop in and take a few notes? really want the book to have a realistic feel for how fucking miserable your lives are’

 

the last event is writing workshops for young people who don’t want to be there

the maddest one was part of a festival in Aussie,

they asked me to teach some high school kids

i was like sure maybe 15–20 kids max

i get to the school and there’s a bored-looking teacher out front

smoking a cigarette

 

‘shit you turned up’ she said sounding surprised

‘ahh look i’m not gonna lie to you

there’s ummm 200 kids in there mate

most of them got behavioural problems

but i’m sure they’re really excited to learn about poetry’

we walk into this massive auditorium

that stinks like farts and supermarket deodorant

there’s kids running around screaming

and all of them have mullets

i’m starting to think that maybe the teacher was being facetious when she said they were excited about poetry

she gets on stage and claps her hands

‘excuse me kids, Little Terry, Little Terry, you put that knife away right now!

look we got a writer here, all the way from New Zealand . . .

Terry, don’t you call him that, he’s sensitive . . . well he’s a poet . . . that’s true, not many people do like poetry Terry, not me for one, but he’s here now, so let’s make the fucking most of this eh

alright Dominic, they’re all yours’

 

Terry was one of those ironic names cos he looks like a fridge

someone’s painted a school uniform on

that nasty little prick really turned the room against me.

i’m trying to explain how to construct a metaphor and he

gets the whole fucking auditorium chanting ‘poetry sucks poetry sucks’

including the teachers

and i’m like i fucking agree with yous

it’s a terrible art form

filled with dilettantes and cliché peddlers

do you think this is what i wanted to be when i started making rap music 30 years ago?

imagine if someone sat me down when i was your age and said

‘look Dominic if you work really hard, and sacrifice your physical and mental health for 3 decades, then one day you’ll be invited to teach poetry to a bunch of inbred Australians who look like they spend their spare time killing small animals with hammers’

and this, children, is a fucking perfect metaphor for the literary community

 

• First published in Everything I Know About Books: An insider look at publishing in Aotearoa – a new book published to celebrate 30 years of Publishing education at Whitireia. Available now from all good bookstores.

The Friday Poem is edited by Chris Tse. Submissions are currently closed.