A chat with Elizabeth Barton about her poetry collection, Auroral (Alien Buddha, 2024)
How would you describe Auroral in one sentence?
A mystical distillation of the rich tapestry of human experience.
What does the word ‘auroral’ mean?
Like unto an aurora; giving the appearance of the Aurora.
An online dictionary gives an apt description:
Pertaining to the dawn; eastern, like a new beginning.
Rosy in colour; blushing; roseate.
The poem of the name describes a recurring phenomenon of lingering, blazing sunsets which we believed were the effect of increased volcanic activity at the time.
How long did the book take to write?
The book was assembled over a period of some two years, built from poems old and new but which possessed common threads. The newest poems formed the bulk of the work, such as the title poem 'Auroral'.
How did you structure the collection?
It was built around linking themes which echoed through many of the poems. The collection grew organically out of those themes, being principally memories, the knowledge there is life after death, the Unseen realms and the eternally satisfying immersion in the natural world.
How did you choose a publisher?
Naked Cat Publishing originally accepted the book for publication which was to appear in November 2023. Unfortunately, the editors had to forgo publishing several chapbooks due to unforeseen business and financial difficulties – really, victims of their own meteoric success. I hunted around, and then someone suggested Alien Buddha Press.
How are the poems different (or is similar to) what you have written before?
As a collection, they are much less dark than previous works. That is the distinction. Very few shadows fall across the panoply of ideas and metaphors which throng the pages.
You’ve got some wonderful blurbs for the book, and I was interested in a line from this one, ‘Many a time, this artist's poems have eluded my earthly understanding, as they touch on the transcendental.’ (Geoff Dodd). I wondered what you think of this idea? Do the poems – or elements of them – ever elude your earthly understanding? Where do poems come from?
Firstly, Geoff Dodd is a top copywriter in New Zealand and authored a remarkable thriller set here, called Lake of Heaven. He became acquainted with my poetry when we both attended a writers’ group in Te Aroha. We both left the group but remained in contact – he is also my neighbour! I am not a natural writer, yet he is. All my poetry comes from nonverbal and sometimes almost untranslatable ideas, being born in a cauldron of imagery and symbolic language. I have to feel my way into any poem, like Orpheus feeling his way into the Underworld. There are indeed poems or aspects of poems which elude my understanding, but since I have unerring trust in the Muse, I know what is being communicated makes sense. To me, that is. The challenge is being able to communicate sense to the reader! Usually, something comes to my attention much later which sheds light on a particular poem. There is an element of portent or prophecy in some poems which did not escape the attention of the other reviewer!
Where do poems come from? That is an excellent question. Sometimes poetry is like taking celestial dictation, when words breathe. Some poems, for that reason, never had to be edited or revised. ('The Miner’s Triumph' is one such poem). Poetry is part of the unfathomable repository of what it is to be human – we are just a little less than the Angels.
Yet other poems are quite pedestrian, like describing cows in a field or my favourite feline companion.
Would you say the collection has a particular theme?
Yes; the theme is joyousness, wonder, an affirmation of life. The blurb on the back cover summarises it perfectly (written by some unidentified wordsmith); ‘In the radiant pages of Auroral … captures the beauty of existence … a celebration and a testament to the fragility of life’.
I was interested in the poem ‘My Other Self’ – it’s not uncommon for people to feel they have other selves, but perhaps it’s less common (and hence very interesting) for a woman to write about her other self as ‘He’ and I wondered if you could talk about this?
I have a number of Other Selves, both male and female, but ‘he’ is specifically a former incarnation with whom I had a close tie in my formative years. It took me years to realise why this was so. He shielded me from undesirable societal influences which could have weakened my personality. I was brought up in a society which was inimical to female expression, to the point women were literally gagged or crushed if they ventured outside prescribed boundaries. Because I unconsciously immersed myself in the psyche of someone who lived during the French Revolution, I blithely ignored societal strictures and blazed a trail of my own making without hardly lifting a finger. To this day, former school chums inform me I had an influential impact on them. I also see subtly erosive influences lurked in the background in the education system which could have marred my life if I did not have a protective psychic buffer. It took me almost 50 years to appreciate this. At the time, they barely brushed my sphere of influence, so I was blissfully ignorant. Hindsight bestows wisdom, as they say.
For the poem, I took a more subtle approach, something along the lines of the Jungian concept of the Animus, a repository of universal experience of all men situated in the psychic life of every woman. Such an interpretation is then broad and free to be expanded by the imagination.
Ghosts and spirits seem to move ‘sleek as an Indian sari’ throughout the pages, and I wondered whether these sit comfortably with you as you write?
Not only do they sit comfortably with me as I write, but party away. It can get crowded at times! I was tickled for a week with belly laughter until I completed a poem, Icarus Flies, which was published in April in The Hooghly Review. I laughed equally hard when I received notification it had been accepted. I could share the joke with the world. The link to my blog about the poem may shed more light:
Similar mirthful themes are absent in Auroral; the humour is wryer, I think. But the ghosts are at peace and are definitely friendly. They are generous with their secrets.
Do you have a favourite poem in the collection?
The collection is full of favourite poems. It’s hard to decide which poem I like the best. I like the succinct forms of Pasiphae Got Her Wish, Inflorescent and Kabir; equally, I like Shallow Grave and Totemic Journey, which are spun out and deeply autobiographical. It’s difficult to pin down a single work.
Do you have any other poetic projects in the pipeline?
Definitely; I do. I’ve begun a journey into my past, beginning specifically with my English grandmother and great grandmother. They had a far more nurturing impact on my early life than I ever realised, which leads to a nostalgic overview of my life spent in the UK for over 30 years.
I have Moleskine sketchbooks filled with almost 150 drawings and water colour paintings of camellias, which grow in profusion here in Te Aroha, and around which I’m weaving a collection of poems for an animation video.
And I’m conjuring a world from a strange poem entitled The Lepidopterist, which was recently published in Flights Issue 13. Elizabeth Barton – Flight of the dragonfly
Please provide a link to where people can buy the book if you’d like to.
The books are also available on Amazon worldwide, but are much cheaper if purchased directly from me. And you get a signed copy!
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