Poems for Remembering by Mike Beveridge

Down by the Salley Gardens Down by the Salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the Salley gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree; But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree. In a field by the river my love and I did stand, And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand. She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears. William Butler Yeats Black River      The first time on Black River’s bank I had the upper hand, Unasked for, as I gently spoke where we stood on black sand. A terror had caught hold of her, strong as the fast dark flow; She begged me swear I would stay true;   I swore it would be so.     The next time on Black River’s bank I knew what must occur; My witless body had betrayed my heart, my mind, and her. She spurned my touch, she cursed me twice, she turned away in grief; I stared alone d...

Twice Shy I meant it when I said goodbye: The fights, the endless bickering,   Your worst insults, my worse replies,   No flame left even flickering. And O the peace, alone at last, Consigning you into my past.   What I forgot was how the mind   Can delve down deep in days gone by, Can re-present and realign, Will re-sequence, tell tender lies, Until what’s been takes centre stage, Desire full flow, no hint of rage.   I hear old songs we knew were ours, Sweet rhymes from new-found verse we shared; I watch myself, hands filled with flowers, Our love so soon to be declared. But none of this fools me at all. I’m adamant. I will not call. (Poems for Remembering)  Listen to the studio version

Uno en español:  En un mundo feliz - 22/05/23 (rtve.es) And another one in English (well, kind of): Mixcloud  (listen from minute 14).

The campaign to declare New Zealand nuclear free in the 1980s began at the local level throughout the country. In September 1983 Nelson City was declared a nuclear-weapon-free zone. This is the story of this historic decision and the notable events and characters involved. In March 1976, Mike Beveridge and Darryl Kennedy, the owners of the Everyman Bookshop in Hardy Street (later also a record store known to Nelsonians as 'the Everyman' and a Nelson institution) launched a petition to ban nuclear warships from NZ ports. They challenged other shopkeepers to have the petition in their stores for people to sign. In only three months, in July 1976, the petition was presented to parliament with over 20,000 signatures. Mike Beveridge was a poet ('Poems for Remembering' 2022) and Frank Sargeson Fellow, and had been a schoolteacher at Nayland College prior to opening the Everyman.  Read more at:  https://www.theprow.org.nz/society/nuclear-free-nelson/   March for peace (anti-V...

Click on the link to hear an interview with the poet a few days before his death. An interview with Mike  

  Generosity, Intelligence and Love in the Poetry of Mike Beveridge An obituary in The Post newspaper on Tuesday 13 July 2023 informs us that “ Mike Beveridge died at 3 pm yesterday. He chose the time. He chose the place.” Among scholars, Beveridge is best remembered for Conversation with Frank Sargeson: an interview with Michael Beveridge (published in Landfall 24 while he was a post-graduate student at the University of Canterbury and which is still required reading for students of New Zealand literature at university level), for a series of short stories in Islands and Landfall during the 1970s and 80s and for having been the 1989 Grimshaw Sargeson fellow . To most residents of Nelson, however, he was indelibly associated with Everyman , a second-hand book and record store that he founded with a partner in 1975, the fame of which spread throughout New Zealand and even worldwide over the forty-or-so years of its existence. Even so, the rougher and readier coevals of the ca...