Q&A: Elizabeth Morton
Elizabeth Morton’s last poetry collection, This is Your Real Name, was longlisted at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. The manuscript of her latest book, Naming the Beasts, was shortlisted for the prestigious 2021 Kathleen Grattan Poetry Award. Now that the book’s out, she answers our quick Q&A.
1. How are you and what have you been up to lately?
I’m hunky dory, though there are days I feel I have a less than firm handshake with the Real World. More an awkwardly choreographed bunch of hand signals dealt by a Shore girl styling herself on Gerry Austin (Good Bye Pork Pie) and a beachside cowboy. I’m a little tired, and doing a horrible job at keeping up with earthly communications. I’ve been co-authoring some academic articles, studying the brain-goop, trudging the pavements with an occasional dog, and trying to be an ok human being.
2. If you were working in a bookshop, how would you hand-sell your book to customers? What would you say to convince them to buy and read it?
Ok ok! There are animals on the cover. You would be a terrible human if you didn’t like animals. You like animals, ok? See, it’s like Disney’s Snow White, but the animals don’t talk, they just circle the carnage, there are rabbits hanging from the rafters, the world is on fire/drowning/asleep and the princess is mad/unreliable/cataloguing car numberplates for sociopathic purposes. There are no dwarves, but there is a robot. There is pineapple on pizza and Judge Judy, quantum superposition and a pangolin. I tell you, it’s your childhood repackaged as esoteric verse. Grab a hot water bottle and a thimble of sherry. It’ll be a hoot.
3. What books (or other art/media) influenced you while working on this book, or generally in your life?
Robert Hurley teaching me about nonlinear dynamic systems over beer and cheese, Dr Phil at 4am, Judge Judy’s ponytail, existential dread heightened by 1pm Covid announcements, Alt-J and Patti Smith, Cormac McCarthy, Robert Macfarlane and words like ‘swarf’ and ‘glisk’, Schopenhauer for leaning in to the horror; the WhatsApp messages and first drafts of Aimée Keeble whose similes are bombshell and revelation every time. Greek myth and Grimm brothers. Dylan Thomas and the news.
4. What good books have you read lately?
My reading has been terrible lately – mostly the back of Head and Shoulders shampoo bottles, books about neurotransmission, and instructions for Rapid Antigen Tests. But people like Frankie McMillan, Leanne Radojkovich, Tracey Slaughter, Ocean Vuong and Dostoevsky make me tick. Many others, too, listed in the back of my book. Did I mention, I want you to buy my book? It’s basically Snow White dressed up as Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, but with dogs. On the to-read stash of my side-table are Crazy Love by Rosetta Allan and Double Helix by Eileen Merriman, two local authors I know and love
Buy Naming the Beasts (Otago University Press), $25
