NICK ASCROFT

The Time I Shook Allen Curnow's Huge Paw

The title says it all, and says or least
implies that you, too young, too wispy small,
did not detain that literary beast
as heedlessly he crossed you in the hall.
The book awards it was, and I was all
magnificent in penguin suit with Helen
Clark behind, Karl Stead beside, who needed
wine, and so, the grin across my melon
just too impish, our PM conceded,
faux-aghast that I had centipeded
in to snatch a red from off her table.
So gigantic – Timaru’s Clark Gable –
as Curnow passed I shot up like a bloom.
And oh the time I talked at Keri Hulme.

LISTEN to ‘The Time I Shook Allen Curnow’s Huge Paw’ by Nick Ascroft

A front-on image of poet Nick Ascroft against a white wall

Nick Ascroft's sixth collection, It’s What He Would’ve Wanted (Te Herenga Waka University Press), came out in 2025. He was last year's judge for Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems.

Ascroft comments: 'I always presume people are irritated by my sonnets, but this is my third BNZP sonnet appearance of three (3) appearances total. Here it's a true story, if self-mocking, about standing next to luminaries. I am always desperate to tell people I talked to Janet Frame, and I have just now, while you roll your eyes. Name-dropping to assert one's own credentials is fantastically lame, but I met Orlando Bloom on the set of FOTR that time, so I'm above such pettiness.'

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