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.
Taken with kind permission from etc
