Hot on the trails

Good poems about science are a rarity, but Alexandra Fraser brings subtle skill to the task.

So far, only a small number of New Zealand poets have shown the ability to write knowledgeably – and poetically – about science. Among the best are Helen Heath and Richard Reeve.

In Star Trails, Alexandra Fraser also tackles scientific matters with subtlety and skill. Subtitled “Learning to see – a memoir”, this collection begins with poems in praise of Fraser’s father. “I wear my father’s eyes/I stand on his shoulders,” she writes in Influence.

Her father was a photographer and amateur astronomer who spent long Waikato nights stargazing with selfdevised equipment. When she was a child, he showed her how he captured

“star trails”, long-exposure images that show the apparent position of stars as the Earth turns.

From these experiences – and her later life as a science teacher – Fraser draws complex webs of imagery.

The telescopic lens capturing light is related to memory, just as the fragility of a beam of light is related to the brevity of life. As she implies in the poem Aurora, the complex wonders of nature are the only god Fraser respects.

Many of her poems are written in the fragmented style of broken lines. A few, especially the ones about pioneers in science such as Galileo and Newton, come across as preachy and prosy. But she has a deft way with imagery and her description of the musical style of jazz pianist Thelonious Monk is spot on: “Hop-scotching notes …/almost like missing/the last step/in the dark.” STAR TRAILS, by Alexandra Fraser (Steele

Roberts, $25)

The telescopic lens capturing light is related to memory, just as the fragility of a beam of light is related to the brevity of life.