Formica by Maggie Rainey Smith
The Cuba Press
Kia ora koutou, in a land far, far away, Cincinnati in the USA, to be exact, in the years 1912 or 1913 — take your pick, Formica was invented by Daniel O’Connor and Herbert Faber, who worked for the Westinghouse Corp. it immediately swept away its competition. Kids could spill drinks, adults could spill beer or wine, you could even put a hot pot on it for a second if you had to grab the baby before he crawled into the rubbish bin you were taking out to the bag but had to drop on the floor because his brother had spilled his porridge on the table.
107 years later, Formica is the title of a beautiful new poetry collection by Maggie Rainey Smith. published by The Cuba Press, and on the Neilson Best–Selling list before it was even launched. Maggie, poet, novelist, essayist, and among many other things, a teacher of English as a second language, grew up in a Roman Catholic family, in Richmond, Nelson. In Formica she traces events in her own life with a wry and tender eye — sometimes amused, sometimes sad, always engaging. She says…
She is young, white and affiliated to
a famous writing school…
so I can’t take offence
when she tells me to jog on because
I already know I am invisible…
During my readings of the collection Maggie’s life and memories somehow revealed mine (or parts of mine) so that every now and then I stopped and smiled, looked back to where the markers of time were Its in the Bag and RINSO, cryptic crosswords, the arrival of the new Formica table… the haunting never ending mystery and sadness of the line in the poem called The Coroner’s report …
did you hesitate at all…did you think of us?
Whether its the fun and reality of Ode to the Conray heater, the sombre truths of Autumn and Anzac — the seriously scary nature of the fall–in for anyone who was a Marching Girl, or the laugh out loud image in Instructions on insertion …
I think of my mother, wombless by the time
I first menstruated…
She lay
On my bedroom floor with her knees up and tried
To instruct me on insertion.
… Formica has its own life but holds the feeling that it also touches on all lives. I found out about Tampax much later than Maggie because I’m older and no–one talked about IT until I was fifty and went to Auckland where we shouted about everything —) and as I read the poem I felt that same exhilaration that made me write a scene in a play where three actors play three girls in a toilet trying to follow the instructions on a tampax packet. Things that were whispered about, hidden from others, eg ‘looney bins’, ‘monthlies’, ‘change of life’ are now subjects of poetry just like Formica tables and beautiful grandchildren.
…and then — then — there’s the wonderfully endearing Lockdown Villanelle with its repeated line, repeated image… one we all know — a grandmother whispering to the grandchild she holds in her arms…
I learned to say pada and she knew it was the sea…
There are so many delights in Formica — many more than I can include on this Busk so go, get your own copy — any shop that calls itself a bookshop, will have it in their window.
Congratulations Maggie, Formica is strong, funny, endearing and beautiful.
Congratulations to The Cuba Press – you done it again, guys…
Renée
