No 2 Feburary 20 2003 - Communications - University of Canterbury

New poetry volume entered in Montana awardsAnew volume of poetry byChristchurch writer anddoctoral student JeffreyPaparoa Holman introducespoems of exile and yearning,identity and belonging. As Bigas a Father is published bySteele Roberts Publishers ofWellington, and has beenentered in the 2003 MontanaBook Awards.Holman is an Honours graduatein English, with a GraduateDiploma of Arts in Mãori. Hisdoctoral studies are based in theMãori Department where he isresearching the intellectual andcultural influences on theethnologist, Elsdon Best.As Big as my Father is dividedinto␣ a prologue and three mainsections. They are: ␣ Exile – TeManawa ( the heart), poems thatlook at personal issues of lossand alienation, and Te Whenua(the land), looking at the countryfrom outside and the past from thepresent; Papatipu (homeland) – TeTai Poutini, the West Coast, andtangata whenua, people of the land,poems for and about people inHolman’s life; E Hine E – waiataaroha or love poems.A researcher at the Universityof Canterbury is wanting tointerview children of problemgamblers for a study on theeffects of their parent’sgambling.Anthropologist Dr SusanWurtzburg (Speech and LanguageTherapy) is collaborating with DrRichard Tan, the SouthernRegional Manager of the ProblemGambling Foundation, in twostudies on problem gamblers in theCanterbury region.One study is looking at theproportion of people visiting socialservice agencies who are problemgamblers. This study uses a simpletest called EIGHT (EarlyIntervention Gambling HealthTest) to identify problem gamblers.The second study is looking at theeffect of an adult’s gambling ontheir children.Dr Wurtzburg, who has experienceworking at Women’s Refuge, saysThe title poem, which won theWhitireia Prize in 1997 and laterfeatured in the Edmond andSewell anthology, Essential NewZealand Poems (2001), addressesHolman’s relationship with anabsent father figure.Of Holman’s earlier FloodDamage (1998), Witi Ihimaerawrote, “Flood Damage mixesformal structures with passionatecontent, politics with aesthetics.It’s a blast”. Professor PatrickEvans (Canterbury’s EnglishDepartment) commented thatChildren of problem gamblers focus of studysocial services do not usually askclients whether they have agambling problem. This makes itdifficult to work out the size of theproblem.“People are very reluctant to raisethe subject. There is a lot of shameassociated with problemgambling,” she says.The EIGHT form, which takesabout a minute to fill out, asksquestions such as “do you ever feelguilty after gambling” and “do youever lie to others to hide yourgambling”. Studies elsewhere haveshown the form is useful inidentifying problem gamblers. Thestudy started last April and eight to10 social services and medicalclinics are expected to participate.The University Student HealthService has already returned theirforms. Preliminary results suggestthere are very few problemgamblers visiting Student Health.This low level may, however, reflectHolman was a “strong, clear,highly individualistic voice thathas nevertheless come right outof our Great Tradition”.Publisher Roger Steeledescribes Holman’s poetry asfull of the compressedfragments of a richautobiography, and sees it asalready “a permanent part of thelandscape”.Holman said he was delighted tohave the support of one of NewZealand’s leading poetrypublishers. “Steele Roberts hadalso published Jacqui Sturm,Hone Tuwhare, and other Mãoriwriters. Now, with Pãkehã suchas Glenn Colquhuon and myselfaddressing ourselves to tahaMãori in our writing, anotherliterary marae is opening upbefore the Treaty House we callAotearoa.”Holman’s fiction and poetry hasalso been published in a varietyof NZ and UK periodicals.• As Big as a Father by JeffreyPaparoa Holman: 68pp,colour cover, ISBN 1-877228-84-2, $19.95Dr Susan Wurtzburgthe fact that young people areoptimists and may not see evenquite serious gambling as aproblem, Dr Wurtzburg says.While a lot is known about theeffects on children living withparents in abusive relationships orwith alcohol problems, there haspeoplepeoplepeopleThe following positions havebeen accepted: Sue Hicks-Mason, teacher of commercesubjects, Foundation Studies,Centre for Continuing Education,from 4/2/03; Ngaire Jehle-Caitcheon, Academic WritingAssessment and TeachingProgramme study skills tutor(fixed term), Student Services,from 3/2/03 to 28/11/03;Belinda Jemmett, secretary,Electrical and ComputerEngineering, from17/2/03; Derham Mcaven,teacher of accounting andcomputer skills, FoundationStudies, Centre for ContinuingEducation, from 17/2/03; ColinMcKinney, teacher of Englishlanguage and study skills,Foundation Studies, Centre forContinuing Education, from 05/2/03; Shirley Roberts,programme co-ordinator,Continuing Education, from 3/2/03 to 28/11/03; Matthew STurnbull, technical assistant(fixed term), PAMS, from 13/1/03 to 2/1/05; Dr Jan Wikaira,teacher of chemistry, FoundationStudies, Centre for ContinuingEducation, from 29/11/02.been little research on the childrenof problem gamblers. The secondstudy, which started last June setsto rectify this. It involvesinterviewing parents, children andchildren’s teachers about theexperiences of children living in ahome with a problem gambler.The researchers have interviewed14 children from 10 families but DrWurtzburg is looking for morefamilies who are willing to take part.She needs children aged between 11and 17 who have a parent whoadmits they have a gamblingproblem. At least one child mustlive with that parent and the familymust live in the Canterbury region.To find our more about the study orto find out about participating,contact:Dr Susan Wurtzburg, Departmentof Speech and Language Therapy,phone 364 2987 ext 7182 or e-mailsusan.wurtzburg@canterbury.ac.nz.Lynette Hartley7