MIKE Eager promised his poet friend Simon Williamson that he’d turn a selection of his poems into a book one day.
The result is Twenty-five Cars. Sadly, Williamson killed himself in 1999 after a battle with mental illness, and didn’t get to see the book.
But instead of ruling the poet’s death as suicide, the coroner said “Simon died as a result of his own actions while the balance of his mind was disturbed”.
“I think that people can be in so much pain that there’s almost no choice,” says Eager. “He died as a consequence of his illness, and he was so adamant that suicide was an option he’d never take – he told me that a few days before he died.”
He says the real tragedy is that while Williamson was openly critical about suicide after his brother killed himself years earlier, he then went down the same path.
Eager will perform the poems in Twenty-five Cars in a show called Haimona (“Simon” in Maori) as part of the Fringe Festival, and says the audience will be taken on a journey of Williamson’s life.
He grew up in a rural Bay of Plenty community, where his family were the only Pakeha. This early Maori influence is evident in his poems, which weave together the language and mythical themes.
The result was praised by poet and novelist Apirana Taylor in the introduction to Williamson’s book Storyteller.
Williamson moved to Wellington as a teenager, and met Eager at a video course in 1988.
“He was an enthusiastic young guy who knew what he wanted and where he was going. He wrote an awful lot and produced a lot in his short life.” When Williamson died, he left behind over 1,000 poems.
In Wellington, the poet struggled with periods of being manic and hearing voices, which culminated in a short stay in a locked ward at Porirua Hospital.
He got his life back together on a hitch hiking and writing trip to Hokianga, before returning to live in Lyall Bay.
Upon Williamson’s arrival, Eager would go to his house and read through poems he’d written on the road. He saw a clear story emerge, and promised Williamson he’d turn them into a book.
The second half of the book, Miss you, bro is a series of poems Williamson wrote against suicide after the death of his brother.
“A lot of times people contemplating suicide think ‘my family will be better off’, but this piece tells people that it’s not the right option, and that’s something Simon was very strong on,” Eager says.
That irony is one of the things Eager struggles with when he performs Twenty-Five Cars, in Williamson’s memory.
But he felt that he needed to take the poems written by his “wonderful friend” to a Kiwi audience.
“It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and now I’m able to free myself up and put effort into performing. Over time I think I’ve found ways to present these that are more than just a poetry reading, it’s a theatre piece,” says Eager.
It’s evident that Williamson respected Eager as well. In the “roll of honour” he wrote in preparation for the book before he died, Williamson says of Eager: “To the man with the vision without whom these words would be tucked away in my house – thank you. Mike Eager, rejoice in this.”
A copy of Twenty-five Cars will be given with each ticket purchased for the performance.
Haimona, Katipo Café, 8pm, March 3-7.