Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson by
John Shaw Neilson (1872-1942) is Australia's great lyric poet and Collected Poems (1934), dedicated to Louise Dyer, bears his imprimatur. Encouraged by his editor, Robert Croll, Neilson was totally involved in its publication and promotion, selecting the poems, rewriting lines, adding new stanzas and restoring A.G. Stephen's earlier changes. Photographic sittings and book signings followed as well as favourable reviews. Neilson modestly attended readings in his honour at the Bookshop of Margareta Webber and enjoyed the concert broadcasts of Margaret Sutherland's compositions, which included 'The Orange Tree'. After reading the Collected Poems she wrote to Neilson: "I have set your voice to music." A new introduction by Dr Helen Hewson, an honorary associate in the School of Letters, Art and Media at the University of Sydney, explores some of the influences that have shaped Neilson's poetry - his Celtic background, religious upbringing, reading and writing, and love of art and music.
The Stars Like Sand by
Following on from the highly acclaimed Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, this anthology extends the focus to Speculative content and is a who's who of Australian poetry from classical to contemporary times.
Australian Poetry Since 1788 by
The first of its kind, this landmark poetry anthology contains the work of Australia’s major poets as well as lesser-known but equally affectingnbsp;writers of Australian poetry since 1788. Ranging from concrete to prose poems, from the cerebral to the naïve, from the humorous to the confessional, and from formal to free verse, this work also features translations of some striking Aboriginal song poems. With pieces from 170 Australian poets, as well as short critical biographies, this careful reevaluation of Australian poetry makes this a superb book that can be read and enjoyed over a lifetime.
Puna Wai Korero by
From revered, established writers as well as exciting new voices, the poems in Puna Wai Korero offer a broad picture of Maori poetry in English. The voices are many and diverse: confident, angry, traditional, respectful, experimental, despairing, and full of hope, expressing a range of poetic techniques and the full scope of what it is to be Maori. There are poems from all walks of life and modes of writing: laments for koro and hopes for mokopuna, celebrations of the land and anger at its abuse, retellings of myth and reclamations of history. Puna Wai Korero collects work from the many iwi and hapu of Aotearoa as well as Maori living in Australia and around the world, featuring the work of Hone Tuwhare, J. C. Sturm, Trixie Te Arama Menzies, Keri Hulme, Apirana Taylor, Roma Potiki, Hinemoana Baker, Tracey Tawhiao and others - as well as writers better known for forms other than poetry such as Witi Ihimaera, Paula Morris, and Ngahuia Te Awekotuku.
Of Muse, Meandering and Midnight by
This is a striking debut volume by the winner of the Unaipon prize for unpublished Aboriginal writers. In a voice youthful, passionate and questioning, these poems reflect on growing up and on letting go; on urban dwellers in love and lust; and on the artist and his Murri community. The politics are unguarded and often amusing; and the language is playful, rhythmic and evocative. Ghosted by ancestors and muses, Watson's cityscape interweaves past and present.
Skin Painting by
Brave, haunting, and evocative, this powerful volume presents its poetry in the form of a memoir. From the poet? early experiences in an institution and the effect of this on her family to the illustration of her strength and independence as an adult, this biographical collection helps make the Aboriginal experience accessible and resonant. Exploring themes of art, identity, sexuality, and loneliness, this compendium is both universal and intimate.
AUP New Poets 6 by
Relaunched under the editorship of Anna Jackson in 2019, AUP New Poets 6 includes substantial selections from the poetry of Ben Kemp, Vanessa Crofskey and Chris Stewart. We move from Kemp's slow-paced attentive readings of place and people, in a selection moving between Japan and New Zealand, to the velocity of Vanessa Crofskey's fierce, funny, intimate and political poetry, which takes the form of shopping lists, Post-it Notes, graphs, erasures, a passenger arrival card and even *poetry*, and finally to Chris Stewart's visceral take on the domestic, the nights cut to pieces by teething, the gravity of love and the churn of time. AUP New Poets 6 is an arresting introduction to the rich diversity of contemporary New Zealand poetry.
The Darling North by
This uniquenbsp;collection both longs for and resists the North. In storytelling couplets, the title poem engages with a woman’s past asnbsp;she looks outward from the shores of the Hokianga harbor in New Zealand. Other poems also explore present and future, dislocation and migration, north and south, andnbsp;Earth and paradise. Separate and various in tone and form, these narrative poems arenbsp;a joy to read.
Gleam by
In these 40 powerful new poems, Sarah Broom explores the effect of a life-threatening condition by way of the landscapes of the natural world, charting the hardest things in beautiful language. Broom’s forte is in encapsulating, expressing, and making sense of strong internal feeling and turmoil through metaphor, and in Gleam, her poems bring together heightened emotion, a robust sense of the physical body, and an external landscape in controlled, sinewy language. In the title poem, she charts a radiotherapy session in both physical and metaphoric terms: “there are avenues of light / and now there is a wide and open terrain, my brain / is a vast, hilly country.” This impressive collection examines basic human truths with clarity and force and will open out painful, rewarding vistas for its readers.
James K. Baxter by
Including 50 poems by revered New Zealand poet and social activist James K. Baxter, this unique and accessibly sized collection offers an insider's view of the man and his work from his longtime friend and fellow poet Sam Hunt. With a range of familiar and lesser-known poems dating from 1945 to 1972, and a substantial essay by Hunt, this compilation offers a fresh and very personal look at the work of an extraordinarily influential poet.
Pasture and Flock: New and Selected Poems by
There are some poets you travel the routes ofso often you could feel your way in the dark,that turn, that corner, and then the plummettowards the end. What does it give you, after all,to meet in person in a room? A thoughtthe dog doesn't share, when, having knownthe followed route, the stored scent,an affair of the air, here isthe other dog! Incarnate! Guessed and host! ‘Poets know words, know routes, know ghosts'Uneasy nights out with dead Russian poets, dalliances with German gasfitters and emotionally fraught games of badminton are brought together for the first time, along with a brand new body of work, in this time-spanning selection of Anna Jackson's poetry. Local gothic, suburban pastoral and answerings-back to literary icons are all enhanced by Jackson's light hand and sly humour. Pastoral yet gritty, intellectual and witty, sweet but with stings in their tails, the poems and sequences collected in Pasture and Flock are essential reading for both long-term and new admirers of Jackson's slanted approach to lyric poetry.
Photographs by
Albert Wendt moves from ancient Polynesia to contemporary China to family gatherings in an Auckland garden. These poems celebrate grandchildren, family, ancestors and a heritage that stretches back to the atua, and they show a profound understanding of the ways of in Aotearoa / New Zealand.
Spells for Coming Out by
A collection of poems by one of New Zealand's major poets, Spells for Coming Out exhibits a unity derived from mood and circumstance. Memories of Europe, regrets at the absence of 'friends, fugitives and lovers', dominate the opening section, and recur later when the physical scene before the poet is Mount Cargill and Otago Harbour. The feeling is lyrical, the structure informal, the clues are there to be followed into layers of resonance and meaning.
The Tudor Style by
One of New Zealand's leading poets, Elizabeth Smither has published many collections and has won the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry. Her poems are characteristically slim, so the substantial selection of her work gathered in The Tudor Style has a striking effect. As Bill Manhire says, Smither's poems 'wave to one another, open doors and climb through windows'. This subtle and witty interconnectedness is a distinctive quality in her work. The poems show a delight in image, epigram and unexpected anecdotes. These swift darting poems return to themes such as women friends, gardens, figures of legend and story, religious experience and conversations. They form a striking and original whole, revealing Smither as a distinguished poet.