Blog Archives
Spectacular Babies ed Bill Manhire HarperCollins, $24.95, ISBN 1869503775 Boys’ Own Stories: Short Stories by New Zealand Men ed Graeme Lay Tandem Press, $24.95, ISBN 1877178691 Five years ago, I remember jumping up and down in frustration in front of…
Essential New Zealand Poems ed Lauris Edmond and Bill Sewell Godwit, $29.95, ISBN 1869620879 Why is it that fictional teachers are always teachers of English? How many times do you see on television or at the movies teachers attempting to…
snowing down south warm breath breathed out of our bodies into the overnight air and condensed to an ice crust on the glass with a sodden mitten tip push plates of glitter lace across the surface to make an…
No, not sour grapes People will always bitch about literary awards, and literary awards will always seem inherently unfair. This year’s Montana New Zealand Book Awards will have thrown up their share of sniping, backbiting and dis-appointed egos. Some…
Shebang: Collected Poems 1980-2000 David Howard Steele Roberts, $24.95, ISBN 1877228591 I associate volumes of Collected Poems with poetic fame – long sequence of small books, most now out of print, requiring a full collection to satisfy the demands of…
Dogside Story Patricia Grace Penguin, $34.95, ISBN 0141004193 In her long career as a writer of both novels and short fiction, Patricia Grace has shown remarkable consistency in her publishing pattern: invariably, the publication of a collection of short stories…
Recollecting Mansfield Margaret Scott Godwit, $29.95, ISBN 1869620763 It is hard to know whether Katherine Mansfield would have been delighted, amazed or appalled at the industry that has evolved since her death, at the academic careers she has sustained, at…
Cock of the walk Heather Murray’s review of Curnow’s The Bells of St. Babel’s (in your August 2001 issue) is a kind of negative tribute to Curnow’s pre-eminent position on the New Zealand literary scene. How many poets in their…
Now here Family snaps in leatherette albums prove “nothing lasts forever” (thanks Mum) as shadows crawl on their stomachs, the sun sinks in the West you never won. Looming into the tedium waiters understand the way nostrils understand incense,…
Volume 11 | Number 4 | Issue 50 | October 2001 Mark Amery: Roger Horrocks, Len Lye: A Biography Janet Charman: “snowing down south” (poem) Editorial Correspondence Patricia Grace on Pinocchio David Howard: “Now here” (poem) Jenny Pattrick: Ann…