Blog Archives
Poetic Grammars, Mary Paul
How to Talk Andrew Johnston, Victoria University Press, $19.95 Piki Ake! Robert Sullivan, Auckland University Press, $19.95 I was given these two books to review with the instruction that I should look at them in the wider context of…
Tagged with: Andrew Johnston, Auckland University Press, Issue 9, Mary Paul, Robert Sullivan, Victoria University Press, Winter 1993
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Gee Whizz, Elizabeth Smither
Going West Maurice Gee, Viking, 1992, $39.95 Rem tene, verba sequentur – I have it, like an archivist, on a filched catalogue card. For the novel: ‘Grasp the subject and the words will follow’. For the poem, the reverse: Verba…
Tagged with: Elizabeth Smither, Issue 9, Maurice Gee, Viking, Winter 1993
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
The Persistence of Talent: the Poetry of Brian Turner, Vincent O’Sullivan
Even five years ago, it would have seemed impossible that Brian Turner should win the country’s premier award for poetry. Not that anyone said anything much against his verse. But there was the quiet assumption that he worked his own…
Tagged with: Brian Turner, Issue 9, Vincent O’Sullivan, Winter 1993
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Honest words and honest deeds, Mary Roberts
Capes of China Slide Away James Bertram, Auckland University Press, $39.95 James Bertram spent ten years of his long life in Asia. Those years prompt the use of Auden’s quotation as the title of his book and occupy over…
Tagged with: Auckland University Press, Issue 9, James Bertram, Mary Roberts, Winter 1993
Posted in Autobiography, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Autobiography, Non-fiction, Review
Ruminative chin music, David Eggleton
Auto/Biographies Kendrick Smithyman, Auckland University Press, $19.95 This is Kendrick Smithyman’s twelfth book of poetry. It continues and restates the themes of his recent collections, Stories About Wooden Keyboards and Are you Going to the Pictures? to the point…
Tagged with: Auckland University Press, David Eggleton, Issue 9, Kendrick Smithyman, Winter 1993
Posted in Literature, Poetry
Posted in Literature, Poetry
Serving up the ancestors, Harry Ricketts
One of Ben’s Maurice Shadbolt, David Ling Publishing, $44.95 Halfway Round the Harbour Keith Sinclair, Penguin, $29.95 This here biography and ‘reminiscence’ business … is a bit too near the ‘Higher Cannibalism’ to please me. Ancestor-worship is all right…
Tagged with: David Ling Publishing, Harry Ricketts, Issue 9, Keith Sinclair, Maurice Shadbolt, Penguin, Winter 1993
Posted in Autobiography, Non-fiction
Posted in Autobiography, Non-fiction
The discourse of security, Alistair Paterson
Red letter Janet Charman, Auckland University Press, $18.95 Strands Keri Hulme, Auckland University Press, $17.95 These two books, both from Auckland University Press and markedly different in their method and concerns, share a common factor in exemplifying the confidence writers…
Tagged with: Alistair Paterson, Auckland University Press, Issue 9, Janet Charman, Keri Hulme, Winter 1993
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Letters – Issue 9
Yanks still here I was only slightly miffed by your pejorative comment ‘Readers interested in the ‘invasion’ (of the Americans 1942-44) might like to search the remainder bins for Harry Bioletti’s The Yanks are Coming‘. You won’t find any copies…
Oral Poetry, John Jowett
Glasgow Poets Past and Present: The Story of a City Edwin Morgan, Avizandum Editions (University of Waikato Scottish Studies Association), $5.00 This pamphlet marks a time and place. It prints a lecture delivered by the Scottish poet Edwin Morgan…
Tagged with: Avizandum Editions, Edwin Morgan, Issue 9, John Jowett, Winter 1993
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Editorial – Issue 9
Jane Stafford: Not a theory of poetry Poetry and theorising have always had an uneasy relationship. Perhaps it is because they are at some level antithetical, the packed allusiveness of the poem as opposed to the careful logic of…