Blog Archives

Shocks and conversations, Mark Williams

Posted on May 26, 2019 by NZ Books

The Friday Poem: 100 New Zealand Poems
Steve Braunias (ed)
David Bateman, $25.00,
ISBN 9780473450281

Short Poems of New Zealand
Jenny Bornholdt (ed)
Victoria University Press, $35.00,
ISBN 9781776562022

Two new poetry anthologies: one featuring beautifully composed small poems selected across the New Zealand literary landscape from Arnold Wall, born in 1869, to twelve-year-old “Mary”; in the other, poems published between 2015 and 2018 that are various in length, sometimes full of delinquency, and keen to display a spikey newness.

Tagged with: David Bateman, Issue 126, Jenny Bornholdt, Mark Williams, Steve Braunias, Winter 2019
Posted in Literature, Poetry

Poetry and the poem, Michael Hulse

Posted on December 7, 2016 by NZ Books

Selected Poems Jenny Bornholdt Victoria University Press, $40.00, ISBN 9781776560660 If I begin by saying that Jenny Bornholdt gives the impression of being a very modest person, it’s not because this review is to be an assessment of her character,…

Tagged with: Issue 116, Jenny Bornholdt, Michael Hulse, Summer 2016, Victoria University Press
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

New seeds for old, Kathryn Walls

Posted on February 27, 2014 by NZ Books

The Mijo Tree Janet Frame (Deidre Copeland illus) Penguin, $25.00, ISBN 9780143569428 A Book is a Book Jenny Bornholdt (Sarah Wilkins illus) Gecko Press, $25.00, ISBN 9781877579929 Dunger Joy Cowley Gecko Press, $20.00, ISBN 9781977579462 Janet Frame sent the typescript…

Tagged with: Autumn 2014, Deidre Copeland, Gecko Press, Issue 105, Janet Frame, Jenny Bornholdt, Joy Cowley, Kathryn Walls, Penguin Books, Sarah Wilkins
Posted in Children, Fiction, Literature, Review

Raw edges of wonder, Janet Hughes

Posted on December 1, 2011 by NZ Books

The Hill of Wool Jenny Bornholdt Victoria University Press, $25.00, ISBN 9780864736529 Thicket Anna Jackson Auckland University Press, $24.99, ISBN 9871869404826 Aloe Diana Bridge Auckland University Press, $24.99, ISBN 98718669404413 The Leaf Ride Dinah Hawken Victoria University…

Tagged with: Airini Beautrais, Anna Jackson, Auckland University Press, Diana Bridge, Dinah Hawken, Issue 96, Janet Hughes, Jenny Bornholdt, Summer 2011, Victoria University Press
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Voicing, Harry Ricketts

Posted on September 1, 2009 by NZ Books

The Rocky Shore Jenny Bornholdt Victoria University Press, $25.00, ISBN 9780864735805 The Rocky Shore is Jenny Bornholdt’s ninth volume of poems, published over the last 20 years. Its six extended sequences, “Confessional”, “The Rocky Shore”, “Willow”, “Fitter Turner”, “A Long…

Tagged with: Harry Ricketts, Issue 87, Jenny Bornholdt, Spring 2009, Victoria University Press
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Domestic pastoral, Harry Ricketts

Posted on March 1, 2003 by NZ Books

Summer Jenny Bornholdt Victoria University Press, $24.95, ISBN 0864734522 Jenny Bornholdt’s poems could be called “domestic pastoral”. This is one of the strongest – though often undervalued – lines in New Zealand poetry. You can trace it from Ursula Bethell’s…

Tagged with: Autumn 2003, Harry Ricketts, Issue 61, Jenny Bornholdt, Victoria University Press
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Poem – Jenny Bornholdt

Posted on March 1, 2003 by NZ Books

December Last days of December broccoli squeaking on the stove and your hair – it’s a tidal wave crashing forwards as you bend to open the envelope you sent from Fielding, in 1971, to your father – in it,…

Tagged with: Autumn 2003, Issue 61, Jenny Bornholdt
Posted in Poem

A breath of fresh sound, Harvey McQueen

Posted on March 1, 1999 by NZ Books

Birds of Europe Andrew Johnston Victoria University Press, $19.95, ISBN 0 86473 386 0 These Days Jenny Bornholdt Victoria University Press, $19.95, ISBN 0 86473 385 2 Delacroix remarked that to be a poet when one is twenty is…

Tagged with: Andrew Johnston, Autumn 1999, Harvey McQueen, Issue 45, Jenny Bornholdt, Victoria University Press
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Decoys of simplicity, Terry Sturm

Posted on June 4, 1998 by NZ Books

Miss New Zealand: Selected Poems Jenny Bornholdt Victoria University Press, $27.95 ISBN 0 86473 323 2 One of the earliest poems in this selection, “In the Garden”, Jenny Bornholdt’s subject is that bane of all gardeners, the common onion weed.…

Tagged with: Issue 33, Jenny Bornholdt, Terry Sturm, Victoria University Press
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

The making of a ‘too hospitable’ canon, Mac Jackson

Posted on March 4, 1997 by NZ Books

An Anthology of New Zealand Poetry in English ed Jenny Bornholdt, Gregory O’Brien and Mark Williams Oxford University Press, $49.95, ISBN 0 19 558338 8 “I cannot think that real poets have any competition,” wrote Blake. But we lesser mortals…

Tagged with: Gregory O’Brien, Issue 27, Jenny Bornholdt, Mac Jackson, Mark Williams, Oxford University Press, Winter 1997
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review