Strait Men and Other Tales Murray Edmond Steele Roberts, $30.00, ISBN 9781927242988 Strait Men and Other Tales by Murray Edmond is a tricky beast. Its slim spine belies the size and style of the stories within – there’s nothing that…
See more ›
Blog Archives
The headlock of myth, Mark Reason
Seelenbinder: The Olympian Who Defied Hitler James McNeish Steele Roberts, $35.00, ISBN 9780947493011 “After a certain time a life exists not for what it is in reality, but for its mythological qualities”: in that one sentence, James McNeish defines his…
See more ›
Tagged with: Issue 115, James McNeish, Mark Reason, Spring 2016, Steele Roberts
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Obituary — Jack Body
Harmonious sensuality Ross Harris recalls the life and work of fellow-composer Jack Body (1944-2015) Jack Body was born in the small North Island farming town of Te Aroha to parents with little interest in music. Even so, he was playing…
See more ›
Tagged with: Gillian Whitehead, Issue 112, Jack Body, Jennifer Shennan, Ross Harris, Scilla Askew, Steele Roberts, Summer 2015
Posted in Obituaries
Posted in Obituaries
Tireless affectionate scrutiny, Michael Hulse
Being Here: Selected Poems
Vincent O’Sullivan
Victoria University Press, $40.00
ISBN 9780864739315
Let the Writer Stand
Judith Dell Panny
Steele Roberts, $30.00
ISBN 9781927242803
Vincent O’Sullivan is a writer of such prodigious gifts that the Collected Poems I can’t be alone in longing for simply isn’t feasible. In the time such an edition would take to assemble, O’Sullivan would have written another collection or two. Just as the ironic, intellectual and psychological positions of his writing routinely pre-empt and outdistance critical responses, so too his extraordinary rate of production, not only in poetry, is ceaselessly speeding away from us. So this wonderful selection, Being Here, the first attempt to showcase his whole work in poetry since the 1992 Selected Poems, will have to do for now.
See more ›
Tagged with: Issue 112, Judith Dell Panny, Michael Hulse, Steele Roberts, Summer 2015, Victoria University Press, Vincent O’Sullivan
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
On men of a certain age, John Horrocks
The Conch Trumpet
David Eggleton
Otago University Press, $25.00,
ISBN 9781877578939
Wonky Optics
Geoff Cochrane
Victoria University Press, $25.00,
ISBN 9780864739810
Half Dark
Harry Ricketts
Victoria University Press, $25.00,
ISBN 9780864739841
Feeding the Birds
Kevin Ireland
Steele Roberts, $20.00,
ISBN 9781927242810
The job of reviewing poetry may one day be redundant. A neural-net programme could conceivably learn enough from previous responses to collections of poetry to make critical judgements, even write passable poetry. A large data set would be essential. Harry Ricketts, Geoff Cochrane, Kevin Ireland and David Eggleton have now produced a total of 55 books of poetry, a formidable starting-point even for a computer.
See more ›
Tagged with: David Eggleton, Geoff Cochrane, Harry Ricketts, Issue 110, John Horrocks, Kevin Ireland, Otago University Press, Steele Roberts, Victoria University Press, Winter 2015
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
A music of our own, Peter Walls
Douglas Lilburn, Memories of Early Years and Other Writings
Robert Hoskins (ed)
Steele Roberts, $40.00,
ISBN 9781927242476
This is the Lilburn centenary year. Concerts are being branded with a special logo – a way of marking the pivotal contribution that Douglas Lilburn made to musical life in Aotearoa New Zealand. The publication of his Memories of Early Years and Other Writings, edited by Robert Hoskins, is thus timely. This volume has a commemorative feel, with its fine reproductions of paintings by Rita Angus and Evelyn Page and historic photographs (albeit on a more restricted scale than Philip Norman’s monumental 2006 study, Douglas Lilburn: His Life and Music).
See more ›
Tagged with: Douglas Lilburn, Issue 110, Robert Hoskins, Steele Roberts, Winter 2015
Posted in Music, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Music, Non-fiction, Review