Blog Archives
Issue 87 | Spring 2009
Volume 19 | Number 3 | Issue 87 | Spring 2009 Letters Harry Ricketts: Jenny Bornholdt, The Rocky Shore Sue McCauley: Fiona Kidman, Beside the Dark Pool Michael Hulse: Vincent O’Sullivan, Further Convictions Pending: Poems 1998-2008 Murray Bramwell: Janet…
Map of the Heart, Lee Wallace
Musica Ficta Anne Kennedy, Auckland University Press, $24.95 Now, to the scandal of men, women are prophesying. So runs the epigraph of Anne Kennedy’s Musica Ficta, though quite what scandal the novel involves remains a puzzle. In so far…
Tagged with: Anne Kennedy, Auckland University Press, Issue 9, Lee Wallace, Winter 1993
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Poem — Bill Sewell
Interactive Virtually alive stare through the terminal screen instead of the window. Clouds and light the water slopping about the harbour do not move with the speed or anything like the obedience of electronic impulses. A dance of fingers…
Travelling through fiction, Charles Ferrall
The Good Tourist and the Laughing Cadaver Michael Gifkins (ed) Vintage, 1993, $24.95 Visiting a library in Timbuktu, an actual town in the central west African country of Mali, the Australian writer Murray Bail is told by an Islamic…
Tagged with: Charles Ferrall, Issue 9, Michael Gifkins, Vintage, Winter 1993
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Bombasts and Jinglists, Mark Williams
The New Place; The Poetry of Settlement in New Zealand, 1852-1914 Harvey McQueen, Victoria University Press, $29.95 New Zealand poetry begins with Ursula Bethell. Before her there were scribblers, versifiers, poetasters, bombasts, jinglists and hobbyists, but there were no…
Tagged with: Harvey McQueen, Issue 9, Mark Williams, Victoria University Press, Winter 1993
Posted in Literature, Poetry
Posted in Literature, Poetry
Writing and revenge, Colleen Reilly
A Distraction of Opposites Sandra Arnold, Hazard Press, Christchurch, $24.95 The front cover illustration of A Distraction of Opposites is a painting by Heather Busch entitled ‘Look at the Pattern.’ At first glance, what you see is ordinary objects…
Tagged with: Colleen Reilly, Hazard Press, Issue 9, Sandra Arnold, Winter 1993
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
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