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…
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Blog Archives
Travelling through fiction, Charles Ferrall
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…
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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 on top…
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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…
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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 tene, res…
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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 slightly idiosyncratic…
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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…
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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 of recycling ideas and…
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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…
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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…
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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