Blog Archives
Letters – Issue 126
Deletions made by Brasch himself I was distressed to see in Douglas Lloyd Jenkins’s review in the latest New Zealand Review of Books Pukapuka Aotearoa (Autumn 2019) the wrongful and offensive suggestion that Charles Brasch’s literary executor had for “homophobic”…
Obituary – Raymond Frank Grover (1931-2019)
Obituary Raymond Frank Grover (1931-2019) Brad Patterson Born in Matamata in 1931, the eldest son of a transient school-teaching family, Ray Grover’s early years were in small rural settlements at the Bay of Islands and on the Wanganui River. After…
Tagged with: Brad Patterson, Issue 126, Ray Grover, Raymond Frank Grover, Winter 2019
Posted in Obituaries
Posted in Obituaries
Obituary – Gordon Challis (1932-2018)
Obituary Gordon Challis (1932-2018) Cliff Fell Like other poets before him, Gordon Challis, who died in March 2018, had written his own epitaph, or an epitaph of sorts. In “Hard to Get at”, from his 2003 comeback collection, The Other…
Obituary – Peter Wells (1950-2019)
Obituary Peter Wells (1950-2019) Siobhan Harvey Into the apparent silence of diverse voices in Aotearoa New Zealand literature, award-winning novelist, essayist, historian, anthologist, filmmaker and playwright, Peter Wells spoke. His was an articulation which, in life, was strong, uncompromising, inquisitive,…
Heroic lives, Bruce Babington
Whatever it Takes: Pacific Films and John O’Shea 1948-2000 John Reid Victoria University Press, $60.00, ISBN 9781776562114 Many years ago, I was invited by the New Zealand Film Archive to try to order the mass of material in its John…
Tagged with: Bruce Babington, Issue 126, John Reid, Victoria University Press, Winter 2019
Posted in Art, History, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Art, History, Non-fiction, Review
Poem – Kevin Ireland
The shortest day It’s close to the winter solstice in these parts though the precise moment isn’t anywhere near the same as when our northern forebears dragged huge stones for miles then raised them into rows in circles to catch…
Why Y? David Hill
Ursa Tina Shaw Walker Books, $23.00, ISBN 9781760651244 Invisibly Breathing Eileen Merriman Penguin Random House, $20.00, ISBN 9780143772859 Flight of the Fantail Steph Matuku Huia, $30.00, ISBN 9781775503521 An unspecified number of years back at a Going West Festival, I…
Tagged with: Eileen Merriman, Huia, Issue 126, Penguin Random House, Steph Matuku, Tina Shaw, Walker Books, Winter 2019
Posted in Literature, Review, Young adults
Posted in Literature, Review, Young adults
Human error, Stephanie Johnson
A Mistake Carl Shuker Victoria University Press, $30.00, ISBN 9781776562145 Carl Shuker is a writer who is not afraid to take risks. His previous four novels were all hailed for their innovation in form and espousal of post-modernism. He is,…
Tagged with: Carl Shuker, Issue 126, Stephanie Johnson, Victoria University Press, Winter 2019
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Poem – Lynn Davidson
Leaving Wellington At dawn I caught a taxi to the airport and saw first light ignite the hillside houses – and I thought about how still life artists deepen the surface of their objects with a bloom that, without…
Excisions, Alan Roddick
Posted in Comment