Muppet that I am, I forgot that the 2011 New Zealand Post Book Awards shortlists – including the winners of the Best First Books – were announced today. Thhis year's NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry has gone to … Lynn Jenner’s Dear Sweet Harry (Auckland University Press). I have to admit …
Magazine De-clutter 2 – giveaway and contest
Rightio, time to give away some more magazines. In honour of the start of winter (usually my most productive of the four seasons), I'm offering: Imago 13:3 (2001) – a now-defunct Australian mag The North 44 (2009) – a British mag Poetry CLXXVI:3 (June 2000) – an American mag (yes, that one) Takahe 58 (2006) …
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Mary Oliver, appositives, and fossicking through “Aunt Leaf”
I do love Mary Oliver's poems, but I'm always nervous when I start reading a new collection. Her writing is becoming ever more stripped back, and relies on the rightness of her observations, rather than dazzling bravado with imagery. But there are plenty of exceptions to that rule, especially in her earlier poems. One that …
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Owls, reviews, and thoughts about The End(s) of Criticism
I was sent a link to an interesting couple of articles about book reviewing, and where it can all go so horribly wrong. Start with Jeremiah Chamberlin's preliminary post on the concept of The Good Review. Read it, then come back. I'll wait. (Don't I always?) Then there's Charles Baxter on that classic Amazon-style me-fest, …
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2011 Keats-Shelley Association Competition – “Glass”
It's that time of year again, when those of us with a yen towards Romantic poetry (Byron & Wordsworth, NOT Mills & Boon) start feverishly pacing up and down the leafless lanes attempting to compose a poem on a Romantic theme for the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association's annual International Poetry Competition. Actually it's two competitions – …
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A Dark Feathered Art 