Well the shortlist for the 2010 New Zealand Post Book Awards is out … and I didn't make it. Oh well. The NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry has gone to Selina Tusitala Marsh for Fast Talking PI (AUP). Congratulations Selina! The shortlist for the Best Poetry Book is a Mainland …
Tuesday Poem – “Bread”
June 22nd carries quite a bit of freight in our house this year. It's the winter solstice; it's the day they announce the finalists of the 2010 NZ Post Book Awards (and the winner of the NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry – fingers, toes and various organs crossed) and it's also …
Strange Companions
I'm teaching Sharon Olds tomorrow at Polytech, so this week I've been re-immersing myself in her work. I'd forgotten how good it is. You remember the sex, the violence, the big-ticket melodrama of her relationship with her father. But I'd forgotten how much she writes of sheer physical joy – how good it feels to …
Tuesday Poem – “Ukritye”, by Mario Petrucci
(Chernobyl, 1986) Even the robots refuse. Down tools. Jerk up their blocked heads, shiver in invisible hail. Helicopters spin feet from disaster, caught in that upwards cone of technicide – then ditch elsewhere, spill black running guts. Not the Firemen. In rubber gloves and leather boots they walk upright, silent as brides. Uppers begin to …
Continue reading "Tuesday Poem – “Ukritye”, by Mario Petrucci"
There are Some Books I am Just Not Meant to Have
I think that the Gods of Books have been watching me again. Or possibly it's the Book Gods' mischievous little brother – the one who makes sure that the last copy of the book you desperately want is being held by someone who's obviously more interested in a long gossip with someone else just as …
Continue reading "There are Some Books I am Just Not Meant to Have"
A Dark Feathered Art 