Joanna Preston: Tasmanaut Poet
Some really wonderful news – last night Rhian Gallagher’s gorgeous collection, Shift, won best poetry collection at the NZ Post Book Awards! I consider Rhian a friend, so I can’t review the book. But I can, will, have and do tell people what I think about it – it is brilliant, musical, deft, moving, and …
Continue reading "Rhian Gallagher wins the NZ Post Best Poetry Book Award 2012"
I'm currently devouring a new book, Structure & Surprise: Engaging Poetic Turns. My god, it’s good. It's based on an idea that I've just started exploring from a properly theoretical point of view, (although I’ve mentioned a variation in an earlier post) – deliberate, formal ways of opening a poem out beyond itself. So far …
Continue reading "Turns, Endings, and The Point of High Windows"
This is the sort of day that I love. I have no immediate commitments; it’s cold enough so that I can (and have, and did) justify lighting the fire; rain is plinking away on the roof of the conservatory; and having recently crossed a couple of numerological milestones, I have a lovely, luxurious pile of …
One of the first things I discovered when I began my three year tour-of-duty in the UK was the PBS: the Poetry Book Society. As you may have gathered from this post title, it's a book club for people who love reading poetry. It was originally set up by TS Eliot and friends in 1953, …
Continue reading "The Book Club for Poetry Lovers – why don’t we have one?"
Ever had the experience of being judged because of the title of a book you were reading in public? I'm not talking about serious literature types being busted with a copy of the latest Mills & Boon (although if any of you of the penis persuasion have had that experience …), or even the experience I …
A Dark Feathered Art 