Blog
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Poetry review: Remember Me – Poems to Learn by Heart from Aotearoa New Zealand
Edited by Anne Kennedy (Auckland University Press, 2023) Poetry is written as much for the ear as for the eye, and the more than 200 poems anthologised in Remember Me were chosen with this in mind. As editor Anne Kennedy explains in her introduction, these are works which “employ a kind of music to convey…
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Poetry review: When I Reach for Your Pulse
By Rushi Vyas (Otago University Press, 2023) When I Reach for Your Pulse is an uncomfortable read, but this is not about our discomfort. This is about Rushi’s sustained generosity in sharing his grief, his anger, his complex responses to living with the life and death of “the man who earned the money mom used…
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Poetry Review: Tung
By Robyn Maree Pickens (Otago University Press, 2023) The immediacy of the body in nature is the root system from which Robyn Maree Pickens’ debut collection of poetry, Tung, springs. The book’s first acknowledgment goes to a tiny cottage and surrounding nature in Ōtepoti’s greenbelt, where Pickens lived while writing this excellent and engaging collection.…
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Book Review: A River Runs
By Benny Sip Fishing and poetry – it’s a 1964 dream combo! Benny Sip’s spare collection A River Runs is named, presumably, for American author Norman Maclean’s classic novella A River Runs Through It, which tapped into a youth spent in Montana surrounded by family for whom there was “no clear line between religion and…
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Book review: The South Island of New Zealand: From the Road
By Robin Morrison (Massey University Press, 2023) First published in 1981, The South Island of New Zealand: From the Road was the result of a road trip taken by the late photographer Robin Morrison and his family in 1979. While travelling through the South Island, Robin chose to take pictures of places and people, instead…
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Book review: BITER
by Claudia Jardine (Auckland University Press, 2022) Claudia Jardine is a bit of a polymath. She has an MA in classics from Victoria University of Wellington, is the reigning Christchurch Poetry Slam Champion, and is an independent musician. She is also very funny. BITER, her debut poetry collection, reflects all of the above. The book…
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Book review: Not Set in Stone
By Dave Vass (Potton & Burton, 2023) In Not Set in Stone, Dave Vass tells the story of a life spent in the mountains, and now spent without them. One of Aotearoa’s leading mountaineers, Dave broke his neck in 2015 while walking out from a climbing trip in Fiordland, resulting in incomplete tetraplegia. Much of…
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Food review: Timaru Roast, Invercargill
We are in the throes of myriad crises right now, from the cost of living to the climate emergency to the BTS hiatus. These are all important issues. But also, did you know there is a new roast shop in Invercargill!?! For those of you unfamiliar with the genre, a roast shop is a primarily…
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Book review: At the Point of Seeing
by Megan Kitching (Otago University Press, 2023) At the Point of Seeing is the debut collection from Megan Kitching, who was the inaugural recipient of the Elizabeth Brooke-Carr Emerging Writer Residency in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Megan holds a PhD in English Literature from London’s Queens Mary University, where she has said her interest was piqued by…