Jordan Hamel

In Bed with the Feminists by Liz Breslin (Dead Bird Books, 2021), 69pp., $30; Felt by Johanna Emeney (Massey University Press, 2021), 80pp., $24.99; To the Occupant by Emma Neale (Otago University Press, 2019), 80pp., $27.95

Liz Breslin’s sophomore collection In Bed with the Feminists was one I was eagerly anticipating, and that anticipation was certainly warranted. Ever since bursting onto the Aotearoa literary scene a couple of years ago, Dead Bird Books has shown a particular knack for turning their releases into special occasions through comprehensive, nationwide launches and promoting books with strong concepts from distinct writers. Liz Breslin had the unenviable task of following one of the best collections of 2020, Mohamed Hassan’s Ockham-shortlisted National Anthem, and in the face of such expectation, In Bed with the Feminists did not disappoint. [Read more…]

Angela Trolove 

More Favourable Waters: Aotearoa poets respond to Dante’s Purgatory, edited by Marco Sonzogni and Timothy Smith (The Cuba Press, 2021), 99pp., $25; This Twilight Menagerie: A whakanui of 40 years of Poetry Live!, edited by Jamie Trower and Sam Clements (Poetry Live! 2021), 218pp., $20

Dante’s trilogy is notoriously tough reading. But we’re in luck. The difficulty has been overcome by contemporary translators such as the late Clive James, to whose memory More Favourable Waters is dedicated. Now, with this volume, Dante’s cantos have become yet more accessible thanks to the thirty-three Kiwi poets reanimating them, one by one, in contexts recognisable to New Zealanders. The cantos that inspire the poems are listed at the back of the anthology under ‘Textual and musical notes’. Yes, these endnotes include, wondrously, a suite of instrumentals composed to enrich the cantos, accessible through a QR code. By Vittorio Zago and intended as musical interludes, they are subtle and atmospheric; they slur between tempos. Strings wail, wind squeals and spits and percussion scuffles. [Read more…]

Chris Tse

Somewhere a Cleaner, edited by Andrienne Jansen, Te Rongomai Tipene-Matua, Joan Begg, Wesley Hollis and Nicky Subono (Landing Press, 2020), 184pp., $25; Second Person by Rata Gordon (Victoria University Press, 2020), 80pp., $25; Ngā Whakamatuatanga / Interludes by Vaughan Rapatahana (CyberWit, 2019), 136pp., US$15

Somewhere a Cleaner is an anthology from Landing Press, whose kaupapa is to make poetry part of everyday life and to give a voice to people who don’t have much voice. This unique collection fulfils that aim by bringing together mostly unknown and novice writers to share their stories about that most universal of acts: cleaning. The book’s framework is not dissimilar to the one Landing Press used in All of Us and More of Us, two collections that focused on the stories of New Zealanders from migrant and refugee backgrounds. There is some crossover with those earlier books in Somewhere a Cleaner, which includes contributors who have settled in New Zealand from places as far-flung as West Siberia, Syria, Sri Lanka and Cambodia. You’ll spot a few familiar names when scanning the contents list—Lynn Jenner, Siobhan Harvey, Tina Shaw, Joanna Cho, Johanna Aitchison and Vaughan Rapatahana—but the book’s contributors’ list is dominated by new or novice writers. This is rather refreshing. The editors accepted open submissions and actively sought people to include to ensure that the book accurately reflected the diverse backgrounds and experiences of cleaners in New Zealand. The result is a mix of poetry and short prose pieces that shine a light on a topic and occupation that has been politicised in recent years. [Read more…]

Claire Lacey

Pins by Natalie Morrison (Victoria University Press, 2020), 70pp., $25; Things OK With You? by Vincent O’Sullivan (Victoria University Press, 2021), 96pp., $25; I Am In Bed With You by Emma Barnes (Auckland University Press, 2021), 88pp., $24.99

Writing in the first person is a way of establishing a narrative character with a specific voice and perspective. It can be easy to conflate the ‘I’ of the poem with the ‘I’ of its author, but ‘I’ can be much more subtle and even mischievous. Who speaks, and to whom? The following three collections are very different case studies on how poets engage with the first person singular.

Pins by Natalie Morrison is a book-length poem that explores a fictional narrator’s relationship to her missing sister. This long character study reminded me of Canadian poet Sandy Pool, whose poetry books Exploding into Night and Undark each pursue an untold narrative about a publicly reported tragedy. I enjoy this approach to the book-length project, where a particular perspective is thoroughly investigated. In Pins, the narrator adopts her lost sister’s obsession with pins:

I have begun to dedicate things to you.

These poems, for example; I pin snippets

to your bedroom wall.  [Read more…]

John Geraets

The Wilder Years: Selected poems by David Eggleton (Otago University Press, 2021), 313pp., $40

I read David Eggleton’s poems as serial libations.¹ Libation, as a poetic approach, has its strengths and weaknesses, and in this review my aim is to address both. To begin with, we note that any poet who holds the esteem of their literary community over almost four decades—including a stint as editor of Landfall (2011–18) and another as current poet laureate (2019–21)—is deserving of our attention. This attractively produced hardback, The Wilder Years, is the hardly-over-yet culmination of a good life’s work and includes some 187 poems selected from ten volumes published between 1986 and 2020, and a small number of new poems. [Read more…]