Robyn Maree Pickens 

Seasons by William Direen (South Indies Text & Music Publishing, 2022), 72pp, $22; Resonating Distances by Richard von Sturmer (Titus Books, 2022), 150pp, $30; Breach by Lisa Samuels (Boiler House Press, 2021), 75pp, $28

William Direen’s Seasons prompted me to consider readerly expectations of access to a speaker’s inner world. A man spends a year in the remote Strath Taieri/Maniototo—inland and north of Ōtepoti Dunedin—but seemingly withholds his reasons for being there. Is he ‘taking time out’ or is he really there to engage with the region’s hot summers and winter snow? If it is the latter, which encompasses the entanglement of people, weather, land, and livelihood, shouldn’t this be sufficient? 

Perhaps the description of the collection as a ‘poetry diary’ led this reader to expect access to the speaker’s ‘inner world’, to his perspectives on the events unfolding around him— seasonal and otherwise. [Read more…]

Victor Billot 

Gorse Poems by Chris Holdaway (Titus Books, 2022), 72pp, $25; The Stupefying by Nick Ascroft (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2022), 88pp, $25

Chris Holdaway (b. 1989) belongs to a new generation of New Zealand poets by demographic. He is set apart from his peers by his distinctive style and his role as publisher and printer of poetry. As founding editor of Minarets journal and co-founder of Compound Press, Holdaway has produced a substantial number of publications, which provides an intriguing angle in consideration of his own writing. It is a thread back to New Zealand poet/printers of previous eras as well as a contemporary link to the world of DIY indie music and zine production (although it must be said his production standards are well above the norm). This is his first full-length collection, but Holdaway has previously produced a chapbook, has been widely published in New Zealand and overseas, and is a MFA graduate of the Notre Dame creative writing programme. The back of the book features insightful words from his former teacher, the remarkable American poet Joyelle McSweeney, as well as New Zealand poet Michael Steven. So, this is a ‘debut’ that perhaps carries more weight than many first collections.  [Read more…]

Harry Ricketts

Next: Poems 2016–2021 by Alan Roddick (Otago University Press, 2022), 82pp, $27.50; Night School by Michael Steven (Otago University Press, 2022), 84pp, $25; Sonnets for Sio by Scott Hamilton (Titus Books, 2022), 74pp, $25.

All poems contain their own platonic notion of poetry: that is, what a poem is or can be, and how it might behave. So, Paradise Lost embodies a particular version of the epic. The Waste Land embodies a certain version of the modern poem just after the First World War. A hundred years later, Rebecca Hawkes’s ‘Pink fairy armadillo’, say, or James Brown’s ‘War and Design’, Ruby Solly’s ‘Behold the line’, Chris Tse’s ‘Poetry to make boys cry’ each (in its distinctive way) embodies a particular version of what—here, now—poetry is or might be. I don’t mean that this platonic notion is necessarily part of the poet’s consciousness in writing the poem (although in some instances, such as Paradise Lost and The Waste Land, it obviously is). If, as Auden wittily proposed, poems read us, it is also the case that they read themselves. And, in doing so, they adumbrate certain ideas about the nature of poetry. 

The same is true of poetry collections. Alan Roddick’s Next: Poems 2016–2021, for instance, presupposes poetry as something readily accessible, a verbal machine that preserves and presents experiences and feelings in such a way that any reader can imaginatively enter into them. [Read more…]

John Geraets

Actions & Travels: How Poetry Works by Anna Jackson (Auckland University Press, 2022), 312pp, $35

When fate sleeps, it dreams of chance (69)
A strange transposition (141)

The pertinence of Anna Jackson’s poetic primer, Actions & Travels, is quickly self-evident. The poet-as-critic takes 100 poems—predominantly canonical—allowing their combined magic to flow over several local practitioners. [Read more…]

Siobhan Harvey

Tūnui | Comet by Robert Sullivan (Auckland University Press, 2022), 72pp, $20; Another Beautiful Day Indoors by Erik Kennedy (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2022), 96pp, $25

It would be easy to review two recent collections by authors Robert Sullivan and Erik Kennedy exclusively through the lens of their political content. Environmentalism, colonialism and decolonisation are important issues explored. But politics is never a simple art, and art exploring politics is never a simple read. The take-home from reading Tūnui | Comet and Another Beautiful Day Indoors is that the definition and influence of politics extends far beyond a single issues-based narrative into memory, love, loss and the interior, emotional space.  [Read more…]