Bryan Walpert

Two Lagoons by Trevor Hayes (Seraph Press, 2017), 20 pp., $20; Floods Another Chamber by James Brown (Victoria University Press, 2017), 112 pp., $25; Symphony for Human Transport by Lisa Samuels (Shearsman Books, 2017), 75 pp., $17

Trevor Hayes is a Punakaiki poet, but his chapbook is founded often on the landscapes of South America, where he has lived, travelled and taught. It opens appropriately with ‘Cartography’, orienting us with a sense of place and speaker—someone reading a map at a cafe mid-journey, even if that speaker is in the second person, the lyric ‘I’ snuck in as a quotation in italics: ‘It’s a relief to be able to say / I am here—as you look out / on the contour lines …’ The sense of journey continues in many of these beautiful, carefully rendered poems, e.g. ‘Going Nowhere’, ‘Peruvian Light’, ‘Cabo de Gata, Almería’. These are uncertain landscapes in which the speaker feels marginal, such as ‘empty museums / and vacant parking lots’, and it is clear such landscapes are both physical and emotional.  [Read more…]

Mary Cresswell 

Aspiring Daybook: The diary of Elsie Winslow by Annabel Wilson (Submarine/Mākaro, 2018) 128 pp., $25; Are Friends Electric? by Helen Heath (Victoria University Press, 2018), 90 pp., $25; Winter Eyes by Harry Ricketts (Victoria University Press, 2018), 80 pp., $25; Work & Play by Owen Bullock (Canberra: Recent Work Press, 2017), 76 pp., AUD$12.95; Semi by Owen Bullock (Glebe: Puncher and Wattmann), 124 pp., AUD$25

Annabel Wilson’s Aspiring Daybook is a very good read. The narrative is a year in the life of (fictional) Elsie Winslow, brought back from Europe to Wānaka to take care of her dying brother. Wilson uses poems, emails, photos and one-liners to record this year: it plays out in the turn of the seasons in surrounding mountains and lakes as well as in human lives, not just of her brother but also of a glaciologist who ‘had no time to get his ice axe in when he slipped’ (p122). The book’s excellent layout helps move the plot along, using a variety of formats to reflect different topics as they develop. [Read more…]