Siobhan Harvey

Collected Poems by Fleur Adcock (Victoria University Press, 2019), 558pp., $50; Selected Poems by Brian Turner (Victoria University Press, 2019), 237pp., $40

A number of recent releases gather the extensive output of New Zealand’s most recognised poets. Cilla McQueen’s Poeta (Otago University Press); Night Burns with a White Fire: The essential Lauris Edmond (Steele Roberts): in these and elsewhere, substantial bodies of poetic work are brought together in easily accessible anthology form. Two new handsome volumes from Victoria University Press, Fleur Adcock’s Collected Poems and Brian Turner’s Selected Poems, continue the work of collecting the disparate oeuvre of our established poets into individual weighty tomes, thereby isolating and underscoring the importance of the authors concerned. [Read more…]

Briar Wood

Time to Sing Before the Dark by Helen Bascand (Caxton Press, 2018), 94 pp., $24.95; Voodoo by Peter Bland (Steele Roberts, 2018), 63 pp., $20; Remembering a Place I’ve Never Been: The past in three voices by Heather Bauchop (Cold Hub Press, 2018), 104 pp., $30; There’s No Place Like the Internet in Springtime by Erik Kennedy (Victoria University Press, 2018), 80 pp., $25

It is no easy task to summarise a life, but literary executor Joanna Preston’s selection achieves a balance in this volume of Helen Bascand’s writing, Time to Sing Before the Dark. It shows the steady growth of moments into words and lines, a filtering of time, reading, conversations and personal events, to the point where they become commonplace in a positive way.

There’s a spiritual dimension to the collection, a Christian history turned over and examined beside Graeco-Roman stories, balanced and polished, so that the poems reflect difficult and unhappy experiences while making the most of the opportunity to live them. [Read more…]