Landfall Review Online

Tim Saunders

The Death of Music Journalism by Simon Sweetman (The Cuba Press, 2020), 90pp., $25; Shelter by Kirsten Le Harivel (The Cuba Press, 2021), 84pp., $25; The Oceanic Feeling by Jack Ross (Salt & Greyboy Press, 2021), 72pp., $20 

I have on my desk a phonograph that was built in the late 1800s. It is a thing of beauty, and I keep it as a reminder that music weaves through lives and families. It can tie us to particular places and times. For many of us, music is as crucial as the air we breathe.

Music has always been important in the life of poet Simon Sweetman. He has been loved and loathed as a music reviewer, blogger and podcaster for a number of years. His opinions have been welcomed and ridiculed, yet he has always stayed true to his beliefs and assessments. Truth is at the heart of good poetry, so it is no surprise that Sweetman has produced an honest and veracious collection of poems. In The Death of Music Journalism, we see a life in which music plays an integral part. [Read more…]

Erik Kennedy

Ngā Kupu Waikato: An anthology of Waikato poetry, edited by Vaughan Rapatahana (Waikato Press, 2019), 96pp, $25; Take Flight, edited by Vaughan Gunson (Vaughan Gunson, 2020), 150pp, no RRP; Eight Poems by New Zealand Poets 2020, designed and set by Tara McLeod (Pear Tree Press, 2020), 24pp, $85

Anthologies of poetry organised around geography have a tough job to do. If the poets are from the place but the poems don’t take that place as their subject, readers may be justified in saying to themselves, ‘Okay, you’re publishing some poets who live near each other. So what?’ But if the poems are all about the place, the book may become tendentious, and finding enough good poems on a narrow subject may be difficult. Editor Vaughan Rapatahana’s Ngā Kupu Waikato: An anthology of Waikato poetry is very much about the Waikato, and it offers an engaging portrait of the region. [Read more…]