Poetry

Further Convictions Pending is the definitive collection of Vincent O'Sullivan's celebrated poetry of the last decade. Forty or so poems from each of four previous volumes are gathered here with forty-two new poems, displaying the wit, intellectual agility and arresting beauty for which O'Sullivan is renowned. DoP May 2009, Wellington

Humerous verse.

As the hosts of the Rugby World Cup, New Zealand is presenting itself to the world.
In this new collection of prose poems by award-winning writer Vivienne Plumb she presents New Zealand as it really is by celebrating and skewering New Zealand's national identity in prose poems about such Kiwi icons as cheese and onion sandwiches, motels in Taupo, and New Zealand's changeable weather.
An essential guide to New Zealand as it really is.

This substantial new collection by award-winning poet Brian Turner develops themes characteristic of his poetry. Love poems and elegies keep company with poems of satire, protest and metaphysical speculation. The book concludes with 'Post-operative', a raw and risky sequence written in the wake of major surgery. Ultimately, everything helps to map the contours of love, loss and longing that form the map of the human heart.

Contains 120 of Pam Ayres' poems, including "The Battery Hen", "Please Will You Take Your Children Home Before I Do Them In?", "Sling Another Chair Leg on the Fire, Mother" and "Oh, I Wish I'd Looked After Me Teeth". This title includes a general introduction by Pam, as well as individual introductions to these classic poems.

'The sweet daily bread of language. Smell it rising in its given warmth taste it through the stink of tears and yesterdays and eat it anywhere with any angel in sight.' Janet Frame used to keep geese, using the base of an old garden fountain as their bath. In later years the geese went but the bath was brought indoors as a receptacle into which Janet piled her poems and jottings as she reworked and developed them. Over time the goose bath overflowed with paper, including hundreds of unpublished poems. By the time Janet died she had... read more

What is your favourite poem? Who is it by? Why do you love it? When do you recite it? How does it make you feel? A poem's ability to create an emotional response is quite remarkable. A favourite poem may capture something everyday and domestic, or try and answer one of life's big questions. Our Favourite Poems is a quite different anthology, because it asks the New Zealand public, 'Which piece of verse moves you the most?' Canvassing the country, New Zealanders are voting for their favourite poem, with the top 100 or so poems being... read more

'This is the place where souls come To be mended' Every year thousands of people travel to Central Otago to ride, or walk, the rail trail. Formally completed in 2000, the rail trail now hosts visitors and cyclists from all over the world. Its scenic and varied route stretches from Middlemarch to Hyde, along through the Ida Valley to Poolburn and Chatto Creek, then over to Alexandra and Clyde. Each year the rail trail grows in popularity with record numbers of tourists and travelers exploring Central's big open spaces. Annie Villier... read more

In 1995 BBC Television's 'Bookworm' programme conducted a poll amongst viewers to determine their favourite poems. The top 100 are presented in this book. They include the winner, Kipling's If, and many other classics, as well as modern verse by writers such as Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes.

Rhian Gallagher's second collection - her first with a New Zealand publisher - encompasses a departure from London, where she lived for 18 years, and a return to her country of birth. In three parts, Shift takes us both back and outwards - from the poet's early history out towards the wider world - London, Europe, New York - and back again. Within this framework of voyaging and return, Gallagher pays attention to the small and concrete, and though her lines always have a visceral physicality to them, she is also adept at creating m... read more

In Anna Jackson's fifth collection of poetry, a rich and leafy life is closing in on the poet. Anna Jackson constantly turns her attention to the brambled path, the track less followed, the subterranean presences in everyday life.

'My poems don't start from ideas, but from bits of language, maybe a turn of phrase that's like a tune that plays over and over in my mind. A poem can often be like a game in my head, where I want to think about something I don't fully understand. Recently a child said to me, "I'm not me. I'm someone else. I'm very strong. I'm Richie McCaw." It's easy when you're four years old to play this sort of game. Writing is one way that as an adult I can take on a different persona.'

Leonard Cohen's first book of new poetry since "Book of Mercy" was published two decades ago. It collects Cohen's poetry written between the 1980s and the present, and also includes his wonderfully witty and sensuous illustrations, including numerous playful self-portraits. The illustrations interact with, and complement, the poetry in unexpected and fascinating ways. "Book of Longing" demonstrates the range and depth of Cohen's work, revealing an extraordinary gift of language and visual art that speak with rare clarity, passion a... read more

The poems in Ithaca Island Bay Leaves weave the mythic into the every day. Characters from Greek mythology appear in present-day Wellington, while the poet's grandparents and mother become characters in a magic-real mythology. This debut collection has been described by Stephanie de Montalk as alive 'with acute observation and insight, and the warmth of Vana Manasiadis's alluring, poetic voice'. Hand-bound paperback. Limited edition.

Autumn Waiata is a chapbook of sixteen poems. There are ten related elegies, set mostly on the University of Canterbury campus, that meditate on time & place, losses & beauty.

“ Yes, sleep treats her bad like a man in a country song and it never stays long ” — so says established poet Kate Camp in this, her third collection. It’s her best so far, and will both excite existing admirers and win new ones. Kate Camp is shortlisted for the 2006 Prize in Modern Letters (to be announced in March). First publishe... read more

'The sweet daily bread of language. Smell it rising in its given warmth taste it through the stink of tears and yesterdays and eat it anywhere with any angel in sight.' Janet Frame used to keep geese, using the base of an old garden fountain as their bath. In later years the geese went but the bath was brought indoors as a receptacle into which Janet piled her poems and jottings as she reworked and developed them. Over time the goose bath overflowed with paper, including hundreds of unpublished poems. By the time Janet died she had... read more

These raw songs of love and protest are a cheeky poignant and powerful record of the people and passions of our times by Brian Potiki, musician, storyteller, poet and playwright.

DoP - March 2008 64pp "McNaughton shows us a vivid mosaic stretching from the occident to the orient and back again; from the shadows cast by international politics and consumer culture to light and colour and their metaphysical origins."

Briefcase, the first book of poems by District Court Judge John Adams, is a collection presented as a briefcase of lost documents and poems, allowing the author to play with a wide range of stylistic ideas around a central narrative theme, producing a melange of poems - in traditional and experimental forms - and other texts: affidavits, police reports, a Sudoku puzzle, court transcripts, a menu, wills, commentaries. A disordered novella in legal documents, brutal and amusing by turns, Briefcase unfolds a fascinating story and also... read more