Author(s): Anna Jackson

NZ Non Fiction

The Pastoral Kitchen is the second solo collection from Anna Jackson, a young New Zealand poet rapidly establishing herself as a talented new voice. It is divided into two parts. In the first, moving once more in the domestic world of motherhood and daily existence, the poet's thoughts -- often intrusive and exhausting -- take on various unexpected forms, appearing as peacocks or hens, a vending machine or kikyu grass. In the second part she moves out of the house and into a world increasingly threatened by environmental destruction. Drawing on research into the history of pastoral and then arable farming she looks at the fate of the animals now forced into isolated remnants of their original habitats, in poems like 'Dodo', 'Huia', 'Butterflies' and 'The Pastoral Elephant'. ++ Finalist for the Montana Medal for non-fiction (Poetry) 2002 ++