Essential New Zealand Poems: Facing The Empty Page

Description

A must-have poetry companion for all lovers of New Zealand poetry New Zealanders adore poetry, and this expertly selected and handsomely packaged collection of over 150 poems published since the 1950s shows exactly why: New Zealand poetry is, by turns, distinctive, affecting, joyous, revealing, moving, challenging, startling, profound and intimate. It is our lyrical national voice. With its poems selected by Siobhan Harvey, Harry Ricketts and James Norcliffe, all talented poets, academics, anthologists and poetry champions, this book deserves a place on every New Zealander's bookshelves.

Awards

Shortlisted for PANZ Book Design Awards: Best Non-Illustrated Book 2015 and PANZ Book Design Awards: Best Cover 2015.

Author description

Siobhan Harvey is the author of two poetry collections and the editor of the anthology Our Own Kind : 100 New Zealand poems About Animals. Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous international publications and anthologies. She is a reviewer and creative writing teacher, and has for several years been the convenor of the New Zealand National Poetry Day. In 2013 she was awarded the Landfall Kathleen Grattan Award for Poetry. She lives in Auckland with her partner and son.

Harry Ricketts is a poet, writer and critic. After studying English at Oxford he lectured in Hong Kong and Leicester and now teaches literature and creative writing at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. In addition to his collections of poetry, essays - and brilliant studies of cricket - his critical books include the acclaimed biography The Unforgiving Minute: A Life of Rudyard Kipling. With Paula Green he wrote the accliaimed 99 Ways Into Poetry.

James Norcliffe is an award-winning poet and educator, as well as an author of children's books. He was awarded the 2012 University of Otago College of Education's Writer in Residence, and has been recipient of the 2006 Fellowship at Iowa University and the 2000 Robert Burns Fellowship at Otago University. In 2003, Norcliffe, with Bernadette Hall, received the inaugural Christchurch Press Literary Liaisons Honour Award for 'lasting contribution to literature in the South Island'. Norcliffe has taught English in Christchurch, China and Brunei. He won the Lilian Ida Smith Award in 1990, and the New Zealand Poetry Society's international competition in 1992. He lives in Church Bay with his wife, Joan Melvyn.