This week: Hamesh Wyatt with a roundup of recently
published poetry
Voyagers
Science fiction poetry from New Zealand
Ed Mark Pirie and Tim Jones
Interactive Press, $30, pbk
Science fiction is being talked about everywhere.
David Tennant is hanging up his sonic screwdriver in
Doctor Who; Star Trek, the movie from last
year, made a lot of people happy; The Day of the
Triffids, the mini-series, has just finished on our TV
screens. Science fiction is alive and well in our literature,
too.
Aliens, space travel, time travel and the end of the world
have all been brought together in a New Zealand anthology of
poetry.
Editors Mark Pirie and Tim Jones have gathered more than 50
poets in Voyagers.
They have created their own Big Bang theory.
Strange images result.
This book is entertaining and challenging.
Like the best science fiction, we find out more about
ourselves than some far-fetched idea. In John Dolan's
memorable "The Siege of Dunedin":
Every
Random horror makes Dunedin
More beautiful the black djinns of smoke
Rising from what was once Barnetts,
Hit last week, still burning. . .
Voyagers is one of those anthologies of poetry that makes you
want to curl up with a toddy, more than a ray gun.
Tigers at
Awhitu
Sarah Broom
Auckland University Press, $24.99, pbk
A long way from tripping around the universe is Sarah Broom's
debut collection of poems, Tigers at Awhitu. She was
one of the many contributors in Emma Neale's excellent
anthology Swings and Roundabouts: Poems on Parenthood
(Godwit, 2008).
Broom continues to focus on children in this dynamic little
book. She also has lots of dreams, ways of seeing things and
images of the sea in her poems.
These illustrate how she has been touched with the spirit.
She is nimble and clear in her verse. Things click for her.
Best of all, Broom makes the reader not only react, but also
feel.
In "Everest" a frozen man sits, sees and remembers.
Broom tells the story of Esau and Jacob from the Book of
Genesis in "Twins".
This is a brilliant first collection from a young woman born
here in Dunedin, now living in Auckland.
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