Sweeping the courtyard presents his greatest hits. This is a big book of selected poems.
Since visiting New Zealand in 1967 and settling here in 1975, Harlow has filled his poems with dream, fantasy and surrealism.
Whimsical questioning often appears in his poems. Sweeping the courtyard is a beautiful book that contains gems like ''And, yes'', ''Today is the Piano's Birthday'' and ''Kite''.
''In a field of snow'' begins:
At the window the light rising out of its late lying
down with the night; called or uncalled how it enters
the deep hurt behind words; and you can see as if again
for the first time, the piercing blue shoulder of the far
mountain scarfed in snow; the chevron patch of dark
firs below. And there: a solitary twig of a boy, face
down, no taller than the stalking post put there to mark
the way someone said, to ease the pain of telling it ...
Harlow has won a heap of awards. He never shouts in his poems and seems to enjoy being delicate and unassuming.
Sweeping the courtyard is a great introduction to this voice.
- Hamesh Wyatt lives in Bluff. He reads and writes poetry.
