Brown was developing the book into a performance piece incorporating multimedia elements, including spoken work, visual imagery and live music.
Kindling includes an atmospheric 10-track CD.
Brown mixes cadences of ordinary speech and Kiwi slang together.
''Chur bro'' is a conversation with Hone Tuwhare:
Hey Hone
Where'd y'get those lips
From up north somewhere eh
They lover's lips man
I hear you had the touch too eh bro
Mind you
All you wahanui fullas
Talk it up
Got the gift eh
Anyway
What brings you down
this way bro
Muttonbirds and oysters
maybe
Cooler women
Greyer seas
Both more enigmatic .. .
From Lyttelton, Brown has written more than 20 children's books. A Booming in the Night won the Best Picture Book at the 2006 NZ Post Awards.
I like Brown's sense of mana and the uneasy balance between the sacred and secular.
This new work is as solid as it is unspectacular, but this is part of its charm.
Anahera Press has produced another beautiful book. It is worth checking out.
- Hamesh Wyatt lives in Bluff. He reads and writes poetry.
Win a copy
The ODT has five copies of Between the Kindling and the Blaze, by Ben Brown, complete with 10-track audio CD (RRP $27.99) , to give away courtesy of Anahera Press.
For your chance to win a copy, email helen.speirs@odt.co.nz with your name and postal address in the body of the email, and ''Kindling Book Competition'' in the subject line, by 5pm on Tuesday, April 1.
