The tingling sand in your toes, the smell of pinewood in the forest and the howling wind everywhere… the earth’s beautiful landscape is poetic. From Whanganui River to Banks Peninsula, from famous poets to eminent photographers, this blog features landscape, river, lighthouse and animal poems from across New Zealand.
Land very fertile : Banks Peninsula in poetry and prose
“Engaging a mix of style and content that embraces the peninsula’s unique heritage and charm, this collection of poetry and prose about a special region in New Zealand draws from a wide variety of sources–including such New Zealand greats as Ursula Bethell, James K. Baxter, Denis Glover, Ngaio Marsh, Allen Curnow, and Maurice Shadbolt, along with many newer voices. The contributions are thematically arranged to capture the ambience of Banks Peninsula on the eastern coast of New Zealand’s South Island.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)
Flow : Whanganui River poems / Beautrais, Airini
“Where there is water, people settle and stories collect. Six generations of poet Airini Beautrais’ family have lived near the Whanganui River, all-encompassing figure at the heart of Flow. Flow is a brilliant polyphony of stories – large, small, geological, ecological, and human. In March 2017, in a world first, the Whanganui River was granted the status of legal personhood. ‘This remarkable sequence winds and eddies like the Whanganui River, filtering the region’s many histories into something rich and swimmable.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)
The nature of things : poems from the New Zealand landscape
“The Nature of Things is a celebration of the relationship between poetry and the New Zealand landscape. It matches a wide range of poems, that in some way evoke or describe our landscape, with images from the pre-eminent New Zealand photographer Craig Potton. The poems have been selected and the introduction written by James Brown, one of New Zealand’s leading contemporary poets The Nature of Things includes work from many of the central figures.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)
Our own kind : 100 New Zealand poems about animals
“From Baxter to Hunt, Frame to Glover, Curnow to Edmond, animals are widely found in New Zealand verse and are the subject of some of our most famous and endearing poems. Author brings them together in an intelligently and affectionately chosen anthology that’s beautifully enhanced by outstanding animal photographs by Mark Smith. The sections of the collection are headed as follows and indeed provide something for everyone: Bow – Wow, Miaow, A Box of Birds, Other Pets.” (Adapted from the catalogue)
Lights in the landscape : New Zealand lighthouses / Sheehan, Grant
“A spectacular photographic journey from New Zealand’s most northern lighthouse at Cape Reinga, to our most southern, in Foveaux Strait. The book shows the lighthouses and the landscape, capturing the wild beauty of the coastline, the often unpredictable weather and the wildlife that live in these, mostly isolated areas. ” (Adapted from the Catalogue)
Tending the landscape of the heart / Locke, Terry
“Terry Locke’s poems employ a direct and apparent simplicity of language to reveal the deeper complexities of what it means to be human.” (Catalogue)
