NEW POETRY CD TO TREASURE

Michele Leggott writes:

Poetry needs to get off the page, fine though its textual score may be. It is a great pleasure to read, to listen and to understand that the poem is different every time a voice takes its words into the breathing world. Duration holds us, the heart beats.

I went looking for poems that show where I have been, from the sound pieces of Like This? Through the family engagements of Swimmers, Dancers, the investigations of Dia, As far as I can see and Milk & Honey to the slice of laureate life that is Mirabile Dictu. Where next? Back to the rough and tumble of words and world, or as the cicadas put it: around poetics you must walk without fear.

Michele Leggott was the inaugural New Zealand Poet Laureate 2008-09, a national award that replaces the Te Mata Estate Poet Laureateship established in 1996. She co-founded the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre (nzepc) with Brian Flaherty in 2001 and teaches at the University of Auckland.

The poems on this CD come from Michele Leggott’s collections Like This? (1988) published by the Caxton Press, and Swimmers, Dancers (1991), Dia (1994), As far as I can see (1999), Milk & Honey (2005) and Mirabile Dictu (2009), all published by Auckland University Press.

The CD (RRP $29.95) was produced with assistance from the National Library of New Zealand/Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, which administers the New Zealand Poet Laureate award.
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Robbie Duncan at Braeburn Recording Studio (Wellington) and at the poet’s home in Auckland. Artwork: Jacob Scott (design for Michele Leggott’s tokotoko). Design and layout: James Fryer. Author photo (inside CD cover): Richard Robinson/New Zealand Herald: Laureate Series editor: Chris Price