Entertaining new collections from two senior NZ poets

What a joy to receive these two new anthologies from publisher Steele Roberts:

RRP for both titles is  $19.99 each - a bargain

Here in his 22nd collection of poems, Kevin Ireland is as deft and wise as ever while at 81 Peter Bland's new work continues to dazzle.

Interestingly both poets have several poems in their collections about poetry and the publisher has allowed me to reproduce one from each. 

The first one is from Kevin Ireland and the second from Peer Bland:

Another one that got away

The poem that had taken shape
in my mind over a cup of black tea
at the first light of dawn made a dash
for the door and shot up the road
and that was the last i saw of it all day.
Exactly like the way my old man
would fiddle around at breakfast,
inventing jobs to deliberately make
himself late then leap from the house,
sprint up the street, fling himself
at the bus, then just as the driver
was changing from second to third,
he’d clutch at the rail by the steps
and swing aboard, red in the face,
puffed out, but pleased with

the applause of his neighbours,
unaware of the mockery and scorn
in their mirth. I’d hunch in a corner
down at the back, shove my nose
in a book and plot an escape from it all.

The lost poem


I’ve been looking for a lost poem. One I think
I started a few days ago. It may only have been
the beginning of a poem, the taste of it, or
even a particular sense of space within which
a poem was trying to discover itself. Anyway
I can’t find it among all the bills, letters,
recipes and notes littering my desk. I’ve
looked everywhere, under carpets, in the pockets
of old clothes, down the back of the sofa (where
I found my old glasses), on windowsills dusty
with dead spiders and moths, in the forgotten
crannies of overloaded bookcases. Nothing doing.
The lost poem remains lost. Perhaps it escaped
into the garden? In which case I’ll never find it.
My garden is full of lost poems. Once they get
caught up in that jungle of passion-fruit and
wild berries, I never see them again. Nevertheless
I surprise myself with the urgency of seeking
something that may not even exist. The longer I
think about it, the more probable it seems that I’m
hunting down a mere impulse. I need to admit
defeat. If anything of interest does exist it will
eventually make itself known. Panic has to be
replaced by trust. In the meantime I’m grateful
to have found my old glasses. 

My congratulations to both poets for these hugely entertaining collections and to Steele Roberts for their continuing strong support of NZ poets and poetry.