Flood Damage by Jeffrey Paparoa Holman is a surprise, however and contains some strong work, which shows that his next book should be awaited with some interest. The author (unknown to me) has published widely in Takahe, Listener, Sport, and Trout in New Zealand and Poetry Wales and Iron in UK. His poems are in the romantic tradition, following the life of a male persona and his reflections/contemplations on the external world. His form is fairly traditional, using the sonnet form several times and writing often within tight structures and with some technical assurance. One is reminded at times of WH Auden and other English poets; Raymond Carver, the US short story writer and poet, is also cited in ‘Interruptions’ as another possible inspiration for the poet. Other influences are the Catholic Church, with ‘Mary, God and Christ’ appearing in some of the poems. The poet also speaks through a clear, sincere, and occasionally angry voice that has at the heart of it a humanitarian sentiment. In this mode, one is reminded of New Zealand poets Peter Bland and Louis Johnson. The strongest writing in this booklet for me came in the horrific ‘Inferno’ which tells of the Strongman mining disaster in UK in 1976. In this poem the poet succeeds in recreating a vivid, tortuous experience inside the mine itself - an experience which ‘filled [his] heart with many tears as [he] could possibly carry’. Later, after seeing the disaster of the buried miners ‘far from help and the findings of enquiries’, the poet sat in ‘the pub at Dunollie, knocking back beer after beer/,celebrating a visit to hell with a man who works there.’

In contrast, Papatipu by Jeannette King (another expatriate Coaster) strikes me as less accomplished. King’s experimental technique and her use of the prose poem does not add to the poetry but rather detracts from creating any memorable and lucent images. Often the poems are hard to decipher, bordering on rants. Other influences in Papatipu spring from her interest and schooling in Kohanga Reo, and the Maori oral tradition; some poems for instance are part Maori. (King is also a lecturer in the Maori department at University of Canterbury.)

Some of the more successful poems for me were the less experimental poems, such as ‘cold water’ with its wry but shocking revelation:

After being in Girl Guides for a while
I went for my laundry badge.
How to remove all the stains
grass, sweat, biro
hot water, cold water, carbon tetrachloride
When Mrs Pullen asked me
how to get blood out of clothing
I guessed . . . hot water.
She had a look of horror on her face,
. . . and failed me.
It wasn’t until much later that I found out how
important it was for a woman to know
how to remove blood from clothing.