REVIEWS. By Trevor Reeves.

TAKING OFF – poems. Brian Turner. Victoria University Press, Box 600, Wellington.$19.95.
I have seldom seen Brian Turner misfire with any of his poems. He makes it all seem so easy. If careful observation and good recall are the keynotes to a poem's success, then "Yellow Flowers, Oturehua" is my favourite in this collection. The flowers nobody can put a name to and their unwantedness by sheep, in contrast to the 'real gold' the pioneer miners took away, is the essential contrast, and the farmer asks Turner, the recent arrival, if he thinks he'll stay. "Aw yeah, I guess so, until the day…." Timeless and rich. More than just a place to drive through. Turner has had his ups and downs – friends won, friends lost. He addresses many of these as "you" – mostly unnamed, not needing to be named, perhaps. Some of those poems are enigmatic and some are more than a little ominous: "you shy away from dire white / because it implies/ propriety, virtue / that which cannot last/ except in the vaults/ of the righteous / all of them seated on high horses / and riding for a fall" in 'Pure White'. Brian Turner is at his best, for me, in those simpler poems where fresh images abound – sometimes startling, as in 'Bantam', where "…the black cat / sprawled like spilled tar / in the shade of the concrete path…" But even here, the shadowy "you" is interpolated into the flow with mixed effects "I do not care what you think / but why do you believe / there are answers to most questions, / and why do you think it's better to have them/ when one person's truths / are another's opinions". Very self-evident and obvious. But this obviousness is not the rule in most of the other poems. Turner succeeds better when controlling the new and recalled images of the Maniototo – his newly chosen home. His past homes, places, people and struggles now subservient, becoming: "…done. Now we can get on / with listening to the creek / making music as the moon rises / while my sense of belonging here / rises defiantly out of the dark" from 'Southern Tribesmen'. If not, in my opinion, Turner's best book of poems, it is sure nice to have it.

OUR BAY OF ENSIGNS & other "race' relations. Poems by Bernard Gadd. HeadworX Press, 26 Grant Road, Karori, Wellington. $16.95.
Bernard Gadd's long career as a teacher and specialist in Maori culture is well reflected in these poems. An historical look at events in the 1800's, seen from a modern day perspective, these poems work admirably for me. The inequities and cruelties of colonisation are starkly shown in "Her articles 1840" where Maori are gifted the ability to own and possess just like their 'masters'. Not so, however: "Her Tasmanian Aborigines" (who were treated as vermin and ruthlessly destroyed). For accuracy and perception, Gadd is a master. He reveals the futility of 'muskets for land' in Remuera hakari 1844 and the quest to quell Maori to achieve the purposes of peace The agony of which path to follow, in "battered 1860's' "which victories, retreats / deaths shall light us / safely?" To make poetry of history isn't easy. To do it in such a way as to make it starkly real, concise and emotionally powerful is Gadd's special talent. You must not miss this book.

CALLING THE FISH & other stories. David Lyndon Brown. University Press, P. O. Box 56, Dunedin.
Many of the characters in Brown's stories have strange characteristics. Martin Glass, rendered invisible until he makes up with his boyfriend, (in 'Proof"). The artistic Fritz, prone to maniacal repeating and rearranging his pizza into a symetrical star-topped edifice (in 'Cracked'). Brown's stories are charged with the grandeur of cigarette smoke, all through. A cigarette is either lit, re-lit, inhaled with 'serpents' of smoke seemingly almost every fourth paragraph. Oh well, you only live once. 'Spanish Steps' literally wreathes with intense sensitivity. The ashes are gone, the ghost has come. This is one of my favourite stories in the book. The Pak'n Save checkout dandy gets drunk in 'The Mortification of Henry James' who becomes "Harry' which he prefers in a raunchy sort of way. After the party "his toupee lying on a pillow next to him, like a flattened rat". Although the full potential of this story appears not to have been achieved here, it is enough of a fragment to make you hungry for more. In 'Faith', spying on lovers becomes an art. When "he" next sees them the baby has been born and they have taken their descent into the world of real human being. Then this guy got a new bird. They were happy after that. In "The Revisionist at Play' the essence of the story is somewhat within it; in the writer's world and maybe the ending is a teaser to what best we can imagine. Lots of fun here! The pivotal story is "Why I never learned to Swim'. Escaping his mother, nearly drowning and being rescued by a man. Very traumatic, this. The wild world of sex and drugs is painted in "You Wouldn't Read About it' – contrasted with the desperate ordinariness of life in the Pak'n Save, in 'The Triumph of Hope'. No room for PC here as Brown describes checkout gorgon Hope Fuller's non-abiding of 'chinks, curry-munchers and coconuts'. Underlying dilemmas and hidden menaces pervade each story. Brown writes passionately and piercingly about the things in his world that would make most grown men weep. Brown is probably one of the best storytellers in New Zealand today.

THE WHOLE FOREST – Nick Williamson, Sudden Valley Press, 12 Manuka Street, Christchurch. $16.95
This book consists of some carefully wrought memorabilia about family. Somewhat distant, but none-the-less appealing. Nick Williamson's black and white illustrations complement the mood of the text, well. I would like to have seen some more of these nicely turned artworks. The poetry is well contained, minute and whimsical. I like 'Untitled', about a poem flapping against the window "…kicking its legs / like a stunned insect" but that it had no sting: "It wouldn't make it / through the night". There are 'glimpses' of an interesting past peopled by oddballs, dropouts, people in pictures that could tell quite a story so often only touched on by Williamson. The quiet, delicate, peaceful nature of these poems impresses me. But they are stronger than they look - - it's the craft – the real craft of poetry here.

WINDOWS ON THE MORNING SIDE Poems by Helen Bascand. Sudden Valey Press, 12 Manuka Street, Christchurch. $16.95.
Like most, I have been eagerly awaiting Helen Bascand's first book of poems. I have not been disappointed. Her poems hum with music and rhythms enhancing the 'pictures' in words that she is so adept at producing. I like 'Where' with its subtle internal rhymes and dissonances: "but your falling in / is a wound, a scarring / nothing / equips you for this / garbled / underwater / sound" Looks easy, but it isn't. Little wonder Helen Bascand won the haiku section of the 2000 NZPS International Poetry competition. My special favourite in this collection is a poem entitled 'You Are Not Hungry, for Days'. The elderly person being taken to The Home (which is not like any home known ,but a foreign place). The final lines "…all your days / transparencies / packed in neat rows in / the flat tin box / & we do not know/ what to do with them". That's really great perception. In 'Birds Homing at Dusk' we have, at dusk "cliffs winding them in". Nice. There's barely a misfire amongst these. In 'Crossing the Mirage' "split skirt - / legs / appearing / re-appearing". And "trams rattling past". Just think about this for a moment; the weight given to the words, especially "past". There are many wonderful poems like this: "in bed / pulling the darkness / around our shoulders". You will have to read this book to believe it.

THE PASTORAL KITCHEN – Anna Jackson. Auckland University Press, Private Bag 92019, Auckland.$19.95.
Anna Jackson's work is very polished indeed. Things seem to be well compartmentalised, organised and under control. Often you get the image of things glimpsed, but seldom realised into a full blown expression. There is a sort of general trundling out of images that avoid expressing self-suffering and many don't strike a new note about something – poems usually end up saying things that have been said before. I liked 'Death Star' best. The inevitability of becoming our own death star is something we may have to meet. The book is arranged in two sections: The Pastoral Kitchen and The Pastoral Elephant. Though light, and many poems quite slight, Anna Jackson has a nice turn of word that many should enjoy.

PORCELAIN. Diana Bridge. Auckland University Press. P. O. Box 92019, Auckland. $19.95.
This is Diana Bridge's third book of poems. She has specialised in Chinese studies. The change between cultures is most often captured in somewhat startling way, making even the most minute observations seem rather special. Your capturing the essence of what Bridge observes is more often than not her intent – there are not 'plots' or self-contained sequences so much as an 'entity' to or swiftly passing item of interest. As in 'A Head from Sarnath' "a young man / invulnerable to kissing - / the senses presented and discarded / a lotus from the mud". And the inestimable depths of a vision, as in 'Interrogating a Scroll', "…Behind the dim silhouette / of trees, more trees". The rewards are here aplenty for those who enjoy the depth of image Bridge can evoke through such careful and judicious use of words. This book will be enjoyment plus, for many.

THE BLUES – Mark Pirie. Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, Box 42, Paekakariki, Aotearoa.
Plenty of grunt in these poems – very refreshingly so, where much of the recent poetry in New Zealand reminds one of someone delicately stepping over broken glass. Pirie brings 'personality' back into poetry – plus political comment, satire, passion, humour and very good poetic craft to enable it all. The sort of stuff that would leave Creative New Zealand in a bit of a tizz - well, they can't fund everything, so they say. There's more than a wry smile behind Pirie's poem, 'Writer's Block' where he writes a poem about his writer's block! Nice. In 'Harvester' (2) – 'The Barren Earth', I think is worth quoting in full – "feeling lush / & knowing / I am like the flower / I gave you / slowly unfolding / waiting to die". There are many poems here that will strike a chord with just about everybody. 'The Haunts', I like – a snatch of pleasure and perception: "the ferret / is back on Cuba Street, searching the bookshops / for that page of pleasure". 'Black-faced Confession' ends "you know, I / think I'll live / a bit longer". I hope so. Pirie is not only a good poet, but an enthusiastic publisher who is promoting the very worthwhile work of others. At 26, Pirie is going to serve New Zealand literature very well in the decades to come.