Toku Tinihanga – Selected poems by Michael O'Leary. Published by HeadworX (NZ). $26.95

If you are looking for a well-presented book by a NZ poet at the peak of his powers, you could hardly go past this book. "Toku Tinihanga" - a collection of poems by Paekakariki poet, Michael O'Leary. In this book many of the things we've come to love about NZ poetry, from the rock and roll tributes of Sam Hunt to the mystical Catholic insight and honesty of James K. Baxter are brought together in a bi-cultural setting, with elements of autobiography, love and philosophy thrown in for good measure. Despite the appearance of the rather wild looking man on the cover, there is a strong traditional, sometimes conservative element to many of the poems, such as the epic fable, 'Rubesahl'. The book is divided into five clear sections and some are translated into Maori. The second section contains love poems that appear to show a powerful and seemingly elusive love for an un-named woman. What is so pleasing is the variety of poetic styles, from elegies and sonnets to haiku, verse and love songs with a flowing and easy command of all forms. O'Leary's indulgence in puns is somewhat startling, as in "Tom Waits for No-one" and, on a train to the Hutt Valley, "The Ava Gardner tends his Plot'. However, these often lead to some quite brilliant beyond-pun word plays, such as the Irish pub called O'Ryan and Maher's (Orion and Mars). Amongst the truly memorable lines are such gems as: "Stalinesque architecture of Te Papa / we rest to take a frugal repast for our supper" or "you drowned and I wept like a river / then sailed home to a solitary life" There are enough real moments of worldly vision here to keep one dipping into it forever. This book belongs in all collections of NZ poetry and may well occupy an important place in our cultural history.

Reviewed by Trevor Reeves:

Staying Inside the Lines, Martha Morseth. Poems. Inkweed Press, Auckland NZ.
Martha Morseth is a Dunedin poet, freelance writer and former teacher. Her tone is confident and assured in this, her first book of poems. Her work has formerly appeared in most New Zealand magazines. Her concerns are both homely and scholarly with some fine observations striking happy chords of domestic bliss. In 'City, after the flavour has gone' the interesting observation "you can know a person / by the herb he takes" results in "my lover is partial to / dill" Culminating in other dawns, other cities "garnish it well / with deadly nightshade". Martha Morseth is at her best when juxtaposing things with one another; events, tastes, activities, smells – a potpourri of words and images that are so refreshing and delightful, yet bristling with the occasional menace but never with any unsubtle touches. In 'Betrayal', "Rumours flung / by fingers / fingers become / small snakes / twisting through / each other" My favourite is 'This poem is not about', which indeed is what it is about. Give this book your undivided attention. You will be well rewarded.

Vanilla Daze, Ron Bridgman. Golden Tussock Publications, Northcote, NZ. No price given.
I hope this book will be available in good bookshops on both sides of the Tasman, where Bridgman divides his time. This short prose novel or novelette is described by Bridgman as 'autobiographical fiction'. Well he certainly makes it all sound very real. From the grubby London hotel where he gets shunted from room to room and floor to floor, dodging random mayhem and madmen, to some deep and intensive stuff about he antics of friends with their sex. Bridgman elevates self disgust to a high art form but never with any sign of hollow vanity on his part. He is haunted by a grey sphere lit by dull emaciated light. It follows him about like wolves or dogs follow others about. Bridgman's world is peopled by some of the most intriguing misfits you will ever have the pleasure or displeasure of encountering. Makes you feel that your carefully nurtured sanity is deadly dull and boring. His is a seedy world, but one described with great panache. There's some pretty solid serious intent in this writing – you don't have to look very hard to find it. Wonderfully captivating stuff, thoroughly individual and just has to be good for you!

Love in a bookstore or your money back. Sarah Quigley, poems. Auckland University Press. $21.99.
Sarah Quigley is sharing the Otago University Burns Fellowship in 2003 with Nick Ascroft, poet, of Dunedin. Sarah Quigley is completing her biography of Charles Brasch while in Dunedin, Brasch's birthplace. Her first book was her short stories in 1998 called 'Having Words with You'. This latest collection is of her poetry. She appears to be well assured and confident in both prose and poetry. Here are a variety of subjects dealt with in this short collection. Things observed (like the green china squirrel in a shop window): "…. It is a time for hoarding / there is hunger in the air" This is good, competent work although the poems reflect a prose style more than anything. I am more at home with Sarah Quigley's prose but that does not mean that these poems are not a good read. Some are quite memorable. 'Infidelity, of a kind' is the best here, really hitting the button!

Electric Yachts, poetry by Tony Beyer. Puriri Press. $26.00.
Beyer's poetry gets better and better. There are some sustained sequences here, including the title poem, 'Electric Yachts', containing images that many poets would give their eye teeth to get. Historical allusions abound with convincing accuracy. Beyer's eye for detail is in a class of its own. Some fine insights result. In 'Work', the poem concludes "like anyone's father / mine taught me how to work hard / but never how to like it" I enjoy this striking imagery, as in 'At a Distance', "your telephone call / falls over me / like bright rain". 'Going Concern' talks about possible intimacy. Menacing and threatening, but ultimately escapist. 'Local Measures' tells how ordinary expectations are eventually mired in rules. Nicely put. Serpentine, are some of Tony Beyer's poems, laced with large doses of humour, such as in "Building Site Coffee'. Read t for yourself. Little forays into history or his ancestors pay off in 'Sepia' where one tough old chap's "…reputation faded / like the ribbon / of his Gallopoli DCM" Beyer is assured in any subject, any style – you instinctively know the way the poem is going is the only way it could go., even when there are surprises involved. Such mastery is rare in New Zealand literature.

Maketu, by Terry Locke. HeadworX Press, Wellington.
This book is a welcome addition both to Locke's previous two books and the burgeoning tradition of historical verse and poetry This book is short; too short perhaps but it will reward many who want to see elements of history treated with skill and insight, and with such a careful observation of the minutiae.

People with Real Lives Don't Need Landscapes. Poetry by John Dolan. Auckland University Press. $21.99.
The back cover blurb paints a picture of an exciting, eccentric, somewhat intolerant but likeable fellow who put up with working in the English Department of Otago University until he burst away to do far more exciting things both overseas and here. In many of these poems his brain races far ahead of his pen, it seems, turning truisms, like the title poem, into some sort of captivating mulch – how did he do it! I think the back cover blurb is better than any of the poems here! I searched vainly for some poem hat was not trite or vain and settled for '1989 – 1993' that goes "The answer to vodka is sleep / The answer to sleep is coffee / The answer to vodka a sleep" Well said! Not to my taste, though, I am afraid. I'll settle for staying awake with my can of good old Southern Man Speights. Mind you, 'The Siege of Dunedin' has its moments and some hilarity such as "Couples filling sandbags on the Brighton trenches / mate and marry". Something quite clever in that. Millionaires Shortbead. Poems by Mary-Jane Duffy, Mary Cresswell, Mary Macpherson, Kerry Hines. OUP, Dunedin. $29.99.
A welcome addition, indeed, to the storehouse of women poets in print. Emanating from a café table in Wellington, where all good poetry should come from and other cafes too, rather than from the universities, which can be just as much graveyards for modern creative writing. I would like to say I favour one of the poets over the others, but can't. However I cannot overlook Brendon O'Brien's collages that are so delightful, even if reminiscent of Monty Python. However, if you are going to imitate anyone, it pays to imitate the masters. Gregory O'Brien says in his after word that here, there was not the birth of a literary movement but rather we witness a state of intense activity. Well, we have had too many literary movements – what we want is decent poetry instead. The thing about literary movements is that they seek to exclude others. We have good poetry here. I just loved Mary Macpherson's poem, 'The Balcony'. "He takes off his clothing and dreaming / sleeps under velvet flowers". Only a woman could end a poem like that. Mary Cresswell is a little more direct. Even if there are many historical allusions, I liked 'Observations made in Passing'. You have to use your head for this one, and it is rewarding. Mary-Jane Duffy's work is pretty clear. At last we have a definitive voice about men. Called 'The most stupid paintings in Paris'; this one ends, "The stupid smile – the Mona Lisa is a man". There's a lot of 'balls' in a poem like that. There are other clever poems by Mary-Jane Duffy donated to this book. Her poems are visions constructed from some distance. You have the feeling, however, that she is comfortable about what she does. This is a sure sign of a competent poet, if not an enduring one. Kerry Hinds, worried by ghosts ('Ghosts') fantasises – golly, so at the end a shepherd was required! Talking about white lava must have been very elevating in that Wellington café, but Hinds' poem 'A Typography of Lava' end with a deep, but weak blip on the surface. You have to search for good revelations in this selection. Mostly you will be rewarded. Search and see.

Weather Report, poems by Robin Fry. Inkweed Press, Titahi Bay, NZ $22.95.
Although her first book of poems, this is very competent and mature work by Robin Fry. Her work has been as a broadcaster and editor (of he PPTA Journal) and she writes with warmth and he sincerity of a true communicator. She is whimsical, in Colin McCahon's First Day Cover, "I can lick a whole mountain range / to post a letter with / would you have hated that? Or darkly dramatic as in 'Art Gallery' "…..blackness under the stone / where violence lives / our soul's dark night". Poems with simple subjects I enjoy, like 'Memorandum' about telling her son what to do – to get things right, because, "he is going soon". Homely, informative, but with some murky undercurrents, and striking imagery – in 'Under a Phosphorescent Umbrella' "I hold a rainbow / over my head / a taut drum / for the rain to beat". And some nice pieces of word puzzles, like 'So did I' add to what I think is a delightful mix of poems.
Dumber. Poems by Mark Pirie. Earl of Seaciff Art orkshop, Wellington, NZ. $19.95.
Another little book of poems from Mark Pirie, but the poems in it are far from dumb. The dialogue 'Love' charms with answered and unanswered questions. These poems are 'cinematic', I think – you could be in front of the big screen putting faces to characters, images to words. Not so much diverting, as more than a little captivating. This is the way people act! In 'Dumber' "….which leaves me feeling safe in the / knowledge of / what will happen without a script…." There are 'found' aspects to 'The OK Cult' where, in 'entertainment' we read of the sneak preview this Sunday of 'Snuff Hard, R16' where "finally, a movie about killing hat gets it right" The poem about sex, aptly called 'Position' is cute, intricate and fun. 'On Nihilism' says bluntly (found on a gravestone) "I fought myself…. / I won". I end on that note but recommend this little book for late night reading with a nightcap rum and coke.

Jabiluka Honey. Richard Hillman, poems. Photography by Jeff Dale. Bookends Books, Australia.
Hillman's book is a very polished production, indeed. Then idea of mixing photographs with poetry is one I very much like, although some, I know, will find it distracting. These poems are very much Australian, but with similar concerns NZ writers have – the landscape, our interaction with it and the majesty of some unforgettable scenes such as the car wrecks on p.39 in a poem called (what else?) 'The Old HQ Holden'. "…. And now he's that broken down car / parked out front, rubber-less & rusted / nothing but a stripped shell…." Hillman's descriptive power is impressive – in 'Morialta's Falls' end, "a suddenness that offers no release / though winter flowers bloom / upon the faces of the children". The title refers to the Jabiluka Uranium Mine that has caused extensive pollution and loss of habitat since it was approved by the United Nations in this World Heritage Area. The poem is powerful and profound, like many in this very talented and, in my opinion, important poet. This is his fourth book of poems. I hope I get to see a lot more of this fine work. Maybe some funding agency will give this man a grant so that some of these photographs can be seen in colour.

Whetu Moana. Contemporary Polynesian poems in English. Auckland University Press. $49.99. Edited by Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan.
This book is a major and substantial publication of Polynesian poetry translated to English over the past 20 years. At 274 pages, you can expect good value here, and you get it. I am full of praise and some wonderment that there is such dedication, expertise and commitment here that appears to let nothing 'get away'. As in Vasa Leota's 'A Kiss' "smooth / wet with freshness / and sweetness of a / flower" There is an introduction by the editors that gives the scope, content and direction full and adequate coverage. Tuwhare's poetry is, of course, gloriously his own – such a class above a lot of other work. Siema Marsh is impressive. Surely Karlo Mila deserves to be seen more, in current magazines, perhaps? Poets like her, who deal with the 'politics of relationships' are friends of mine. A magnificent collection, needing much greater attention than can be given here. My suggestion, buy the book and enjoy.

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