Artists in Antarctica edited by Patrick Shepherd. MUP (2023). RRP: $80. HB, 240pp. ISBN: 9781991016270. Reviewed by James Norcliffe. I couldn’t help but gather adjectives from the first few pages of this handsome book: brutal, fearsome, desolate, hostile, extreme, unforgiving, bleak, inhospitable, unpredictable, forbidding… There is in fact a thesaurus load of such adjectives to describe…
Tsunami by Ned Wenlock. Earth’s End Publishing (2023). RRP: $27.99. PB, 278pp. ISBN: 9780473655679, Reviewed by Matt Scowcroft. I’m a bit of an art masochist. I want to be hurt by the books I read, and I often find stories in which everything is alright in the end unsatisfying. I don’t think that is unusual —…
Talia by Isla Huia. Dead Bird Books (2023). RRP: $30.00. PB, 87pp. ISBN: 9781991150639. Reviewed by Ariana Tikao. Talia is Isla Huia’s (Te Ātihaunui-a-Pāpārangi, Uenuku) debut poetry collection published by the Auckland-based indie publisher Dead Bird Books. It consists of 35 poems full of pūrākau, of fascinating images, of our atua Māori, and people – alive…
Te Rā: The Māori Sail, by Ariana Tikao and Mat Tait. Christchurch Art Gallery (2023). RRP: $26.50. HB: 36pp. ISBN: 9781877375811. Reviewed by Kirsty Dunn. ‘…Let us bring in the fishers, the warriors, the weavers,the healers, the connectors, the dreamers. Let us bring back in all those who have become stray strands,weave them in, weave them…
Hannah and Huia by Charlotte Lobb. Quentin Wilson Publishing (2023). RRP: $37.50. PB, 240pp. ISBN: 9781991103109. Reviewed by Rebecca Styles. In the author’s note to Charlotte Lobb’s debut novel, she explains her own challenges with the ‘discomfort of owning and accepting my own battles with depression, anxiety, PTSD and worse’ (p.238). While the novel is…
End Times by Rebecca Priestley. THWUP (2023). RRP: $35.00. PB, 240pp. ISBN: 9781776921188. Reviewed by Hester Ullyart. Dedicated to ‘Maz, my BFF’, End Times is based upon a week-long real-life West Coast road trip in 2021, mapping anxiety, formative teenage years, and rocks—metaphorical and literal. It would make an awesome female-gaze-scientist-post-kids buddy movie. You heard…
Saga by Hannah Mettner. THWUP (2023). RRP: $25. HB, 88pp. ISBN: 9781776921157. Reviewed by Vera Hua Dong. Hannah Mettner’s Saga offers a full-bodied subterranean vehemence, and profound social commentary and thought, inspired by her personal observations and sensibility. She delivers deep reflections without reserve on matters of importance to her. And she is not afraid…
Hoof by Kerrin P. Sharpe. THWUP (2023). RRP: $25.00. PB, 96pp. ISBN: 9781776921225. Reviewed by S. J. Mannion. Kerrin P. Sharpe certainly lives up to her surname here, her poetry has the kind of clarity that bites… and though you’re never quite sure where you’ve been bitten, still you feel the teeth marks throb. Hmm, an extended…
Birdspeak by Arihia Latham. Anahera Press (2023). RRP: $25.00. PB, 100pp. ISBN: 9780473678524. Reviewed by Isla Huia. The most recent release from Anahera Press, Birdspeak, is Arihia Latham’s debut collection of poetry. Speaking through the generations of her tīpuna in their home of Te Wai Pounamu, to the present day in the lives of her closest…
Sea Skins by Sophia Wilson. Flying Islands Books/Cerberus Press (2023). RRP: $10.00 AUD. Pocket pb, 108 pp. ISBN: 978064550320. Reviewed by S J Mannion. I found myself mouthing the lines many times as I read this pukapuka. A finely scored collection, it seems to me an operetta of sorts, though one with some serious grace notes. …