Arboretum (2014)

Jack Ross, ed.: Poetry NZ Yearbook 1 [Issue #49] (October 2014)

Books and Magazines in brief:

Lee Posna. Arboretum. ISBN 978-0-473-28356-8. Auckland: Compound Press, 2014.

Lee Posna: Arboretum (2014)

This is the first of two chapbooks launched recently by Auckland publisher Compound Press at a rather convivial event at the Timeout bookshop in Mt Eden. Lee Posna and Steven Toussaint, two young American poets (their respective authors,) gave readings and answered questions about their work on that occasion – Steve from his just-published book, Lee (interestingly) from some other, more recent work on the subject of ants, which he accompanied with a series of photographic handouts. This gives some clue to the subject-matter of his book, beautifully illustrated by Lucy Meyle. As the title might suggest, this is a poetry of the earth and the natural world:

Calling them my name
You planted my ashes in aluminium soil
And talked to them in tepid rain

The echoes of some of the more interior-looking American poets – Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for death” transformed to “Because I stopped for death” on the antepenultimate page of this unpaginated booklet – are also strong: virtually omnipresent, in fact.

(26-27/9/14)

Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 1 [Issue #49]. ISSN 0114-5770 (2014): 235.

[175 wds]


Poetry NZ Yearbook 1 (2014)


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