Ian Wedde goes there and back again

By Rebecca Barry Hill

NZ Herald -  Saturday Oct 18, 2014

The great thing about being engaged in that process is it keeps you awake, alert, and looking around you. If you're out in the world you're never bored. Ian Wedde. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Ian Wedde has a lifelong habit of leaving and coming home. But he has mixed feelings about his year abroad coming to an end.
"I love Berlin, it's been really great here," says the former New Zealand poet laureate, on a Skype call from the German capital, where he has been on the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writer's Residency. "But I miss that kind of home associated with family and close friends and the cat. It's time to get back."
This seems appropriate given Wedde's latest book, The Grass Catcher: A Digression About Home, is his attempt to define what home means. The title alludes to an old lawnmower cover that hung in the childhood garage; despite its eerie appearance, the young Wedde came to associate the sight of it with arriving home.
More

The Grass Catcher: A Digression About Home (Victoria University Press $40) is out now.