Publisher Roger Hickin is pleased with this one :
YOU FIT THE
DESCRIPTION
the selected poems of Peter Olds:
Chosen by the
NZ Listener
as one of the
best poetry books of 2014
This new
selection of poems by Peter Olds gathers a more generous sampling than his 1972–2001
selected poems (It Was a Tuesday Morning, Hazard Press, 2004) as well as work from collections
published since then, and twenty-five previously uncollected poems. But perhaps
most importantly it includes a number of the celebrated longer poems of the
1970s and 1980s which were left out of the Hazard selection. In print again at
last here are Freeway (“will be seen to be a work which is central to the development of a
genuinely New Zealand literature” ––Bill Dean, Critic); Lady Lust revisiting the Great
Psychiatric Rock & Roll Nostalgia Story; Beethoven’s guitar (“an immensely vital
poem about life in a psychiatric hospital” ––Peter Simpson, The Press); Notes on State
Highway Number One (“something of the devil-may-care exhilaration of Goodbye Pork
Pie” ––Frank McKay, The Listener); along with After the music
and After looking
for Broadway.
From the steam of Joe
Tui’s long-gone Dunedin fish-and-chip shop
to a young possum
clinging to a plum tree, via substance-fuelled manic narrative, Zen solitude
and vivid evocations of childhood, by turns playful, anxious and outrageous,
Peter Olds keeps watch with an always compassionate eye and with not too much
thought about literature gets it all down with unpretentious drop-dead
authenticity.
In an extensive
introduction Ian Wedde fits Olds into a national and international context,
then focuses on the “mindfulness” of the poet’s vision, from his early
immersion in the conditions of addiction and mental illness, to his humorous,
compassionate and expanding sense of relationship, and his awareness “not just
of the present moment but of the consciousness that focuses the poet’s
attention”.
“We’re used to
thinking of consciousness as involving an awareness of here and there, inner
and outer, self and other, experience from the inside, appearance from the outside. This … New Zealand poet’s commitment to
making poetry the game-breaker of this dichotomy has been unremitting for more
than forty years. And I have to say . . . it’s been a hell of a ride.” ––Ian Wedde
“In my mind’s
bookshelf, this poet of the Dunedin I hold dear sits companionably between
Baxter and Tuwhare.” ––Cilla McQueen
“Peter Olds’s poems
are often moving and gruelling for their honesty about both the euphoria and
the aftermath of pushing oneself to the edge of experience. They’re often
vivid, visual, social realist and darkly wry pictures of New Zealand city and
town life. They can give the impression of being spontaneous photographs,
apparently casually documentary. And yet the more you re-read them, the clearer
it is that they are carefully, consciously framed. Laced throughout with a
redemptive wit and humour, they are frank about workers’, bohemians’ and
bene-ficiaries’ struggles with institutions, conformity, urban disconnection
and alienation; and frank about the tenuous grip many New Zealanders have, post
welfare state reforms, on basic comforts and human rights: health, shelter,
community, a place to stand and belong.”
––Emma Neale
Peter Olds:You fit the description
with an introduction
by Ian Wedde
ISBN:
978-0-473-29803-6
Softcover with flaps
296pp, 250 x 180mm
NZ$49.95 from good
bookstores
or
www.coldhubpress.co.nz
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