Born Sacred
£13.46
Portrait
£12.49
Funerals happen.
You walk past one
and call it a Tuesday
afternoon; the sun
comes down. This
is how it happens.
A crowd gathers like black water, the mind forgets the mind, memories come knocking in the hallway, a pair of hands perfect the moon: Portrait is the debut poetry collection by Jackson McCarthy. Desire, time, vision, beauty, and solitude count among this collection’s obsessions — obsessions rendered with such close-up intensity that even Death seems to reverse or suspend its trajectory. Interrupting this lyrical streak, we hear from a narrator whose tragicomic dedication to art over life results in fraught, surreal misunderstandings of the world around him. Portrait, too, is invested in its own artfulness. Playing with layers of voice and identity, these poems appear to paint portraits of their subjects — but do so blending observation with invention, memory with deep fantasy.
Jackson McCarthy is a poet based in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. He is of Lebanese, Māori, and Pākehā descent. His poetry has been published widely in Aotearoa literary journals, including Landfall Tauraka, Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems, The Spinoff, Starling, and Sweet Mammalian. His first book, Portrait, was published by Auckland University Press in 2026.
- ISBN-13
- 9781776712304
- Publisher
- Auckland University Press
- Imprint
- Auckland University Press
- Publication date
- 11 June 2026
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 68
- Dimensions
- 210 x 148 mm
- Language
- English
