{"product_id":"the-chancy-now","title":"The Chancy Now","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIn the 1970s a young professor, I rescued\u003cbr\u003e\nfrom a puddle in Princes Street a Penguin\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eof Nietzsche’s \u003c\/em\u003eThus Spake Zarathustra\u003cem\u003e, dried it\u003cbr\u003e\nand read it, annotating as I went, underlining\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ehis thought that one must have chaos within\u003cbr\u003e\nif one is to give birth to a dancing star –\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAt 93, his wife Kay and son Oliver recently dead, writing nothing, C. K. Stead thought there were no more books. Then, ‘alive on pills, \/ and the surgeon’s knife’, enduring grief and recovery, sonnets began to appear, three or four a week, the poems collected in this volume.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eChaos won’t teach a sonnet to limit its lines\u003cbr\u003e\nbut every sonnet should have its dancing star.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the ABs under the high ball to Braunias’s lamingtons, from Dionysus to Guide Rangi, from the Uber driver (‘He’s a Wittgenstein man so we get along perfectly \/ passing over in silence what can’t be discussed’) to the author (‘My Chookspeak’s better than my French because I learned it \/ in the right way, by ear, not off the page’), 120 sonnets reveal a poet battered, bruised and still in his prime.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAfter a sonnet tending to self-pity and crap\u003cbr\u003e\nI consign it to the bin and set off knowing\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003etoday’s wild northerly wind and rough seas\u003cbr\u003e\nat Kohi will knock me into shape.\u003c\/em\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Auckland University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":66339466772829,"sku":null,"price":12.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1041\/3893\/2573\/files\/9781776712793.jpg?v=1793108585","url":"https:\/\/shop.gazellebookservices.co.uk\/products\/the-chancy-now","provider":"Gazelle Book Services","version":"1.0","type":"link"}