The Darling North
In unfolding couplets, ‘The Darling North’ engages with a woman’s past, her lover, her new landscapes, exploring the results of yearning and directional possibilities on the shores of the Hokianga. F. E. Maning and Seamus Heaney hover in the background as touchstones. ‘Hands On’ reconfigures the Little Red Riding Hood, Three Little Pigs and the Gingerbread Man stories; while other poems touch on a lost wedding ring, a significant birthday, remembered hills. Finally Kennedy offers two long poems about the dislocation of migration – a loose sequence of here-and-there sonnets that deal with the upheaval of a family move from New Zealand to Hawai’i; and a final poem, ‘Hello Kitty, Goodbye Piccadilly’, in which the change and disturbances, effort and turmoils of adjusting to ‘Paradise’ move towards acceptance and belonging.
Though separate and various in tone and form, these poems wave and tip their hats to one another – adding further pleasures to this sparklingly original collection by one of our most interesting writers.
Anne Kennedy is the author of three novels, a novella, four books of poetry, and many anthologised short stories. Her first book of poetry Sing-song was named Poetry Book of the Year at the 2004 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. The Darling North won the 2013 New Zealand Post Book Award for Poetry and Moth Hour was a poetry finalist at the 2020 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Anne has also won the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award and has held fellowships at the University of Auckland, the IIML, and at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She has taught creative writing for a number of years in Hawai‘i and Auckland. Most recently she edited Remember Me: Poems to Learn by Heart from Aotearoa New Zealand.
- ISBN-13
- 9781869405939
- Publisher
- Auckland University Press
- Imprint
- Auckland University Press
- Publication date
- 1 May 2012
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 96
- Dimensions
- 229 x 152 mm
- Language
- English