Reviews
Books Reviewed
Organised by surname of author.
A Brief Comment on the Esoteric Practice of Reviewing
Kink and Particle – Tiffany Atkinson
Incognito – Jessica le Bas
Tigers at Awhitu – Sarah Broom
The Propaganda Poster Girl – Amy Brown
Beauty of the Badlands – Cliff Fell
Kingdom Animalia – Janis Freegard
What Narcissism Means to Me – Tony Hoagland
All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens – Tim Jones
Tributary – Rae Varcoe
Dear to Me – various
Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand – various
Magnetic South – Sue Wootton
The Whole Body Singing – Quendryth Young
A Brief Comment on the Esoteric Practice of Reviewing
I think reviewing is both underrated, and extremely important. There are so many books being published every year – some good, some bad, some frankly awful. There is no longer any possibility that any one person will be able to read even half the poetry published in any given year, let alone read it with enough attention to form a considered opinion. So where do you start? If you are newly arrived (an experience I’m fairly familiar with), how do you work out what poetry to try first? Where to begin your initiation?
Reviewers are the gate-keepers. When I pick up a new book, before I hand over my money (or even my library card, given the demands there are on my reading time) I want to know if it’s likely to be worth it.What’s it like? Any good? In an ideal world, you’d be able to tap into the collective consciousness and find people who have read it and who like the same sorts of things you do, and ask them. Which is where reviewers come in.
Readers depend on a reviewer to be honest, intelligent, and clear. I’m not usually interested in how the book does or does not rate against some lit. crit. formula, or in how clever the reviewer can be at the author’s expense. Begone, you hatchet-jobs, you back-scratching quid-pro-quo tongue-batheings! Begone you platforms of personal aggrandisement!
Gentle reader, you can see where this is going. I live in a very lowly-populated country, where the literary community do (generally) all know each other. Forget six degrees of separation: we’d be hard pressed to manage three. Which means that reviewing has suffered. Two major literary journals have discontinued reviews altogether, and another has started cutting back its poetry reviews section.
Time to start being part of the solution.
For those looking for information on how to write a poetry review, the Scottish Poetry Library website has two excellent articles (with lists of suggested Dos and Don’ts), from poet Roddy Lumsden, and editor Stuart Kelly. Highly recommended.
