All week this week the Spinoff Review of Books revisits the great poet James K Baxter, on the occasion of a new book of letters. Today: CK Stead remembers Baxter, in this extract taken from his memoir in progress, South-East of Everywhere. Early in 1966 the Otago University Students’ Association invited me to Dunedin. I was to be there for … Read more
New verse from Auckland writer CK Stead. Witchy Wellington A summer southerly sky grey the sea a beat-up and passing Grass Street I thought ‘Intolerable Lauris’ – not so much, or not just, the person but the name, the way those words seemed to belong together – good company, great fun, wordy and witty but … Read more
Every day this week the Spinoff Review of Books is publishing a new poem in the build-up to the Phantom Billstickers national poetry day on Friday. Today: ‘The laureate’s last…’ by CK Stead The laureate’s last… His last was not least nor yet his best but shaped for a shoe his size and like … Read more
Who will laugh like a loon and who will cry bitter tears at Tuesday night’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards? CK Stead is shortlisted for the fiction prize; we usually give fiction a really wide swerve at the Spinoff, but today we present his short story ‘Marriage Americano’, taken from his shortlisted book, The Name on the Door … Read more
Long Range Forecast (for Paula Green at 60) September and still winter but the purple irises are out under the vine and suddenly every branch and twig of the plum is pricked with blossom. This is an oath sworn by the season hand on heart. It’s in the sky too between showers. The … Read more
Patrick Evans’s last novel was about Frank Sargeson and Janet Frame – a clever piece of ventriloquism in which the Sargeson voice and character are accurately caught. This new novel takes the theme, or subject, or obsession, one stage further and beyond ‘the facts’. New Zealand (Canterbury) novelist Raymond Thomas Lawrence has won the Nobel … Read more