A poem by the great Fleur Adcock from her book Collected Poems, launched this week. Toads Let’s be clear about this: I love toads. So when I found our old one dying, washed into the drain by flood-water in the night and then – if I can bring myself to say it … Read more
Fleur Adcock reviews Philip Temple’s vividly presented biography of the great Titirangi author Maurice Shadbolt – and sets the record straight about an alleged phone message she left for her ex-lover, provoking his (third) wife to throw a chicken at him. The prologue of Philip Temple’s biography of Maurice Shadbolt features an entertaining anecdote in which my … Read more
New verse by New Zealand-born writer living in England, Fleur Adcock. Hot Baths These days when anxious friends confide in me about their intimate medical problems it’s never that they’re afraid they’re pregnant and the situation is complicated by not being sure whether the father was that guy from Christchurch at my party … Read more
New verse by London writer Fleur Adcock. Blue stars To qualify as a New Zealander I’d have to turn against the agapanthus. This wasn’t mentioned at the passport office, but my New Zealand nationality is a part-time thing – a bit of nostalgia. Genuine applicants don’t need to be told. They … Read more
Taika Waititi’s new film Hunt for the Wilderpeople opens on March 31. It’s a good-natured romp based on a novel by Barry Crump, who created an enduring myth of himself as a good keen Kiwi bushman. The reality was different. London-based poet Fleur Adcock offers a rare memoir about her brief marriage to “Crumpy”. When I’m … Read more
Six typewriters To begin with, my father’s reconditioned German keyboard picked up during the war, with a spiky Gothic ‘o’. Then, I suppose, when I was married, the use of Alistair’s: details forgotten or repressed. In Dunedin I answered a small ad and paid £10 for a museum piece black and upright … Read more