Kiss me, Hardy,
in the dark-robed blindness of passion,
both of us pressed up against the parapets
of your one bedroom apartment,
a chill against the sliding door.
Kiss me, stranger–
harder than that!
Give it to me like a sail full of wind,
a clear sky and gulls swooping in the rigging,
until I cry out–
land ho!
It’s easy to be full of lust,
especially when thrown into the depths of
a winter, one hell-bent on
flinging sparrows resolutely
into your frozen windows.
Every wing-beat is a new lover to imagine
cold-chested, more naked
with socks on
due to the ineffectual nylon carpet.
Kiss me not just for warmth
but out of curiosity–
who goes there?
Swing your lantern-light
across me, traveller,
bear witness to me
pale-assed in the moonlight
like an upscale ski chateau partially
buried in a snowdrift–
come closer, kiss me darkly,
leave your boots at the door.
The Friday Poem is edited by Hera Lindsay Bird. Submissions are currently closed.
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.
This from the publisher’s blurb is enough to get your puku rumbling: “In this beautifully illustrated story of feasting you’ll find a bountiful basket of kai and korero gathered all the way from the mountains to the sea. It’s lip-smackingly good kai – from soul-warming kaimoana hot pot, umu pulled pork and hangi infused with native rongoa, to kumara donuts, sweet korimako cake and burnt sugar steamed pudding.”
2 Mana of the Pacific by Regina Scheyvens & Apisalome Movono (Potton & Burton, $40)
A multi-lingual book with beautiful photographs and knowledge from around the Pacific to guide you into a positive frame of mind at this particularly difficult time.
A beautifully written series of essays by New Zealand barrister Daniel Kalderimis that explore philosophy and art and how they can help offer pathways into a healthier frame of mind.
The Good Reads community are big fans, with thousands upon thousands of five-star ratings and reviews like this: “An exquisite, fierce, deeply moving story. The last few pages, read with teary eyes, a perfect ending. I think Sally Rooney’s books are best appreciated by those who love dialogue — not just any dialogue, but in-depth conversations uncovering the inner thoughts of her characters.”
5 Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway and John le Carré (Viking, $38)
The new George Smiley spy thriller to stick on your summer reads stack.
An holistic guide to how to manage sleep, diet, hormones, stress and ageing well, for women.
7 Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Jonathan Cape, $38)
Kushner’s latest novel is on the Booker shortlist and sweepstakes are hotting up with the winner announced on November 11. Our pick is on Percival Everett’s James (see below). But it’s really anyone’s game at this point.
8 Atua Wahine by Hana Tapiata (HarperCollins NZ, $37)
Life lessons wrapped in a beautiful blue and gold cover, just in time for Christmas, and the outcome of the US elections.
9 Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)
Find out why Delirious is Elizabeth Knox’s favourite New Zealand novel ever, on The Spinoff here.
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Lyric Waiwiri-Smith — Politics reporter
WELLINGTON
1 The Chthonic Cycle by Una Cruickshank (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35)
Up for best cover of the year is this “eccentric” series of essays (read: intriguing, even page-turning). Here’s the publisher’s blurb: “Written in an effort to ward off existential dread, and to find new understandings and consolations for those similarly afflicted, The Chthonic Cycle is an eccentric and brilliantly curated tour through time, in which fascinating objects glint and spark and the transience of humanity flickers.
At the heart of Una Cruickshank’s debut are Earth’s interlocking cycles of death and reuse. The blood of a billion-year-old tree emerges from the sea as a drop of amber; 4,756,940 pieces of Lego float towards the Cornish Peninsula; a giant squid’s beak passes through a whale’s intestines into bottles of Chanel No. 5. The violence of colonisation underpins some of the transformations illuminated here, as we follow wave after wave of ruin and remaking.”
Delightful! This pocket-sized compendium of all of Wellington’s wild spots is a must-have on the shelf of any Wellingtonian and aspiring Wellingtonians.
Strout is surely one of the greatest writers of all time. Here’s a snippet from an insightful Guardian review of this latest book: “‘Tell me everything’ is a credo of sorts, a statement of the writer’s voracious need to know, to solve the human case. But that Strout’s oblique approach to matters of the heart works so well is partly due to her judicious use of silence and omission to suggest the complexity of our closest connections. After Bob tries to act as the middleman in repairing Jim’s relationship with his son, Larry writes Jim a letter: “He unfolded the letter that was inside the envelope, and Bob put on his glasses and read ‘Dear Dad,’ and then the page was empty except for at the bottom where it was signed, ‘Love, Larry.’”
Sometimes, in this taciturn but deeply felt and profoundly intelligent novel, a kindly blank page is as good as it gets. Tell me everything. Or tell me nothing.”
