The price of flexibility is bent over backwards
sleeping on couches seeding twice a day paracetamol
The price of pressure to leave an imprint like the
price of new mountains is the destruction of an edge
Suggestion too has its valleys
whether carved by waters or melt
silt rich fodder for monstrous blooms
I’d say better to be a bottom skipping rock
but everything gets worn down eventually
A tiny snail stretches out its peepers
leaving a trail of slime over the door lip
I’m on my fifth spliff of the day contemplating the important things
the sleeping garden in front of me
stems wintery and indistinguishable
hiss level rain disappearing into the ground
After thirty four and a half years of research
it seems maintaining a state of indeterminate
being is more effective than bend
no need for strain without form
it’s impossible to hold anything
as a shapeshifting cluster
that’s why they say it
everything has
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.
“I wanted to write about our human occupation of low earth orbit for the last quarter of a century – not as sci-fi but as realism. Could I evoke the beauty of that vantage point with the care of a nature writer? Could I write about amazement? Could I pull off a sort of space pastoral? These were the challenges I set myself.” Read more of Samantha Harvey’s interview with The Booker Prizes here.
Fans have been hanging out for this. No idea what all the fuss is about? Here’s the publisher’s blurb: “The long-awaited explosive climax to the first arc of the Number One New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive. Dalinar Kholin has challenged the evil god Odium to a contest of champions, and the Knights Radiant and the nations of Roshar have a mere ten days to prepare for the worst. The fate of the entire world – and the Cosmere at large – hangs in the balance.”
Over 120,000 Good Readers have collectively rated this novel a huge 4.53 stars. Here’s a snippet from Darryl Suite’s thorough review: “I loved this book. As I mentioned before, it took a bit of time for me to feel the full brevity of the story. But then it morphed into something palpable, haunting, and downright unsettling (and there’s a doozy of a revelation waiting for you to discover). The second-half is a heart-pounding experience all the way to its violently cathartic finish.”
A new collection from one of the best short story writers in the country. Here’s the blurb: “In this latest, stunning collection of short stories by acclaimed writer Owen Marshall, people teeter on the brink of experience. From murder to an affair, to a promotion or a breakdown, the array of vivid characters aren’t always aware of what they encounter, not sure whether they are being given an opportunity, a challenge, a temptation, a lesson, or just another day to get through.
Meanwhile, feelings of fear, lust, curiosity and frustration simmer beneath the surface. Will the people grasp what life throws at them?”
“There is many a meditation on water throughout the novel, but Zaleekhah’s chapters anchor the author’s preoccupation as we follow the character down fascinating rabbit holes like the lost rivers of London — diverted, destroyed or straight-jacketed in concrete. Some of the novel’s best passages explores this curiosity about the materiality of water and what our species has done with it.” So writes Stephen Markley in the NY Times.
An exquisitely produced Christmas short story by the author of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Perfect for the Susanna Clarke fan in your life.
