Wild Honey: Reading New Zealand women's poetry

Description

Highly regarded poet and anthologist Paula Green is the author of this much overdue survey of New Zealands women poets. Illustrated throughout by Sarah Laing and featuring the work of 195 poets (all of whom have biographies and full bibliographies), this book is a landmark volume and an incredible achievement. Its timing is perfect given the current re-examination of the role of the male gatekeepers of our literature in the 1940s and 1950s, who decided that womens poetry was weak and excluded it from the volumes of poetry that were to become the canon. How things have changed at present the most exciting poetry is coming from high-profile young women poets who almost have cult status Hera Lindsay Bird and Tayi Tibble. Charmingly and unique, the books chapters follow the structure of a house, with different poets being discussed and assessed in each of the houses rooms. The selection is enormously generous, the tone is at times gentle and accessible, and Greens reach is wide. She brings the pioneers of womens poetry Jessie Mackay, Blanche Baughan and Eileen Duggan back from the shadows and she also draws our attention to the remarkable stories of forgotten women poets such as Lola Ridge.

Paula Green MNZM is a poet, reviewer, anthologist, childrens author, book-award judge and blogger. She has published eight poetry collections, including several for children. In 2017, Paula was admitted to the New Zealand Order of Merit for Services to Poetry and Literature and she was also a recipient of the coveted Prime Ministers Award for Literary Achievement. Co-written with Harry Ricketts, her book 99 Ways into New Zealand Poetry was short-listed for the 2010 NZ Post Book Awards. She runs two blogs: NZ Poetry Box and NZ Poetry Shelf. She edited the much lauded A Treasury of New Zealand Poems for Children (Random House). The Letterbox Cat and Other Poems (Scholastic) won Childrens Choice at the 2015 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

'How would it be if poetry written by women in New Zealand had a house that you could visit, in which you could spend time, and from which you could emerge having made new friends? Luckily, Paula Green has made us such a house. Wild Honey: Reading New Zealand women's poetry brings literary pioneers such as Jessie Mackay, Blanche Baughan, Lola Ridge and Eileen Duggan out of the shadows to stand with contemporary literary provocateurs such as Hera Lindsay Bird and Tayi Tibble.' - Volume Books; 'It is noisy, refreshing and proudly anchored in the domestic . . . Green is an engaging host, throwing open the curtains, whisking off the dust sheets, coursing through different poetic traditions in animated homage to women's writing.' - Sally Blundell, New Zealand Listener; 'A stunning book.' - Read NZ; 'This was an extremely difficult book to review because it merits much more than a linear reading. It's a book that beckons the reader to return to it, with pencil markings and post-it notes.' - Emer Lyons, Landfall