The Pop-up Book of Invasions

Description

This wonderful new collection The Pop-up Book of Invasions is written out of Fiona Farrell's experience in Ireland on the Rathcoola Writer's Residency in 2006. The poems draw heavily and vividly on the landscape, history and mythology of Ireland, sharing a sense of discovery, but they also make connections with home, New Zealand, childhood. Thus a canoe in the National Museum, 'Black boat from a brown bog', recalls the waka: 'You think of yours as I think of/mine, setting sail in their black/canoe'. The poet also remembers her Irish father now dead who emigrated to New Zealand and all the many migrations or 'invasions' of the past and the present. And she adapts and transforms several ancient Irish texts, rewriting their stories for a contemporary world; the voluminous notes are a fascinating Irish education in themselves. A beautifully constructed, thoughtful, topical and original book.

Fiona Farrell is a well-known novelist, short-story writer and poet whose work has been much acclaimed. She lives on Banks Peninsula. Her new novel Mr AllBone's Ferrets wil be published in April 2007 and her new poems, The Pop-up Book of Invasions, will be launched on Montana Poetry Day, 27 July.