AUP New Poets 4

Description

This fourth in AUP's New Poets series includes three very different voices. Chris Tse's work draws fascinatingly on his family history and Chinese heritage. His selection, 'Sing Joe', includes narrative poems about his great-grandparents' emigration to New Zealand and about his own childhood and his research to uncover their story. Erin Scudder writes sophisticated, dark and flavoursome poetry with close attention to the sound and shape of words. In its treatment of motive and emotion her work feels at once personal and universal, specific yet interested in archetypes and tropes. Harry Jones writes accomplished, elegant, formally adept work. He has a flair for the gorgeous lyric, but his selection, 'Beyond Hinuera', also has a subtle range. Together the work of these three writers feels substantial and pleasingly distinct.

Chris Tse is a Wellington writer, actor, musician and occasional filmmaker. He studied English literature and film at Victoria University where he also completed an MA in Creative Writing. His poetry has appeared in literary magazines and he has had short stories recorded for Radio NZ. He won the 2009 NZ Chinese Association/Listener short story competition. Native Montrealer Erin Scudder moved to Wellington in 2001. She has just earned an MA (with distinction) in literature from Victoria University. She now teaches American Literature - also moonlighting as a librarian - while she works toward completing her first book of poetry. Born in New Zealand in 1952, Harry Jones's first ambition was to be a painter - as a schoolboy, he was given lessons by Colin McCahon. He lived in England from 1974 to 1994, where he was awarded an Exhibition to read English at Cambridge. He now lives in Tauranga and publishes poems in NZ and UK poetry magazines.

I like the elegance and control, the drive to say something rather than just cut a fashionable figure. Al Alvarez, poet, "Risky Business," on Harry Jones"