Lifting the Island

<p><strong>AWARD-WINNING POET • AUTHOR OF ELEVEN POETRY COLLECTIONS </strong></p>
<p><strong>FORMER POET LAUREATE OF NEW ZEALAND </strong></p>
<p><strong>David Eggleton explores the voices of New Zealand Australia and Polynesia in his latest collection </strong><strong><em>LIFTING THE ISLAND<br><br></em></strong><strong>This is vital elastic expertly handled language in a Pacific voice of cultural and musical sensibility poetry to be spoken aloud or in the mind.</strong><strong><em>-Cilla McQueen MNZM and former New Zealand Poet Laureate<br><br></em></strong><strong>This own-voices collection is a kind of lyrical world map of the South Pacific built up through a lush epic catalog of flora fauna and artifacts.<br><br></strong>This collection is a kind of lyrical word map of the South Pacific built up through a lush epic catalog of flora fauna and artifacts. The poems are frequently infused with a wry humor-and while they often eschew both narrative and personal epiphany they make intensely detailed vigorous observations of place and landscape that are curious sparkling and sometimes hilarious.</p>
<p>Linguistically agile this book's stanzas bring together the lyrical and the slangy celebrating the local vernaculars of New Zealand Australia and Polynesia. Many of its poems work as cascading streams of image; of pronouncements; of dramatic tonal shifts almost line by line; and with dense daring metaphor clusters that entertain as well as illuminate.</p>