Fire-Penny

Cilla McQueen

Snapshot reconstructions of life on Scotland's remote St Kilda island - ancestral home of the McQueens - open this tenth collection of poetry from Cilla McQueen. The spare life in this place of birds and sea and weather leads into a new set of poems from the poet's Bluff home, quiet observations on friends and animals, memories and dreams, and weather. Many of the reflective poems are conversational in style; one poem is written in the form of a play, and another appears at first to be a dictionary definition. Even the simplest of topics, such as eating cake or meeting a newborn baby, are taken by McQueen and transformed into thoughtful works.

The collection closes with a section entitled A Widow's Songs, in which the poet mourns her late partner.

Contents

St Kilda Voices
From the End of the World
A Widow's Songs

About the Author

Cilla McQueen lives in Bluff, in New Zealand's far south, and is an award-winning poet. Fire-Penny is her tenth book of poetry.

Publication details

ISBN 1 877372 05 6, hardback, 210 x 140 mm, 64 pages, $29.95
Release: July 2005