Generation Kitchen
Much sought after by oil companies, ‘generation kitchens’ are sites where geological forces have combined to create conditions for oil production. By turns brooding and wittily observant, Richard Reeve’s fifth book of poetry meditates on the intrigues of fossil fuel companies and ecological despoliation, but also on personal rites of passage – on relationships, deaths, the turn of the seasons. Comic monologues, spiritual invocations, flung swearwords, elegies, eulogies, wind tunnel diatribes and fanciful phantasmagorias co-exist in this collection. Oracular and bardic, Reeve’s work is also paradoxically down to earth and gritty. He knows that, beyond the geopolitical framework, beyond the anthropocene moment, the landscape endures, as in the poem ‘Warrington Dives’: 'the bright / swell bending around the coast, prodding the dark, / clouds of sediment thrown up by a wave …'
Wild Heart: The possibility of wilderness in Aotearoa New Zealand
Images of pristine forests, mountain ranges, untameable rivers and empty expanses of coastline are the key attraction in how we promote Aotearoa New Zealand internationally: '100% Pure' no less. Such wildness is at this nation's psychological and physical core.