Charles Brasch Journals 1958–1973
Selected with an introduction by Peter Simpson
This third and final volume of Charles Brasch’s compelling private journals covers the years from when he was 48 to his death at 64. By the 1960s, Brasch, though very private by temperament, was a reluctant public figure, especially as editor of Landfall – indisputably New Zealand’s leading cultural quarterly (he eventually quit as editor after 20 years). He was also becoming a highly regarded poet, who eventually had six books (one posthumous) to his name.
Behind the scenes Brasch was increasingly important as an art collector and as patron and benefactor; the Burns, Hodgkins and Mozart Fellowships – for writers, artists and composers respectively – which he helped anonymously to found and fund, all began in this period.
Landfall 235: Autumn 2018
Edited by Emma Neale
Landfall is New Zealand's foremost and longest-running arts and literary journal. It showcases new fiction and poetry, as well as biographical and critical essays, and cultural commentary.
Featured artists in this issue are Kathryn Madill, Russ Flatt, and Penny Howard.
This issue includes the results and winning essays from the 2018 Charles Brasch Young Writers’ Award, and judge’s report by Emma Neale, as well as the usual range of exciting new writing and reviews.
Whisper of a crow’s wing
Majella Cullinane
Published simultaneously in Ireland by Salmon Poetry, Majella Cullinane’s remarkable second collection, Whisper of a Crow’s Wing, is the work of a poet with a distinct and powerful voice. These poems weigh and examine oppositions – the distance of time and place, the balance of life and death, the poet’s New Zealand home and her Irish heritage. Cullinane conjures the ghosts that haunt places and objects; our inner and outer world, with rich, physical language.
The World's Din: Listening to records, radio and films in New Zealand 1880-1940
Peter Hoar
The arrival of radical new audio technology from overseas in the late 19th century led to a 'sonic revolution' that changed New Zealanders lives forever, says author Peter Hoar.
In his new book The World's Din, he describes the arrival of the first 'talking machines', and their growing place in New Zealanders' lives, through the years of early radio to the dawn of television.
From the first public demonstration of a phonograph in a Blenheim hall in 1879, people were exposed to a succession of machines that captured and transmitted sounds through radio, cinema and recordings. The World's Din is a beautifully written account that will delight music-lovers and technophiles everywhere.
The Expatriate Myth: New Zealand writers and the colonial world
Helen Bones
Many New Zealand writers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century travelled extensively or lived overseas for a time, and they often led very interesting lives. The received wisdom is that they were forced to leave these colonial backblocks in search of literary inspiration and publishing opportunities.
In The Expatriate Myth, Helen Bones presents a challenge to this conventional understanding, based on detailed historical and empirical research. This fascinating and clear-sighted book offers a fresh perspective on some hoary New Zealand literary chestnuts.
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Walking to Jutland Street
Michael Steven
Walking to Jutland Street is the debut poetry collection of Michael Steven, an Auckland poet with strong connections to Dunedin, published by Otago University Press.
From car workshops to tinnie houses, from school playgrounds to the hidden lives on the margins of society, Steven's poetry captures the transitory with an intense clarity, distilling everyday experiences of New Zealand life into an encompassing poetic vision.
An astute and sympathetic observer of gritty, day-to-day urban reality, Steven is equally a writer steeped in literary tradition, Buddhist mysticism and world-historical narrative. His literary cousins are Olds, Orr, Mitchell, Dickson, Johnson and Baxter.
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