Carcanet Press - Collected Poems

Description
Excerpt
Author
Awards
Reviews
Audio

Antarctica!
where a single
footprint lasts
a thousand years

from 'Some Frames'

Into the settled poetry of New Zealand a disruptive force rumbled in magazines and then burst forth with Malady (1970). Here began the revolution of Bill Manhire. He starts thriftily, with imagistic poems whose calm voices are at odds with the ego-rant of neo-romantic contemporaries. Manhire is drawn to economy, to sparsely-peopled landscapes, the territory of the Norse Sagas (in which he invests serious scholarship) and Antarctica. He sent his publisher a postcard from Antarctica, where he was poet-in-residence: he was making his first day trip to the South Pole.

He generally keeps to stanzas and syntax, but his syntax twists like an Ashberian Möbius strip. As a scholar he is old-fashioned and wants to communicate, making fun of the dialects of literary criticism and theory; he is also an explorer in language who doesn't like to go back to the museum every day but to work in the field. In the briefest moment he establishes his theme (rhythmic, imagistic, syntactical) and immediately starts playing variations.

Collected Poems draws on eight previous books.

Bill Manhire was born in Invercargill, New Zealand in 1946. He was his country's inaugural Poet Laureate and has won the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry four times. He headed the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, establishing and directing the university's prestigious creative writing programme. ... read more

Awards won by Bill Manhire Commended, 2020 Poetry Book Society Recommendation (Wow)

Praise for Bill Manhire 'Bill Manhire's poetry is always lyrical whether the lyricism is the lyricism of the ballad or the lyricism he finds in ordinary, unmetred New Zealand conversational speech. Sometimes it seems as if you can hear a poem tuning up, finding its rhythm before it turns itself into song. As it lifts into song, it lifts, too, into meaning... when a Manhire poem takes flight, and when loneliness is taken for a stroll, the epic vision that the lyric can also, he shows, give rise to is all the more resonant and all the larger for being distilled into song.'

Anna Jackson, Academy of New Zealand Literature

'Though Manhire is full of foreboding about the future, he mixes the serious with the playful across a range of short, experimental poems... This is a poet who shares his learning with an appealing accessibility and ease'

Tom Williams, Literary Review

'Read Wow and you get story and song, light and dark, the surreal, constant surprise, but there is also always wit and humour ... Wow will haunt you'

NZ Poetry Shelf

'Wow offers further intriguing snapshots and glimpses, sometimes half-familiar but never monotonous... Here the light mist over everything teases you with where you are and what's what. Things constantly shift and change shape and being, even as you seem to have grasped them.'

Newsroom

'Being the leading poet in New Zealand is like being the best DJ in Estonia, impressive enough on its own terms. But Bill Manhire is more than that: he's unquestionably worldclass. As with Seamus Heaney, you get a sense of someone with a steady hand on the tiller, and both the will and the craft to take your breath away.'
Teju Cole, Boston Globe
'Manhire changes tack in every poem, coming at us with different techniques and different personae. It's a marvellously varied performance...Lifted is a short book, but few readers will be able to take it all in at a single sitting. It demands -and rewards- re-reading.'
Iain Sharp, Sunday Star Times
'The biggest noise in New Zealand poetry is Bill Manhire... Manhire has always known how to look at the human condition and state it simply through his poems. 'Lifted' is confident and emotive in what it tries to achieve. ...'Lifted' is shining stuff from truly one of our best poets. Definitely check this one out.'
Hamesh Wyatt, Otago Daily Times 'Turning the pages of 'Lifted', no reader can fail to be surprised and delighted by the variety of voices and tones... Manhire shows not only his mature formal skills but his ability to look unflinchingly into the heart of things. He is a poet in which a sly sense of humour is coupled with a respect for whatever truths a poem can wring out of experience. ...Manhireâs poems make us feel as if we are really there.'
Billy Collins, Dominion Post

Podcast 1: Twenty Contemporary New Zealand Poets book launch (10:43 mins)

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Collected Poems Bill Manhire Categories: 20th Century, 21st Century, New Zealand Imprint: Carcanet Poetry Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Paperback (220 pages) (Pub. Sep 2001) 9781857545371 Out of Stock Description Excerpt Author Awards Reviews Audio Antarctica! where a single footprint lasts a thousand years from 'Some Frames' Into the settled poetry of New Zealand a disruptive force rumbled in magazines and then burst forth with Malady (1970). Here began the revolution of Bill Manhire. He starts thriftily, with imagistic poems whose calm voices are at odds with the ego-rant of neo-romantic contemporaries. Manhire is drawn to economy, to sparsely-peopled landscapes, the territory of the Norse Sagas (in which he invests serious scholarship) and Antarctica. He sent his publisher a postcard from Antarctica, where he was poet-in-residence: he was making his first day trip to the South Pole. He generally keeps to stanzas and syntax, but his syntax twists like an Ashberian Möbius strip. As a scholar he is old-fashioned and wants to communicate, making fun of the dialects of literary criticism and theory; he is also an explorer in language who doesn't like to go back to the museum every day but to work in the field. In the briefest moment he establishes his theme (rhythmic, imagistic, syntactical) and immediately starts playing variations. Collected Poems draws on eight previous books. Bill Manhire was born in Invercargill, New Zealand in 1946. He was his country's inaugural Poet Laureate and has won the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry four times. He headed the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, establishing and directing the university's prestigious creative writing programme. ... read more Awards won by Bill Manhire Commended, 2020 Poetry Book Society Recommendation (Wow) Praise for Bill Manhire 'Bill Manhire's poetry is always lyrical whether the lyricism is the lyricism of the ballad or the lyricism he finds in ordinary, unmetred New Zealand conversational speech. Sometimes it seems as if you can hear a poem tuning up, finding its rhythm before it turns itself into song. As it lifts into song, it lifts, too, into meaning... when a Manhire poem takes flight, and when loneliness is taken for a stroll, the epic vision that the lyric can also, he shows, give rise to is all the more resonant and all the larger for being distilled into song.' Anna Jackson, Academy of New Zealand Literature 'Though Manhire is full of foreboding about the future, he mixes the serious with the playful across a range of short, experimental poems... This is a poet who shares his learning with an appealing accessibility and ease' Tom Williams, Literary Review 'Read Wow and you get story and song, light and dark, the surreal, constant surprise, but there is also always wit and humour ... Wow will haunt you' NZ Poetry Shelf 'Wow offers further intriguing snapshots and glimpses, sometimes half-familiar but never monotonous... Here the light mist over everything teases you with where you are and what's what. Things constantly shift and change shape and being, even as you seem to have grasped them.' Newsroom 'Being the leading poet in New Zealand is like being the best DJ in Estonia, impressive enough on its own terms. But Bill Manhire is more than that: he's unquestionably worldclass. As with Seamus Heaney, you get a sense of someone with a steady hand on the tiller, and both the will and the craft to take your breath away.' Teju Cole, Boston Globe 'Manhire changes tack in every poem, coming at us with different techniques and different personae. It's a marvellously varied performance...Lifted is a short book, but few readers will be able to take it all in at a single sitting. It demands -and rewards- re-reading.' Iain Sharp, Sunday Star Times 'The biggest noise in New Zealand poetry is Bill Manhire... Manhire has always known how to look at the human condition and state it simply through his poems. 'Lifted' is confident and emotive in what it tries to achieve. ...'Lifted' is shining stuff from truly one of our best poets. Definitely check this one out.' Hamesh Wyatt, Otago Daily Times 'Turning the pages of 'Lifted', no reader can fail to be surprised and delighted by the variety of voices and tones... Manhire shows not only his mature formal skills but his ability to look unflinchingly into the heart of things. He is a poet in which a sly sense of humour is coupled with a respect for whatever truths a poem can wring out of experience. ...Manhireâs poems make us feel as if we are really there.' Billy Collins, Dominion Post Podcast 1: Twenty Contemporary New Zealand Poets book launch (10:43 mins) You might also be interested in: Twenty Contemporary New Zealand Poets Edited by Robyn Marsack and Andrew Johnston New Collected Poems Les Murray	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog One Little Room: Peter McDonald read more Collected Poems: Mimi Khalvati read more Invisible Dog: Fabio Morbito, translated by Richard Gwyn read more Dante's Purgatorio: Philip Terry read more Billy 'Nibs' Buckshot: John Gallas read more Emotional Support Horse: Claudine Toutoungi read more
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