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Paperback, 140 x 210mm 
July 2009
Winner of the NZ Post Book Awards Best Book of Poetry 2010
All I can say
is that for me nothing hurts more
than leaving and nothing less than coming home
when a nor’wester’s gusting in the pines
like operatic laughter, and the roadside grasses
are laced with the blue and orange and pink
of bugloss, poppies and yarrow, all of them
swishing, dancing, bending, as they do, as we do.
Brian Turner’s ongoing love affair with his Central Otago home lies at the heart of his rich and compelling new collection of poems.
Praise for Just This
‘More than any other New Zealand poet, Turner is doing with literary description what Colin McCahon did for landscape in painting.’
—Peter Dornauf, Waikato Times
‘As always, Turner leads with his chin. Full of tenderness and a sense of melancholy, his poems look backwards and observe things that are happening right now, too … Just This is pure and simple. Turner makes poetry seem quite effortless.’
—Hamesh Wyatt, Otago Daily Times
Brian Turner is one of New Zealand’s leading poets. His first collection, Ladders of Rain (1978) won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, and his sixth, Beyond (1992), the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry. He was New Zealand Poet Laureate 2003–2005. His acclaimed work in other genres includes co-authorship of the autobiographies of All Black stars Josh Kronfeld and Anton Oliver, a biography of Colin Meads, significant contributions to Timeless Land and The Art of Grahame Sydney, and Into the Wider World: A Back Country Miscellany. Brian Turner's most recent collection of poetry is Night Fishing (2016).
