Pocket Edition

Illuminating personal trials and triumphs against the backdrop the author's home city of Wellington, New Zealand, this unflinching observation describes a world of jagged and narrow rocks, and shelter from the tepid rain's puce music.

‘Deft, full of pathos and perfectly capturing the fragility of life.’ —Peter Dornauf, Waikato Times

‘Reading Geoff Cochrane’s latest collection through in one sitting is a compulsive experience. Visitors to Cochrane Country may be few, as is the case with most of the tiny outer islands of New Zealand writing – especially that far-flung archipelago of slim volumes, Novum Poetica. Yet the voyage brings a rich reward.’ —Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, NZ Listener

‘Cochrane's mix of dark, witty, concentrated lines are well worth storing in a jacket pocket.’ —Paula Green, NZ Herald

Geoff Cochrane (1951–2022) was the author of nineteen collections of poems, two novels, a novella, and two collections of short stories. He was the recipient of an Arts Foundation Laureate Award, presented as part of the 2014 Westpac New Zealand Arts Awards. He was awarded the Janet Frame Prize for Poetry in 2009, and the inaugural Nigel Cox Unity Books Award in 2010.