Vanilla Wine

Every day, I walk
from Berhampore to Molesworth Street,
buy my few supplies,
come home on the bus.

If not exactly a hunter,
I’m a gatherer who covers many miles,
smiles at babies
in supermarket aisles.

This collection from the author of Into India and Acetylene features a sequence on the life of Erik Satie, as well the vivid and unsettling lyrics for which he is best known.

‘If a poem is a stroke of luck, I’ve been living a charmed life.’
—Geoff Cochrane

‘So evocative, such craftily crafted imagery, such a gift for a succinct turn. Very few poems in this collection fail to have a line that gratifies.’ —Nick Ascroft, New Zealand Books

‘One exits so many slim volumes with slim pickings. Then there are those books of poetry that seem fuller than fiction. Geoff Cochrane's Vanilla Wine is a whole world, rendered in lines at once compressed and open, mysterious and approachable. These are poems of great formal poise and terrific candour. But here's the test. Turn to the last poem in the book. Read it. Now buy the book.’ —Damien Wilkins

‘Geoff Cochrane's Vanilla Wine belies its sweet title. The poems are bitter and compressed. Cochrane observes his Wellington beat (Berhampore to Molesworth St) and trusts readers with the frankest confessions. The prose poem “Anzac Day” should be compulsory reading every April 25.’ —Dominion Post

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.