Vignettes

A memoir in fragments, by one of New Zealand’s best and most beloved poets.

Near the end of her long life, Fleur Adcock assembled these 33 short autobiographical pieces – some commissioned by editors over the years, most newly written – and sent them to her son and designated literary executor.

From earliest childhood memories through to meditations on the getting of wisdom, these vignettes are beautifully written, irreverent and often hilarious.

They include perceptive portraits of notable writers Fleur was close to in New Zealand and England – Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, Barry Crump, James K. Baxter, Maurice Shadbolt, C. K. Stead, Angela Carter and Robert Graves. There are reflections on sisterhood, anthologising, poetry readings, and meeting the Queen.

This treasure of a book remembers one of New Zealand’s greatest poets.

‘One of the most accomplished and widely admired poets writing in English.’—The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry

‘All her literary urges were towards poetry but her prose was so lively and charming and beautifully composed.’—Steve Braunias, Reading Room

Born in Auckland, Fleur Adcock (1934–2024) was a New Zealand poet, editor and translator who resided in Britain. She published many collections of poems, and her awards include the 1961 Festival of Wellington Poetry Award, the Jessie Mackay Prize in 1968 and 1972, the Buckland Award in 1968 and 1979, the New Zealand National Book Award in 1984, an OBE in 1986, the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2006, and a CNZM for services to literature in 2008. Fleur Adcock’s Collected Poems was published in 2019, and in an expanded edition in 2024.

Cover photo: Fleur Adcock at home in East Finchley c. 1977 by Andrew Campbell
Cover design: Todd Atticus