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First published in 2019 and now available in paperback, this book was the first to represent the full extent of Brian Turner’s achievement as a poet, from his Commonwealth Poetry Prize-winning debut, Ladders of Rain, to poems written in 2018.
One of New Zealand’s most acclaimed and widely read contemporary poets, Brian Turner was a proud southerner, and the landscapes and skyscapes of the central South Island are among the strongest characteristics of his work. His themes range widely and make striking connections – poems about fathers and sons are also poems about the duties of care we owe to the natural world; love poems open out into metaphysical inquiry; satire keeps close company with political protest.
Turner’s work is distinguished always by his unmistakable wit and feeling, precision and insight.
‘Beneath the wit, the no-nonsense honesty, the rigorous clarity of sense and the sinewy rhythmic energy of the poems’ surfaces runs the craft of a sophisticated, confident and well-read poet.’ —The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature
‘Turner was a major New Zealand writer: for many, the Otago landscape is inextricable from Turner’s descriptions of it. Turner was a poet capable of extracting the multiplicity of that land as well as the nature of its birds, its fish, the various characters that inhabit it.’ —Claire Mabey, The Spinoff
‘He understood how to capture Central Otago with sparse and sure language that echoed the place’s immense skies and hills. His poems often feel like proverbs; quiet excavations of larger truths.’ —Ella Borrie, The Spinoff
'His main legacy is his poetry . . . He wrote short, tight lines, every word in its place, lyrical and wise and devoted to the natural world.' —Steve Braunias, Newsroom
Brian Turner (1944–2025) was born in Dunedin and lived most of his life in Central Otago. His first book of poems, Ladders of Rain (1978), won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and was followed by a number of highly praised poetry collections and award-winning writing in a wide range of genres, including journalism, biography, memoir and sports writing. Later poetry
collections included Night Fishing (2016), Inside Outside (2011) and Just This (winner of the New Zealand Post Book Award for Poetry in 2010). He was the Te Mata Estate New Zealand Poet Laureate 2003–05 and received the Prime Minister’s Award for Poetry in 2009.
Cover: Grahame Sydney, Poolburn Hill: to the Hawkduns (2018)
