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September 2014
Paperback, 148 x 210mm
80 pages
‘A hundred years are but a moment
of sleep,’ writes Po, still riding.
In her first poetry collection, Frances Samuel leads us into the lives of characters we have not met before in New Zealand poetry. A man with a snorkel trawls fountains for coins; a vending machine produces a sailboat; a zookeeper frees all of his animals; we look for our double so that we can join the ark before it sails. Each step forward clears a path of snow, and contemplates the question ‘How do we get there?’ These journeys, surreal as well as everyday, are mapped with an exuberant imagination and intelligence.
‘I love the rich feel of Frances Samuel’s poems. Strange things happen. People yearn for other times and places. Sometimes they even walk to the moon. Yet the poet’s exotic elsewheres constantly dissolve into the local, into the day-to-day world where we also lead our lives. These poems – to steal Samuel’s own words – are the work of a professor of the invisible who is also a pickpocket of reality.’ —Bill Manhire
Frances Samuel lives in Wellington and works as a museum exhibitions writer. Her poems have appeared in many print and online publications, including Sport, Turbine, Hue & Cry, Snorkel, Staple and Great Sporting Moments. This is her first book.
Cover: Amy van Luijk
