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The thrushes are back. The blackbirds too
are back, already worrying the thrushes,
filching their choice worms. The gorse
is running the hills along the Aramoana
Road, spills the slopes yellow; the broom,
so much more politely, you call it
gold. Look again, the gorse walks prickling
against the skyline. This is September.
Still Is gathers ninety dazzling new poems by Vincent O’Sullivan. These are poems that call and respond, poems that elaborate and pare down, and poems in which an ending is a beginning.
Born in Auckland in 1937, Vincent O’Sullivan was the author of the novels Let the River Stand, Believers to the Bright Coast, and All This by Chance. He wrote many plays and collections of short stories and poems, was joint editor of the five-volume Letters of Katherine Mansfield, edited a number of major anthologies, and was the author of acclaimed biographies of John Mulgan and Ralph Hotere. He was the New Zealand poet laureate for 2013–2015. In 2000, he was made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and in 2021 he was redesignated as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Vincent died in 2024.
Cover: Keely O’Shannessy, inspired by Henri Matisse's mid-century cut-outs
