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12 November 2015
To skim the facing
blue page of the Pacific,
far as a desert’s ancient outlines
of vast mammals, birds.
As though the Nazca knew
we are drawn
to poorly explained signs.
Brent Kininmont’s first collection of poetry musters scenes from antiquity, a life in Japan, and a preoccupation with flight in its varied forms. Islands are stepping stones far below; plains are bused, hiked, cycled across. At any moment a colossus might appear. A child’s assessment of her own terrain keeps company with poems tracing a mother’s decline. Throughout these beautifully voiced and distilled pages, loud and faint thuds can be detected.
Brent Kininmont grew up in Christchurch and lives with his wife and daughter in Tokyo. His poems have appeared in Sport, Landfall, Trout, Turbine, and Best New Zealand Poems. Formerly a journalist, and a graduate of Victoria University’s creative writing Masters programme, he now teaches intercultural communication.
Cover: Maurice Askew, Colonial Williamsburg, Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu; William A Sutton bequest. Reproduced courtesy of the artist.