Petroglyphs in Landfall

Read the full review of Petroglyphs by Craig Foltz in Landfall Tauraka Review.

Petroglyphs are carvings directly on a rock surface, made hundreds or thousands of years ago by ancient civilisations. The images might appear familiar, but the meanings are a mystery. Foltz, originally from the US, says in a 2024 interview with the Taranaki Daily News that specific 15,000-year-old petroglyphs in California formed a bibliography for his poems. ‘I’m trying to tell a story in a way that somewhat makes sense and somewhat doesn’t make sense, which is how I think petroglyphs work,’ he said. One could never be sure how to interpret the carvings.

Book cover of Petroglyphs by Craig Foltz

While the book’s design and structure are significant, the real excitement of this collection lies in being inside the poems, where, true to the poet’s promise, words flit around the edges of sense. The dense prose poems of INTACT are fuelled by absurdist lists and mini pronouncements, which allow Foltz to skip nimbly from one assertion to another to create elusive surreal worlds. At times there are playful searches for taxonomy but what we’re left with is the brush of a poem as it glides by.