Lisa Samuels Picks:
From the Antipodes (Maungatua Press 2002, revised 2003, 2017) is a book-length poem whose hundred pages recalibrate allusive literariness to include Aotearoa. A visit from Dante is one part of making a new literary whakapapa of elsewheres and heres. This poetry’s historical looping rewrites future as past and past as future – from flora and fauna to multilingualism, from “coo roo coo” to te kore. Gorgeous rhythmic energy and visionary drive. Also: Cilla McQueen’s Axis (Otago, 2001) and Craig Foltz’s Locals Only: An Outsider’s Insider Perspective on Aotearoa (Compound Press, 2020).
Lisa Samuels
Professor of English and Drama, University of Auckland
