fluid, Karen Peterson Butterworth, no. 6 in the Earl of Seacliffe Art Workshop (www.earlofseacliffe.co.nz) mini-series, 24pp, 2006.
Bernard Gadd
fluid is literally a pocket book with a glossy card cover featuring a photo of the writer. Much the best poems in this collection are in the haiku/senryu, including the sequence "The Cataract Operation". The other poetry tends to be conventional, full of metaphor and personification, though I can see the verbally lean "nothing" and "girls can do anything" appealing to many readers:
... yes girls
can do anything but most often
end up doing everything for bugger-all
But the haiku are often vivid, wry,
april breeze
the artist paints a rainbow
no longer there
or moving:
at the barbecue
sipping cold wine
news of my brother's cancer
