New Zealand Poetry Society Te Hunga Tito Ruri o Aotearoa
The Summer King
The Summer King Joanna Preston (Otago University Press, 2009) ISBN 1877372692
Anne Harré
One of the first things you notice about Joanna Preston's collection The Summer King is the very fine detail given to the production of the book. From the reader's perspective it is a real joy to hold a book that has been given such loving attention; it's not often these days that a book of any genre is published in hardback. It adds weight, a kind of literary gravitas.
As for the contents, Preston (the inaugural winner of the Kathleen Grattan award) has surpassed the notion that poetry is dull, dry and without wit. With this completely approachable first collection Preston has shown herself to be a fearless explorer of the human condition. Families, relationships, fear, love and loneliness are all covered
Her work is a startling mix of beautiful images, at times subtly erotic with extraordinary simplicity as in ‘The Valley Farmers',
And then night: the last light doused,
pale bodies unclothed, and a low bed
where we too can unmake ourselves.
and others tinged with unspoken pain. In ‘The Willow' Preston writes
Each evening he'd go to the willow,
lean back against a trunk
that seemed to curve toward his body.
He took his grief there when his mother died.
When he died, I took the axe myself,
exulted in the heft and swing, the bite
of blade into limb,
the shriek of timber falling.
There is light now, sunlight.
In ‘Skeleton' she evokes the blood curdling terror and joy of tobogganing,
To hurl your own bones
skull first
down a twisting
chine of ice,
on a dinner tray
balanced
on two steel blades
This debut collection is gratifying and satisfying. It is earthy, technically assured, and utterly accessible.
