New poetry from Victoria University Press

South: An Antarctic Journey ~ Chris Orsman
South tells the story of Scott's tragic last expedition to Antarctica. Different voices are heard—members of the polar party, Scott's photographer Ponting—as the poem explores the drama and the perplexities of Scott's famous great failure. South is a major New Zealand poem which evokes the surreal beauty and rigour of the great ice continent. Finally, the poet comes to see Antarctica as a symbol for—in Seamus Heaney's words—the rim of silence out of which consciousness arrives and into which it must descend.
The Sounds ~ Andrew Johnston The eagerly awaited second collection from the author of How to Talk, winner of the 1994 New Zealand Book Award for poetry and the NZSA (PEN) Best First Book Award. These poems explore with renewed lyrical intensity our negotiations—heartfelt and humorous—with memory and possibility, with words and the world, with our selves and each other.