Gunson’s poetry collection praised by leading NZ poets

Media release
6 November 2012

Gunson’s poetry collection praised by leading NZ poets

The Auckland book launch of Vaughan Gunson’s new poetry collection, this hill, all it’s about is lifting it to a higher level, will take place at RM Gallery, 295 Karangahape Road on Saturday 17th November at 5pm.

The book is published by Steele Roberts (www.steeleroberts.co.nz). The poems have been praised by nationally prominent poets and editors.

Alistair Paterson, Poetry NZ editor, writes on the back cover: “This is a book I’ve been keenly awaiting… I’ve come to admire and respect what [Gunson] writes. His poems merge concerns for the human and natural worlds into a unity that reflects the human condition.”

National Poetry Day organiser, Siobhan Harvey, calls the book “a startling collection of poetry”. “Buoyed by Gunson’s eye for the unusual and the precise and his cadent tongue, the book mines new and familiar territory in surprising and exciting ways.”

The collection includes the poem ‘fastfood workers’, which was used in the 2010 Level 2 NCEA English exam. A number of poems have been read by Sam Hunt on his regular radio broadcast for Kiwi FM.

“The poems are about many things,” says Gunson, “embracing the diversity of human experience. There are poems about the beauty of the everyday, parenting and childhood, the creative process, death, moments of transcendence, social justice, and hope. One of the recurring images is of sunlight.”

Gunson will be reading poems from the book at the launch.

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