Michele Leggott's Books

Face to the Sky

By: Michele Leggott

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In her latest collection, Michele Leggott speaks to the art and writings of nineteenth-century New Zealand painter Emily Cumming Harris. Face to the Sky tells stories of love and loss from two woman in the shadow the same mountain, more than a century apart. 'Voices sing from the archive: a choir of breakers on a North Taranaki beach. Two women born more than a hundred years apart tell stories of love and loss in the shadow of the mountain that is always there. One of them becomes a painter of botanically accurate native flora, and writes all her life. The other, now without sight, lives in a world of sounds caught into expanding webs of memory. She listens for the other, tracing the delicate shapes of what she cannot see, taking her cue from the words of others. She listens and travels, picking up connections over time and place. Mothers and fathers come and go, adding their voices to the tumult on the beach, the shadow of the mountain, the hills above Nelson where the first woman comes to rest. The second, living between two small volcanos in a northern city, waits for a miracle that might cure the lymphoma that has been tracking her days. Through it all, the familiar phrases of the weather forecast sound their ever-hopeful, ever-changing predictions.' — Michele Leggott

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Page Count

104

Publisher

Auckland University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1776711076

ISBN 13

9781776711079

As Far As I Can See

Poems by Michele Leggott

By: Michele Leggott

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As Far As I Can See

Poems by Michele Leggott

By: Michele Leggott

Beautiful and moving poems by a prizewinning New Zealand poet. Leggott writes with passion, tenderness and courage about her deep sorrow at losing her sight. The sharpness of images so characteristic of this poet and her wonderful ear for the musical sounds and rhythms and pauses of language reach a new poignancy, a tragic tension, in these poems.

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Page Count

118

Publisher

Auckland University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1775580199

ISBN 13

9781775580195

Milk and Honey

By: Michele Leggott

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Milk and Honey

By: Michele Leggott

Deft word play, allusion, and quotation meet intense images and stirring rhythms in this compendium from one of New Zealand's top poets. The verse in this demanding body of work represents a step forward—it contains a sense of a wider world beyond the pages and enough substance to yield pleasure over many readings. Lovers of words, verse, and rhyme will find delight in this distinctive collection from a poet further developing her voice and her craft.

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Page Count

189

Publisher

Auckland University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1775581233

ISBN 13

9781775581239

Mezzaluna

Selected Poems

By: Michele Leggott

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Mezzaluna

Selected Poems

By: Michele Leggott

Mezzaluna gathers work from Michele Leggott's nine books of poetry. As reviewer David Eggleton writes: "Leggott shows us that the ordinary is full of marvels which... stitched, flow together into sequences and episodes that in turn form an ongoing serial, or bricolage: a single poem, then, rejecting exactness, literalism, naturalism in favor of resonance, currents, patterns of ebb and flow." In complex lyrics, sampling thought and song, voice and vision, Leggott creates lush textured soundscapes. Her poetry covers a wide range of topics rich in details of her New Zealand life, full of history and family, lights and mirrors, the real and the surreal. She focuses on appearance and disappearance as modes of memory, familial until we lose sight of that horizon line and must settle instead for a series of intersecting arcs. Leggott writes with tenderness and courage about the paradoxes of losing her sight and remaking the world in words.

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Page Count

216

Publisher

Wesleyan University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0819579084

ISBN 13

9780819579089

Heartland

By: Michele Leggott

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Heartland

By: Michele Leggott

Michele Leggott's new book of poetry follows on from her 2009 collection, Mirabile Dictu, in its exploration of light and of gathering dark. Leggott is a poet of the lilting, shining moment, and five of the sections in this collection follow her through her own moments and movements—to Devonport, to !--?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /--Australia, to the North—though these sequences also reverberate with the stories and histories of others. The final two sections take this exploration of character and narrative further as in one we see off a soldier—shadowed by Leggott—to the First World War; and in the other—set in an earlier, unspecified time charted for us by telegraphic weather reports—a family tragedy unfolds, until a body is finally brought home for burial. Previously a poet to whom layout was crucial, the book includes the last poems Michele wrote that she was able to see the shapes of on the page, and thus Heartland gestures back towards previous work while at the same time beginning to chart a new compositional method.

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Page Count

120

Publisher

Auckland University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1775587355

ISBN 13

9781775587354

Vanishing Points

By: Michele Leggott

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Vanishing Points

By: Michele Leggott

It's an optical amusement, a punctured surface letting light pour through holes cut out of the picture. Moon, army tents and the windows of houses and St Mary's church glow or flicker with luminance. Between them move women and children as well as soldiers. Steamers, a brig and a schooner ride on the moonlit sea. Part and not part of the scene is the artist's son, who lies three days buried in the churchyard at the foot of the hill where his father sits sketching the arrival of imperial troops. Now walk away from the painting when it is lit up and see how light falls into the world on this side of the picture surface. Is this what the artist meant by his cut outs? Is this the meaning of every magic lantern slide? Vanishing Points concerns itself with appearance and disappearance as modes of memory, familial until we lose sight of that horizon line and must settle instead for a series of intersecting arcs. It is full of stories caught from the air and pictures made of words. It stands here and goes there, a real or an imagined place. If we can work out the navigation the rest will follow. Michele Leggott's new collection is full of history and family, lights and mirrors, the real and the surreal, now articulated through a powerful amalgam of prose poems and verse.

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Page Count

136

Publisher

Auckland University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1775589595

ISBN 13

9781775589594

Mirabile Dictu

By: Michele Leggott

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Mirabile Dictu

By: Michele Leggott

Culled from the author's term as poet laureate, this collection delves into both the present and the past, combining poems of today with those of history. From the inspiring setting of Matahiwi Marae in Hawke's Bay to the beautiful backdrop of Florence, Italy, this anthology explores the fascinating day-to-day life of the poet herself. Serving as an autobiographical narrative, this portrait also illustrates her journey to seek out ancestral relations, finding them emigrating from their homeland and settling in a budding colonial town. Exploring languages within languages, this compendium also touches on the concepts of hearing and seeing, coming and going, and the representations of experience itself. Layered with intense imagery and stirring rhythms, this engaging volume is ideal for budding writers and experienced poetry fans alike.

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Page Count

161

Publisher

Auckland University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1775581241

ISBN 13

9781775581246

Milk & Honey

By: Michele Leggott

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Milk & Honey

By: Michele Leggott

There is a poem in As far as I can see (AUP, 1999) that imagines a future time: They gave me flowers and asked where I would go. To open the eyes of the soul, I said. There is a way but this is only the first gate. milk and honey is a dance to the music of that future time. It looks back and remembers. It looks forward and tries to see what will happen next. Its theatre is the world turning round and what can be saved each day from a life of the imagination. It builds tentative structures from smaller parts that come and go like thought itself. It is a lamentation, the universe as circus. It is a pattern of doors opening. It counts and it listens.It is a series of border-crossings between light and dark, old world and new, history and desire, body and soul, life and death, yes and no. It is an attempt on happiness, another search for the oh of transformation.It is in three parts with a gateway at either end. It can be read from the front or the back and there is seriousness but also songs along the way. Why is it called milk and honey? Because of a song. Why are there two clowns on the cover? Because one morning they were front-page news

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Page Count

113

Publisher

Salt Pub

Published Date

ISBN 10

1844712656

ISBN 13

9781844712656

Swimmers, Dancers

By: Michele Leggott

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Swimmers, Dancers

By: Michele Leggott

Swimmers, Dancers is a second collection of poems from Michele Leggott and is a tender evocation of family in free open verse that is full of colour, movement and light. The poems remember her parents and childhood, celebrate the birth of Leggott's second son and offer glimpses of art and literature amidst endless inventive games with words, sounds and spaces.

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