A Question of Gravity: Selected Poems

Elizabeth Smither's poems — brief, darting, and full of unexpected insights — inhabit back gardens and vast landscapes, art galleries, restaurants, educational courses, public transport and are peopled with family and friends from the present and the past. They fit together in a quite distinctive way: the point is not simply the pleasure of juxtaposition, it is the way... details transform each other through mutual awareness, writes fellow poet Bill Manhire. Smither writes with a fluency and assurance, and is so comfortable in her own voice, that it is easy to take her gifts for granted.

Regarded as New Zealand's leading female poet, Elizabeth Smither has had to wait until now for this, her first full-length UK publication, which is an extensive selection from five of her most recent collections, including Red Shoes (Godwit, 2003), the result of her now concluded two-year term as Te Mata New Zealand poet laureate.

Paperback
98 pages
ISBN 1 900072 75 0
Published June 2004

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