Overview

"Bruce Bisset was a professional performance poet in Aotearoa/New Zealand 1979-86, publishing 3 books in that time. Believing that ""performance is half the art"", when he stopped performing he stopped publishing. Now in his 70th year he has decided to release this collection of his subsequent work, selected by former poet laureate David Eggleton, spanning the period 1984-2023. Ordered chronologically, it is effectively an autobiography in poetical form. The title reflects the dominant themes as well as bookending his first book, ""beginnings""."

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9781869422257

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Reviews

"""These poems connect us to the real: love, fatherhood, politics, war, nationhood, passing time, matters of heart and mind. There is melancholy here, a rueful humour and ruthless honesty. As the poems unfold you can feel the rhythm and cadence of a lifetime passing by with its triumphs and regrets as the world slips deeper into disaster and the years take their toll on faith and hope. These accessible, straight from the shoulder poems morph easily into song. They teeter on the edge of despair but 'Sometimes love will catch you when you fall'."" -- Mike Johnson - writer, poet, publisher (Lasavia Publishing)"

Author Information

"Bruce Bisset is a fifth-generation pakeha (New Zealander of European descent) born a dairy-farmer's son in the Waikato, brought up in Auckland City, prominent later on Waiheke Island, who now lives in Hastings, Hawke's Bay. He was a professional performance poet in his homeland from 1979-86, publishing three volumes of poetry in that time. His first collection, ""beginnings"" (pub. 1979) was a best-seller in New Zealand, and he performed extensively throughout NZ, from street corners to hotels, universities, clubs, schools, and major festivals such as Nambassa and Sweetwaters, in company with most of the prominent poets and musicians of the time. Bisset has also been a journalist, corporate video writer/director, blues singer, environmental activist and newsletter editor, film and video technicians' guild co-ordinator, caf�/venue owner/manager (twice), elected local body politician (3 terms), and newspaper columnist. Pre-Covid he was a core organiser for the A/NZ branch of Extinction Rebellion as well as performing with his five-piece band, ""Bruce Bisset and the Rural Voters"". David Eggleton (born 1952) is a New Zealand poet, critic and writer. Eggleton has been awarded the Ockham New Zealand Book Award for poetry and in 2019 was appointed New Zealand Poet Laureate, a title he held until 2022. Eggleton's work has appeared in a multitude of publications in New Zealand and he has released numerous poetry books with a variety of publishers, including Penguin. He was the editor of New Zealand's premier literary journal, Landfall, from 2010 to 2017. He is a six-time Montana New Zealand Reviewer of the Year."

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