In Position

Lauris Edmond is one of New Zealand's most distinguished poets. Her career has been extraordinarily compressed. Born in 1924, she did not publish her first book until 1975. Since the eleven major collections have appeared, plus An Autobiography in three volumes. Her Selected Poems won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1985. Bloodaxe published her New & Selected Poems in 1992. The voice in this new collection is full of affirmation and pleasure. For Lauris Edmond, being a woman over 70 is an invigorating experience, especially at the end of a century that has so fundamentally changed women's lives. These new poems show an awareness of loss, of a complete and equivocal grief, set against the vivid savouring of a fragile but often luminous present. Hers is a mature voice, still resilient, even buoyant, yet deeply serious in its reflections on the need to affirm our humanity in the face of death and denial.