C. K. Stead

The Red Tram by C K Stead is another fine collection by one of New Zealand?s best writers. It includes some Auckland poems, some moving memories of childhood, poems about horses and cows, even one about his own legs. There are his usual satirical poems taking weapons from the writers of the past and skewering the politicians of the present. He continues to reflect on Allen Curnow, as well as on Janet Frame, Dennis Glover and a range of overseas writers. All these poems are have energy, speed, humour and force and offer pleasure and delight to the reader.

Opening with a sequence of poems entitled 'King's Lynn and the Pacific' which follows the fortunes of two young sailors voyaging with Captain Cook, and closing with another sequence, 'At Wagner's Tomb', with a central group of poems - alternately witty, satirical, philosophical, reflective, lyrical - in which the 'Dog' theme of the opening sequence returns, this collection shows C. K. Stead to be in full charge of a talent which has surprised, delighted and challenged readers of poetry since it first declared itself in the 1950s.

The wider world beckoned from the white ships sailing past Rangitoto Island, but the dream was also here on the Takapuna shoreline of Auckland, where the artist Melior Farbro grew his vegetables and let Cecilia Skyways follow her own form of Zen Buddhism in his garden hut.