Lifted

Description

The last lines of Bill Manhire's astonishing poem 'Kevin' lie at the heart of this book. These poems want urgently to know how the secular spirit can lift itself in the face of mortality and human violence. They are full of richness and courage and surprise, turning from grief to curiosity; then to beauty, humour, anger, gratitude, acceptance - and once again to curiosity.

Bill Manhire is director of the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington and the author of 121 New Zealand Poems, Doubtful Sounds, and Under the Influence.

"A poet in which a sly sense of humour is coupled with a respect for whatever truths a poem can wring out of experience." Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate (2001 2003)"