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Reaching for the Baxters
by Peter Olds

Peter Olds was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1944. He was Robert Burns Fellow at Otago University in 1978. His poems have appeared in most New Zealand journals & have twice been chosen for Best New Zealand Poems. Publications include Music Therapy & The Mad Elephant (Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop); It Was a Tuesday Morning: Selected Poems (Hazard Press); Poetry Reading at Kaka Point (Steele Roberts); & In the Dragon Café (Kilmog Press). In 2005 he received the Janet Frame Award for a poet.

Reviews

Peter Olds is somewhat of an old campaigner. His work doesn't disappoint here, either. His are all hits, no misses. He writes convincingly about his circumstances in a way that makes it an entirely new experience for this reader. Some are dedicated, but you don't have to know the person who is the subject of the dedication to know what the poem is about. The punctuation, manner of forming the ideas, is sublime, impeccable. Spare, brief, and very revealing. A master of style. Some really humourous lines, like, 'Convesation on the bus': “I'm in love with the blonde / on the bus / She's about my age / only 20 years younger.” Some recipes dot the pages; why not? It could be that 'How to stuff a kiwi' may well give you a really tasty dish. Olds treats memory not as nostalgia, but creatively; not revelling in his past mistakes, but in reverence to them; making them humorous takes on his life, ever insistent to entertain, not brow-beat. Nobody misses out here in Olds' treatment of them - visitor to the doctor, blonde lady on bus, the busker in the mall, cricketers at the Oval, and even Lindsay Rabbitt! Olds' style is spare, detailed, humorous, enlightening… one of New Zealand's very best poets.

Trevor Reeves, Southern Ocean Review

Sample poem

In a Council Flat

Life’s not bad these days –
the rent gets paid automatically,
one gets all the soup
one needs

The doctor’s rooms and chemist
and dairy are just around
the corner –
a regular bus service

The walls of the council flat
don’t leak – and you
have to strain to hear
the rain on the roof

Okay mate, let’s have
a theological argument:
four-wheel-drive cars are
dangerous around the city
 

TITLE               Reaching for the Baxters
AUTHOR         Peter Olds
PUBLISHED    2007
CATEGORY    No 18 in the ESAW mini series.
FORMAT         Paperback
EXTENT           A6,24 pages
ISBN                978-1-86942-096-3
PRICE              NZ  $5

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