From the exurbia of Waikato skies bigger than any museum, Alexander travelled the globe, inhaled knowledge and once lived in an exhibition. From atomised love affair to dashed figments, she gathered capability through writing and editing these poems in the same way we may edit memory. Kia kaha, kia toa, kia ora tatou katoa ....

Death … pervades the first poem of Raewyn Alexander’s The Museum of Lost Days. Thought the poet greets death with bravado in “yes,” she puts out orange cones “to bar any parking.” Relationships between mother and daughter, father and child, men and women are interposed with fundamental questions regarding travel, knowledge, affairs, and beautiful beaches: “muscular / tanned with endless suns / the seduction of rest” (“on the beach – bones and kelp”).
   Inevitably her characters may bee seen, somewhat, as simply a vehicle for Alexander to explore inherent dilemmas, dilemmas fused with urgency now that the poet has reached maturity and needs to asses her legacy; “memories gone in storm and cobwebs” (“I saw your secret handshake”) and in “I dreamt of you in white fake fur,” the poet writes “so it had to be pretend / since my ears fell off for you / and your throat froze with chilly lies / but I grew into make-believe sunlight / hooked my hand around your arm.”
   Nevertheless, on should not expect slick answers from her; rather she is an unsentimental observer of what happens: “I imagined we’d keep meeting on escalators / him on the way up and me descending to the street / lovely women often with him – laughing along” (“he did press-ups outside the local café”). For Alexander each minute of being is necessary to and connected with the earth. It is this connection with, and empathy for, the whole of life that imbues it with instantaneousness. Each moment of life, each small everyday occurrence, is embedded within the mental: “this is where tomorrow’s forgotten / long enough to remember how we love” (“lights stream past the ride we’re on”).  Throughout Alexander’s poems there are moments like these, where the sense of being and a being beyond the purely physical is evident.
   These are poems which will make you gasp – with wonder, delight laughter and amazement. Their power to do this lies in more than their subject matter. Every word, line, verse and stanza … has been weighed against the highest measure of truth and lucidity. Their work is distinguished by its virtuosity, control of language and feeling. The poems are imbued with a combination of intelligence and compassion.   Patricia Prime Takahe 65

Sample poem

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