Tall poppies -- Bloodline -- Ellen's vigil -- Missing the point -- Armistice -- Kaiser Bill -- Child's cry in the storm -- Breasting a thin wind -- Featherston -- Departures -- There are degrees- -- Walking my baby back home -- V.E. Day -- and Neenish tarts -- Arie's tale -- The scent of hay -- Larry -- Sunday's ritual -- Winter gold -- Pirouette -- celebrating with a tea cosy -- Mulling -- The Judas tree -- Thought for summer -- A valley away -- Did the Company agent have a heart? -- Whispers from wood -- Sixteenth Christmas after -- Until today -- Yet more words- -- For Robin Stavely Mills -- Vivienne -- Folly -- Waiting -- A kind of contagion -- Roof over one's head -- Heartbeat from strings -- Chanson for Mirabelle -- Vision of escape -- Revelations -- Bedroom on the pavement -- Sea-gripes -- Cupboard love -- Sophie's cabin-mate -- My streetlamp dances -- The uninvited -- Penitence is my vanishing point -- Better forgotten -- Mills and Boon -- Ampersand -- upmarket -- Send-off for Sir Viris Bigge -- Visit -- The creator has lentoid eyes -- Lunar currency -- Recipe for writing a poem in the dark -- A landscape of shining leaves / by Elizabeth Smither.
Summary:
"Lorna Staveley Anker was born in 1914. She used to joke that this was the cause of the First World War. In truth, the poems in this fine collection reveal her as New Zealand's first woman war poet. There are poems here that arise from her childhood memories of Kaiser Bill. Three of her uncles died in France. She was a 'war widow' in the Second World War, one of the civilian casualties who make up what is known as 'the unsung generation'. This collection contains the best of her published poems and a substantial number never seen before. Edited with loving care by Canterbury poet Bernadette Hall, this is a book that will open your eyes to our nation's invisible history, the story of a seemingly ordinary life that proves to be extraordinary in the telling"--Back cover.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.