Author(s): Elizabeth Smither

New Zealand Poetry

Eight years after her last, prize-winning, collection, The Lark Quartet, this is a new book of poems from a major poet. The Year of Adverbs is full of the stuff of daily life, fizzing with personalities, alive with incidents and travelling from New Plymouth to Paris and back again. There is a wedding, a birth, several deaths and funerals as well as glimpses of Walter Ralegh, Fats Waller, Eliza Bennet, a car, a bicycle and a horse playing an accordion. Smither's eye for unexpected likenesses, her verbal playfulness, her distinctive wit and style are everywhere apparent. The book ends with a delightful sequence of 'little Parisian poems' revelling in small details of that city and finishing, 'Au revoir, bonne journee'. Publishing August 2007.  . . . one of the most rewarding New Zealand books of 2007. - Iain Sharp, Sunday Star-Times ÃÂÂÂÃÂÂÂÃÂÂÂÃÂÂÂÃÂÂÂÃÂÂÂÃÂÂÂÃÂÂÂÃÂÂÂÃÂÂÂÃÂÂÂÃÂÂÂÃÂÂÂÃÂÂÂÃÂÂÂ÷ The grace and elegance with which Smither writes demonstrate her honed technique. - Margaret Christensen, Wairarapa Times Age . Smither emerges from this collection as an uncommonly attractive poetic personality, by turns whimsical, piquant, learned, heartfelt and acute, with a quick eye for absurdities, but never supercilious or scathing, inclined on the contrary to join in the fun. - Iain Sharp, Sunday Star-Times · Oblique, amused, always probingly intelligent, Smither's muse is too wry, too self-aware, to demand disciples or to found a school. - Hugh Roberts, NZ Listener