Just Arrived: “Gleam” by Sarah Broom
I am absolutely delighted to have just received a copy of Sarah Broom’s newly released and long awaited second book of poetry, Gleam, from Auckland University Press.
Sadly, Sarah Broom died on 18 April this year, before Gleam was published; my tribute to her is here. I also featured a poem from her first collection, Tigers At Awhitu, on the Tuesday Poem hub on 18 December last year: All my life.
As I said in my tribute, for me Tigers at Awhitu was one of the outstanding poetry collections of 2010, which makes Gleam a ‘must-read’ for me.
So stay posted to see and hear more about Gleam from me—but in the meantime, here’s what the back cover says:
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“I went looking for the crack
and as always the light
was nearly too much to bear —
In her second collection of poetry, Sarah Broom brings us not just to the deepest questions of existence but to an experience of mortality itself. Spare, poised and beautiful, the poems in Gleam unerringly catalogues the restorative handholds offered by the sea, the beach, the forest – even as fires burn there, birds die, fish are gutted, poems fail. With its ‘avenues of light’, with its ‘small harts pounding’, this book will open out painful, rewarding vistas for its readers.”
“These poems uncover in a catch of breath and heart what it means to hold on – and let go.” – Janet Charman
So nothing else for it now — I had best go read. I hope you will, too.