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Extract

A rose rescues a job interview and other everyday miracles from one of our most treasured poets.

The grass with little daisies in it springs
as if springs are under my feet. I poke

the ferrule of my umbrella in it, as if
I need a prop for steadiness and yet

it is a pretence: waterlogged or not
something like joy is running underneath.

In her twentieth poetry collection, Elizabeth Smither brings together a new ensemble of surprising images and charismatic companions. A herd of cows gathers around a radio to listen wide-eyed to a Mozart concerto. A frog leads us unhurriedly down the garden path. Jane Austen’s Emma makes an appearance. A cat critiques Wittgenstein. And a flamboyant fabric rose rescues a job interview.

Each poem in The Interview Rose is a bridge between the private self and the physical world, travelling the long route through art, religion, philosophy, and the pleasures of language.

Author

Elizabeth Smither has written six novels, six collections of short stories and nineteen poetry collections. She has twice won the major award for New Zealand poetry and was the 2001–2003 Te Mata Poet Laureate. In 2004, she was awarded an honorary LittD from the University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau for her contribution to literature and was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit. She received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in 2008. Her book, Night Horse (Auckland University Press, 2017), won the 2018 Ockham New Zealand Book Award for Poetry.

Endorsements

‘The Interview Rose has Elizabeth Smither’s voice, her distinctive tone, all over it – measured, wry, insightful, observant. Smither prefers understatement to melodrama, and the poems are directed outward, delighting in the world. The Jane Austen poems are little marvels of literary criticism.’
— Tim Upperton

Reviews

• 'One approaches a new collection by Elizabeth with a mixture of confidence and anticipation: "Confidence" because of the certainty you are in good hands, and are bound to encounter a gathering of shortish poems brimming with wit, sharp observation, surprising but telling comparisons, stylish and apt phrasing, and lashings of honesty, insight and truth. "Anticipation", because although you know the sort of thing that’s coming, it always surprises and delights with fresh and unexpected discoveries. And so it is with The Interview Rose.’ — Peter Simpson
  
• 'If you are look­ing for a really com­pas­sion­ate poem, it would be hard to beat Eliza­beth Smith­ers’ Love at the Gare de Nord. She spots a messy couple, dirty, shunned and annoy­ing, but when she sees them embrace and kiss she under­stands that they, too, have the right to live and love. Moral? Don’t ever look down on people. Smither never does.' – Nicholas Reid for the Listener 
  
  
• Read an interview with Elizabeth on NZ Booklovers: 'It is just a continuation of a poetry writing life. That sounds pompous but I am always aware of Simon Armitage’s warning that writing poetry "is being forever apprenticed to an unachievable goal".'
  
  
• Margaret Austin reviews The Interview Rose for Regional News – Eyes on Wellington: 'I have referred three times to this poet’s wry expression – evidence of maturity, I think, and the philosophical attitude from which it originates.'
  
  
• 'To call Elizabeth Smither erudite would be an understatement.' The Interview Rose is featured in Reid's Reader.