Fiona Farrell Boeken

Exploring the themes of life and walking, this collection features four essays interspersed with 21 evocative poems that respond to the Christchurch earthquakes and their aftermath. The poems serve as powerful interludes, akin to aftershocks, prompting readers to pause and reflect on the connections between physical movement and the emotional landscapes shaped by trauma. The structure, with a preamble and afterword, enhances the contemplative nature of the work, inviting deep engagement with both the prose and poetry.

The collection portrays the resilience of ordinary individuals in Christchurch, New Zealand, as they navigate the aftermath of the devastating earthquake on September 4, 2010. Through a series of poignant stories, it emphasizes their stoicism in the face of ongoing aftershocks and their determination to rebuild both their city and their lives.

One of New Zealand's most versatile writers, Fiona Farrell has published four collections of poetry over 25 years, from Cutting Out (1987) to The Broken Book (2011). Noun, verbs, etc. collects the best work from these books and intersperses them with other poems thus far 'uncollected.' The themes are wide ranging: political and personal, regional and global, including love and birth and death, war and emigration, history and landscape. The poems mix lyricism with the flat and plainspoken mode of Kiwi vernacular; they channel voices infrequently heard in poetry in traditional song and ballad forms. They are well crafted but unpretentious, jokey yet illuminating, self-deprecating but wise, sad, funny, and deeply human.

As war is waged in the Middle East, a woman in New Zealand has her nose in a book. Kate is immersed in other battles, engrossed in eyewitness accounts of an earlier war in ancient Persia. She has grown up, left her Otago home and returned, and in all these years books have shaped her life and made sense of the world - offering mystery and solace, entertainment and enlightenment. In an evocative and moving mix of memoir and fiction, award-winning novelist Fiona Farrell writes of life from The Little Red Hen to Owls Do Cry, from T.S. Eliot to Aphra Behn. Frequently funny, always original, Book Book is another extraordinary offering from the author of The Hopeful Traveller.