The Tudor Style

Poems New and Selected

Elizabeth Smither

• Publisher: Auckland University Press
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781775582137
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

One of New Zealand's leading poets, Elizabeth Smither has published many collections and has won the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry. Her poems are characteristically slim, so the substantial selection of her work gathered in The Tudor Style has a striking effect. As Bill Manhire says, Smither's poems 'wave to one another, open doors and climb through windows'. This subtle and witty interconnectedness is a distinctive quality in her work. The poems show a delight in image, epigram and unexpected anecdotes. These swift darting poems return to themes such as women friends, gardens, figures of legend and story, religious experience and conversations. They form a striking and original whole, revealing Smither as a distinguished poet.

Contents

Change of name

Mission Impossible

The Feast of All Saints

The child nuns

A verse letter to Tonia

The grave of Armitage Brown, the friend of Keats

Goodbye to England

The red brick quad

The portrait

Rose against bamboo

The Tudor style

Fr Anselm Williams and Br Leander Neville ...

The family name

Visiting Juliet Street

The smile of the sweet-stall boy

The lions

Temptations of St Antony by his housekeeper

Iago before the racking

The death of Iago

A reader’s pleasure

Casanova answers a letter

Casanova’s ankle

Casanova’s equipment box

Casanova and le travel

Ignatius’s birthday

The terrapin

Reading Galway Kinnell

Swimming

The meeting of ocean and air

Swimming in a shoal of little fish

The safe beach

Swimming with the dead woman

I think Joan Didion has died

Wise Boswell

A weekend in the country

Brutal pruning of a camellia tree

A white camellia

Sputnik and star

A skyful of stars

Wave over rock

Finding the tiger skeleton

Daughter rescued by a spider during mass

Crucifer, thurifer

First speech lesson

Shakespeare virgins

Behind the mind of a good cliché

Plots in a school garden

Miss Darwin and the rosemary bush

A costume from the museum

Elizabeth Bennet’s crossing fields coals of fire trick

Nights spent with women

Commission from an aunt nun

St Paul’s kind of love

A quick look into Catullus

La ligne donnée

The O in Shakespeare explained

The Veronica’s veil technique

Winter’s natural position

In the second-hand clothes shop

To a small dog which will grow into a large

Hiring a Monet from the public library

Professor Musgrove’s canary

The Creative Writing Course faces the sonnet

The matter of angels on a pin

A question of gravity

Margo lecturing on death

To my father on his burial

Finger to finger

A reading from St Paul of seeds

Mourning garb

Horatio I liked better

Above you with flowers

Grave talk

Stubble fields

Punk girl sketching the Parthenon frieze

A cortège of daughters

Miriam’s wedding dress

My mother’s black dogs

Violets...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Dedication
• Contents
• Change of name
• Mission Impossible
• The Feast of All Saints
• The child nuns
• A verse letter to Tonia
• The grave of Armitage Brown, the friend of Keats
• Goodbye to England
• The red brick quad
• The portrait
• Rose against bamboo
• The Tudor style
• Fr Anselm Williams and Br Leander Neville ...
• The family name
• Visiting Juliet Street
• The smile of the sweet-stall boy
• The lions
• Temptations of St Antony by his housekeeper
• Iago before the racking
• The death of Iago
• A reader’s pleasure
• Casanova answers a letter
• Casanova’s ankle
• Casanova’s equipment box
• Casanova and le travel
• Ignatius’s birthday
• The terrapin
• Reading Galway Kinnell
• Swimming
• I think Joan Didion has died
• Wise Boswell
• A weekend in the country
• Brutal pruning of a camellia tree
• A white camellia
• Sputnik and star
• A skyful of stars
• Wave over rock
• Finding the tiger skeleton
• Daughter rescued by a spider during mass
• Crucifer, thurifer
• First speech lesson
• Shakespeare virgins
• Behind the mind of a good cliché
• Plots in a school garden
• Miss Darwin and the rosemary bush
• A costume from the museum
• Elizabeth Bennet’s crossing fields coals of fire trick
• Nights spent with women
• Commission from an aunt nun
• St Paul’s kind of love
• A quick look into Catullus
• La ligne donnée
• The O in Shakespeare explained
• The Veronica’s veil technique
• Winter’s natural position
• In the second-hand clothes shop
• To a small dog which will grow into a large
• Hiring a Monet from the public library
• Professor Musgrove’s canary
• The Creative Writing Course faces the sonnet
• The matter of angels on a pin
• A question of gravity
• Margo lecturing on death
• To my father on his burial
• Finger to finger
• A reading from St Paul of seeds
• Mourning garb
• Horatio I liked better
• Above you with flowers
• Grave talk
• Stubble fields
• Punk girl sketching the Parthenon frieze
• A cortège of daughters
• Miriam’s wedding dress
• My mother’s black dogs
• Violets and camellias
• Saints’ names
• A book of Louisiana plantation houses
• The race meeting
• A small seascape in oils
• 7 little poems about Canada
• Nine postcards on a wall
• Error on a quiz programme
• The muse (for women poets)
• The French translation
• Listening to Handel’s Water Music
• A pattern of marching
• Pansies
• A week of physiotherapy
• To Joseph, in hospital
• Two useful inventions
• The forecast for night
• Fallow field
• The wind brings up the rain
• Heights
• Kept awake by a party
• A little town, at night, from the air
• Rhyme, unrhyme
• A small potato crop
• Maltreating a tortoise
• Re-reading Stephen Spender
• Eating chocolates
• The servants’ quarters in Queen Mary’s doll’s house
• Choosing fabric for a chair
• Putting one’s head in a blossoming tree
• A view over trees
• Two cemeteries from the airport shuttle
• A small ordered garden on a disordered planet
• Jennifer’s wedding
• Time, when you write
• The ha-ha
• A flight of starlings
• Wild trout
• The sea question
• The butterfly girl
• Here come the clouds
• Effleurage
• Backcover