What do you think?
Rate this book
Cold Snack
A well-loved New Zealand poet returns to territory that will be familiar to all readers in this collection of verse that takes on the uncelebrated, even mundane aspects of everyday family, work, suburbia. The book is divided into three sections. The first deals with a midlife career change; the second looks back to a period earlier in the poet’s life, when she was a receptionist for a television company; and the third is a more intimate, bittersweet offering of personal poems. With her moving, lyrical lines, the author documents and ties together the sounds, shapes, and experience of human existence. Winner, Montana New Zealand Book Award for Poetry 2008
64 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
1 person want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 27, 2012
Janet Charman, Cold Snack (University of Auckland Press, 2007)
Over the last few years, New Zealand poet Janet Charman's book Cold Snack, almost entirely unavailable in America, took on some sort of mystic quality as it sat there in my to-be-read list waiting for me to find some way to procure a copy. I'm not sure why it did, other than simple longevity; by the time I finally found a domestic seller who had a copy and ordered it, I had long forgotten where I first heard about the book, or indeed what I first heard about it. I tried not to let the disappointment that is inevitable in such cases cloud my judgment while I was reading.
“students flood
the assembly hall
till
it's a think tank
where curved green backs
and agitated hands
navigate the exam
no one can help them
i'm a wharf post in the back
wash
hear a pin drop
in the dense wet
light of
the assessment...”
(--”invigilator”)
Like a number of other books of poetry that ended up getting reviewed in this issue, Cold Snack is comprised of poems ranging from the good to the very good, but there's never a point when I was reading this book that it blew my head off. At no time did it break out of its comfort zone and do anything exciting or unexpected. That is not necessarily a bad thing; Charman, like the other poets reviewed here, knows what she's good at, and plays that for all it's worth. You will not be let down by these poems. But you will not be shot out of a cannon, either. Good, solid, average work. ***
Over the last few years, New Zealand poet Janet Charman's book Cold Snack, almost entirely unavailable in America, took on some sort of mystic quality as it sat there in my to-be-read list waiting for me to find some way to procure a copy. I'm not sure why it did, other than simple longevity; by the time I finally found a domestic seller who had a copy and ordered it, I had long forgotten where I first heard about the book, or indeed what I first heard about it. I tried not to let the disappointment that is inevitable in such cases cloud my judgment while I was reading.
“students flood
the assembly hall
till
it's a think tank
where curved green backs
and agitated hands
navigate the exam
no one can help them
i'm a wharf post in the back
wash
hear a pin drop
in the dense wet
light of
the assessment...”
(--”invigilator”)
Like a number of other books of poetry that ended up getting reviewed in this issue, Cold Snack is comprised of poems ranging from the good to the very good, but there's never a point when I was reading this book that it blew my head off. At no time did it break out of its comfort zone and do anything exciting or unexpected. That is not necessarily a bad thing; Charman, like the other poets reviewed here, knows what she's good at, and plays that for all it's worth. You will not be let down by these poems. But you will not be shot out of a cannon, either. Good, solid, average work. ***
Displaying 1 of 1 review