Needlework: A Collection of Poems

by Suzanne Hocking

A collection of twenty-five poems spanning a variety of styles including haiku chains, sonnets, and free verse. Many play on the concepts of needlework to evoke the delicacy, violence, and interconnectedness of human emotion and the natural world. Others place love and loss against a background of prolonged time, contrasting the inevitable unravelling of meaning with the knowledge that everything is connected by threads of continuity.

...a stitchless universe
between the draping of our hands...

ebook

Published October 1, 2017

About the author

Suzanne lives in Wellington, New Zealand with her partner and a trio of furry companions. In 2007, she moved to New Zealand, freelanced for a time, and then took a major turn and began pursuing a career in paramedicine. She now works as a paramedic for Wellington Free Ambulance. She has had poems and short stories published in various literary magazines, and The Matchstick Girl was shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize in 2012. She is currently hard at work on a new trilogy.

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh gosh I loved this collection. particularly I loved Hush and The ghosts of Los Angeles; and felt wildly uncomfortable reading The drippings of time: "tissue paper wounds"! it was so visceral and so spot on it was hard to read!

[Aldi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm usually a bit fussy about (read: intimidated by) poetry, but this lush little collection just flowed through me like good wine. Rich with lingering imagery, evocative wordplay and emotional resonance, it does what all good art should - it moves something in you.

It's hard to pick favourites but I particularly loved Intravenous Cannulation (metaphor win!), Driving Under the Influence #2 (hedgehog!), Table Cloth (feels!) and The Heartspoiled Land (title envy!).