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Cold Spring
Cold Spring, James K. Baxter's unpublished second collection of poetry, bridges the gap between his first book, Beyond the Palisade (1944) and Blow Wind of Fruitfulness (1948). Its forty poems - chosen from some three hundred which he wrote at the ages of seventeen and eighteen - cover one of
the more turbulent periods of his life. After a series of difficulties with his first publisher, Baxter determined never to break up the collection and excluded these poems from his later books. However, the manuscript was recently discovered among the papers of his war-time friend Noel Ginn, and
this intriguing volume can now be read for the first time.
the more turbulent periods of his life. After a series of difficulties with his first publisher, Baxter determined never to break up the collection and excluded these poems from his later books. However, the manuscript was recently discovered among the papers of his war-time friend Noel Ginn, and
this intriguing volume can now be read for the first time.
96 pages, Hardcover
Published March 13, 1997
About the author
James K. Baxter
52 books7 followersJames Keir Baxter was a poet, and is a celebrated figure in New Zealand society.
In his critical study Lives of the Poets, Michael Schmidt defines Baxter's 'Jacobean consonantal rhetoric'.Schmidt has claimed that Baxter was 'one of the most precocious poets of the century' whose neglect outside of New Zealand is baffling. His writing was affected by his alcoholism. His work drew upon Dylan Thomas and Yeats; then on MacNeice and Lowell. Michael Schmidt identifies 'an amalgam of Hopkins, Thomas and native atavisms' in Baxter's 'Prelude N.Z.
In his critical study Lives of the Poets, Michael Schmidt defines Baxter's 'Jacobean consonantal rhetoric'.Schmidt has claimed that Baxter was 'one of the most precocious poets of the century' whose neglect outside of New Zealand is baffling. His writing was affected by his alcoholism. His work drew upon Dylan Thomas and Yeats; then on MacNeice and Lowell. Michael Schmidt identifies 'an amalgam of Hopkins, Thomas and native atavisms' in Baxter's 'Prelude N.Z.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 12, 2023
GOATed collection from the GOAT NZ poet, James K. Baxter. Here’s a wee taster from the poem: “In the lion rocks”:
“In the lion rocks and the sands of sorrow
Ground from volcano grief; in the grave ways
Of the body, when death has grown bone
In me and sown that muddy sun of sureness
That marks the man: I will remember you.
For your oblivious and flower-like grace
Poised on a blade of time. Most for your green
And cultured ignorance of my mountains of madness.”
Needless to say I was breaking out the sticky notes again with this one.
“In the lion rocks and the sands of sorrow
Ground from volcano grief; in the grave ways
Of the body, when death has grown bone
In me and sown that muddy sun of sureness
That marks the man: I will remember you.
For your oblivious and flower-like grace
Poised on a blade of time. Most for your green
And cultured ignorance of my mountains of madness.”
Needless to say I was breaking out the sticky notes again with this one.
Displaying 1 of 1 review