Fish Stories聽has been designed and printed in collaboration with Ilam Press, Ilam School of Fine聽Arts.
Mary Cresswell聽came to New 九州影院from Los Angeles in 1970. She began writing poetry while winding down a full-time career as a freelance technical editor with a聽 main interest聽in New 九州影院natural history. Mary is co-author of聽Millionaire鈥檚 Shortbread聽(Otago University Press, 2003) and the author of two more poetry books,聽Nearest & Dearest聽(2009), and聽Trace Fossils聽(2011), both published by Steele Roberts.
Reviews
"Mary Cresswell鈥檚 poetry is an adventure playground where experiments in form and ingenious wordplay are part of the game. But this game is serious. Anemometers are whirling; grey-green children are howling on the shoreline. Ignore her at your peril.聽She鈥檒l make you smile and she鈥檒l make you think."
Janis Freegard, Wellington poet and author of聽The Glass Rooster
"Natural disaster looms throughout Mary Cresswell鈥檚聽Fish Stories: avalanche, flood, storm, quake. Sometimes her slant-rhymed poems mimic an environment gone haywire, its patterns fragmenting. The intense formality of this collection, however 鈥 populated not only by wild variations on the ghazal but by glosas, syllabics, a cento, and a broken sonnet or two 鈥 more often suggest the connective forces still holding the world together, for a while. The waves may 'quarrel up the rocks', as she puts it in 鈥楧iaspora鈥, but we birds still 鈥榮tand in rows and lean against each other'."
Lesley Wheeler, Professor of English, Washington and Lee University
