Vignettes

Near the end of her long life, Fleur Adcock assembled these 33 short autobiographical pieces – some commissioned by editors over the years, most newly written – and sent them to her son and designated literary executor.

From earliest childhood memories through to meditations on the getting of wisdom, these vignettes are beautifully written, irreverent and often hilarious.

They include perceptive portraits of notable writers Fleur was close to in New Zealand and England – Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, Barry Crump, James K. Baxter, Maurice Shadbolt, C. K. Stead, Angela Carter and Robert Graves. There are reflections on sisterhood, anthologising, poetry readings, and meeting the Queen.

This treasure of a book remembers one of New Zealand’s greatest poets.

‘One of the most accomplished and widely admired poets writing in English.’—The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry

‘All her literary urges were towards poetry but her prose was so lively and charming and beautifully composed.’—Steve Braunias, Reading Room