COMP CLOSED | Book Giveaway | Green Rain

“Alastair Clarke shows the way poetry can catch the brightness of place (and travel)… Landscape is never redundant in poetry – I would read a whole book of this.” Paula Green, Poetry Shelf Review

Alastair’s poetry considerably addresses his re-seeing his country after living for many years overseas. Though this element is not explicit, it does underlie the feelings and ideas of much of the poetry.

Returning to live in the Wairarapa – a rich, wide valley bordered by mountains (frequently snow-covered in winter) – has been a compellingly focusing experience. New Zealand’s very challenging geology has influenced the poems. In contrast societal, cultural and political issues are also subjects in poems concerned with New Zealand and countries overseas.

Alastair’s poetry has been published in Landfall, Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2018, 2022, Orbis UK, Fresh Ink, and Enzine. In 2022 Alastair self-published Seeing. He is interested in how, when we look at things, vision is inconstant; how seeing is determined by light, and how small alterations in perspective profoundly shift vision.

Alastair is a New Zealander who returned to the Wairarapa in 2016 from several years in the UK.
He grew up in Pukerua Bay, a little north of Wellington, when Peter Bland, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, Denis Glover were residents, and very near, Louis Johnson, who were all, together, reshaping poetry in New Zealand.

He believes he was very lucky to have been free to enjoy the wonders of growing up in a world defined by wild hills, bush and the sea (the family had a dinghy) and the constant nearness of Kapiti Island.
He feels he was also immeasurably lucky to have had a father who was a writer (for NZBC), who deeply inspired in him a love for literature

Returning to live in the Wairarapa has been a compellingly focusing experience. That the land has been, and is, geologically riven, has been a profound influence in Alastair’s writing.

Click here to read more about the writing of Green Rain

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