The Lustre Jug

POETRY FINALIST

The Lustre Jug
Bernadette Hall
Victoria University Press
ISBN 9780864736086
RRP $25.00

In 2007 Bernadette Hall spent six months in Ireland, not far from Blarney, on the Rathcoola Fellowship. The poems in this collection arise from that experience. With light-heartedness and daring, they track between dualities: the North and the South in Ireland; the rain-washed skies of Donoughmore, Co. Cork and the Queensland rainforest. Between national and personal histories. As for poetry, what is it to be, an axe or a peace offering?

Bernadette Hall is an award-winning poet who lives in North Canterbury. Her work has been included most recently in Twenty Contemporary New Zealand Poets, edited by Andrew Johnston and Robyn Marsack (VUP/Carcanet, 2009). She is a founding staff member of The Hagley Writers’ Institute in Christchurch.