Baring poetic souls

By PENELOPE BIEDER

Stephanie de Montalk: The Scientific Evidence of Dr Wang
Published by Victoria University Press
$24.95

Robert Sullivan: Captain Cook in the Underworld
Published by Auckland University Press
$21.95

Robin Fry: Weather Report
Published by Inkweed
$22.95

Publishing a volume of poetry is an act of faith, a baring of the soul, sometimes wildly confessional, but more often deeply reserved where what is hinted at on the page is never fully revealed.

Stephanie de Montalk's second volume delicately circles "the art of penmanship". It is a most worthy successor to her award-winning Animals Indoors.

Fresh, precise and elegant The Scientific Evidence of Dr Wang presents itself in three parts - the first a series of charming profiles of a retired barrister, an exercise master, a dissident, an artisan, a solderer, and more.

Part Two is more personal with intimate snapshots of family holidays, grumpy neighbours, old age, hospitals and the repetitive delights of domesticity. And Part Three opens the door on the world outside.

A sturdy subtext underlies each piece, whether it be a fanciful opinion about the habits of Mrs Pobjoy, the last mistress of Beau Nash, who after he dies "recovered her sense of theatre and original freshness, learnt to be patient" - or a story of ancient Mesopotamian hero Gilgamesh who each morning "whistles as he greets the sun - clad as if for a courtly encounter".

Utterly different is Robert Sullivan's long poem which was originally commissioned as a libretto by the Orpheus Choir of Wellington to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The oratorio, Orpheus in Rarohenga, was composed by John Psathas, and performed this last November in Wellington by the choir and the NZSO.

Sullivan's fourth volume of poetry charts Western mythology and Polynesian legend as Captain Cook's expedition is viewed from a new perspective, namely the "damage his expeditions inflicted on the indigenous peoples of the Pacific".

Reading it on the page, one must try to sense its bold impact sung as an oratorio.

The third volume is the slightest, but in the world of poetry that may not be a slight. Robin Fry's first book studies the everyday - silver birch trees, Lake Taupo, the seasons, and the man at the vegetable shop who smiles at her - "I smiled back and felt the crepe of my cheeks become velvet". A friendly collection, Fry prefers to dwell in the known world, making her work somehow reassuring. She quotes Albert Camus, who sums up the warm tone of her writing: "In the midst of winter I finally learnt that there was in me an invincible summer".

* Penelope Bieder is a freelance writer.