Afternoon of an Evening Train

A clod of earth speaks; a pipe sings; a chair dreams itself into being . . .

These are some of the presences in Gregory O'Brien's new collection. At the same time the book gathers together disparate voices, it charts both geographical and emotional territories. The poems propose a very personal map of New Zealand – from Waiheke Island to Dunedin, via the Waihi Beach Dump and the storm-water system beneath Wellington. Elsewhere, Afternoon of an Evening Train takes in a few locations in Southern Europe before arriving at the Taranaki settlement of Parihaka . . .

For O'Brien, the poem can be a rambling sideshow, a busy intersection, a crowded room or a cathedral. His verse is an exhilarating form of commuter-traffic 'by foot, road, air or rail' between the known and unknown worlds.