Abandoned Novel

Abandoned Novel introduces a strikingly different new voice to New Zealand poetry. These sixty decasyllabic sonnets are formally rigorous and bracingly anti-poetic. David Beach takes ideas, information and units of language from many sources, and transforms them into lines that are both deliberately prosaic and mysteriously musical. From the opening evocation of a high-wire act, through highly ironic explorations of ideas of literary immortality, to a ceremony of at-home-ness in Bolton Street Cemetery, this book traces a fascinating arc, and can be read and appreciated on many levels.