Peat / Lynn Jenner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jenner, Lynn, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Brasch, Charles--Criticism and interpretation.

Brasch, Charles.

Express highways--New Zealand--Kapiti Coast District.

Express highways.

Criticism and interpretation.

New Zealand--Kapiti Coast District.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

274 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Dunedin : Otago University Press, 2019.

Summary:

"Peat starts out as Lynn Jenner’s study of the Kapiti Expressway, built between 2013 and 2017 and passing, at its nearest point, about a kilometre from her own house. She decides to create a kind of archive of the construction of this so-called Road of National Significance. How did it come to be built? What is its character? Who will win and who will lose from its construction? What will be its impact on the local environment? Jenner begins a quest to find a fellow writer with different sensibilities to help her think about the natural world the road traverses. New Zealand-born poet, editor, art collector and philanthropist Charles Brasch is her choice. Researching Brasch will be her refuge from the constant pile-driving and the sprawling concrete, and perhaps the poet will offer some ways of thinking that will help her understand contemporary events. She reads and reflects on Brasch’s memoir, some of his poems, his journals and his letters to the local paper. She thinks about Brasch in the context of his family and New Zealand in the 1940s–60s, and she reads local papers. She reads the official handouts about the road and listens to people in her local community when they talk about the road. From there Lynn Jenner carefully builds her unconventional text, layer upon layer, into an intelligent and beautifully refracted work that is haunting, fearless, and utterly compelling"--Distributor's website.

Contents:

Author's note

A necessary prtection

Dear Mr. Brasch

The information booth

The [taniwha] of Poplar Avenue

Brasch comes over the hill

This place

The Mackays to Peka Peka Expressway: It's here now and itr's part of our lives

Alliancing, it's a thing

The fight against muddle and sham

Sixteen chapters of the Kapiti Expressway noise story

Charles Brasch's family history as a painting, somewhat in the style of Colin McCahon's "The canoe Tainui"

"Indirections", Charles Brasch's [largely] unloved memoir

The state of things at the house

Liking the local, a reading of Charles Brasch's poem "The clear"

The lady engine

The human hand

On the unshapely present

One starless night: A glossary of my acquaintance with Charles Brasch

The prettiest road in New Zealand: A glossary of my acquaintance with the Kapiti Expressway.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1988531691

9781988531694

OCLC:

1085629464