ISBN 3-9501862-0-4
SRP NZ$34.99
IMPRINT Global Vision
RELEASE October 2004
FORMAT 212 x 145 mm, hb, 128 pp
New Zealand-born Basil Dowling wrote over 500 poems during his lifetime. His first three collections were published by the Caxton Press, beginning with A Day’s Journey (1941), followed by Signs and Wonders (1944) and Canterbury and other poems (1949), and he maintained a steady poetic output in New Zealand and internationally until his death in 2000.
Printed in Vienna, Selected Poems features 142 poems, 36 of them previously unpublished.
Reviews:
“He had a liking for regular metres, tidy stanzas and full rhymes – traditional forms which he handled with grace and ease ... poetry so well made will not easily be forgotten.”
Dr. Peter Simpson, Auckland University
"I have read Basil Dowling's Selected Poems with much pleasure. I like them very much for their unaffected honesty and directness of statement, qualities that are becoming rare to the point of invisibility."
Vernon Scannell
“While remaining constant to his native background, Basil Dowling became increasingly aware of the social and political issues of his time, ever true to his profoundly humane and radical views. He has left a body of carefully constructed poetry, full of sanity and wisdom, which achieves the dimension of ‘verbal magic’ for which he aimed.”
R.J. Barttelot, The Independent
“Allen Curnow wrote that he had a gift ‘for catching a commonplace offguard’ and was ‘a quiet poet of carefully arranged understatements’."
Otago Daily Times
Dr. Peter Simpson, Auckland University
"I have read Basil Dowling's Selected Poems with much pleasure. I like them very much for their unaffected honesty and directness of statement, qualities that are becoming rare to the point of invisibility."
Vernon Scannell
“While remaining constant to his native background, Basil Dowling became increasingly aware of the social and political issues of his time, ever true to his profoundly humane and radical views. He has left a body of carefully constructed poetry, full of sanity and wisdom, which achieves the dimension of ‘verbal magic’ for which he aimed.”
R.J. Barttelot, The Independent
“Allen Curnow wrote that he had a gift ‘for catching a commonplace offguard’ and was ‘a quiet poet of carefully arranged understatements’."
Otago Daily Times
Orders & Information
Available in New Zealand and Australia from:
Peter Dowling, 783 West Coast Rd, Oratia, Auckland, NZ
Tel: +64 9 814 8993 peter@oratiamedia.com
or internationally
