Research Catalog

Title

Peat / Lynn Jenner.

Author

Jenner, Lynn

Publication

Dunedin : Otago University Press, 2019.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

274 pages : illustrations, color maps; 23 cm

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.

Subjects

• Express highways
• Brasch, Charles
• Brasch, Charles > Criticism and interpretation
• Express highways > New Zealand > Kapiti Coast District
• New Zealand > Kapiti Coast District
• Criticism, interpretation, etc

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 258-266) and index.

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.

Call Number

JFE 20-2778

ISBN

• 1988531691
• 9781988531694

LCCN

• 2019401099
• 40029651104

OCLC

1085629464

Author

Jenner, Lynn, author.

Title

Peat / Lynn Jenner.

Publisher

Dunedin : Otago University Press, 2019.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 258-266) and index.

Other Standard Identifier

40029651104

Research Call Number

JFE 20-2778