Cirrus@Austlit

'Opus: a life with music is a stunning collection, beautifully written and withheld.’ – Libby Sommer

'‘“Through music, we can say what we didn’t even know we felt.” – Ed Le Brocq. What more powerful way to reflect on your journey of life than entwined with the memory of music. Exquisitely wrought, Opus gives us snapshots, sometimes softened, sometimes shocking but always honed and beautifully crafted, revealing a deep perception and intimacy as we have come to know of Pip Griffin’s poetry.’ – Colleen Keating

'‘Pip Griffin’s Opus is a gently written verse memoir of her childhood in New Zealand to her mature years in Australia. References to Chopin, Mahler, Gustav Holst, Elvis Presley and many others justify its subtitle, “a life with music”. Touches of sadness, including her partner’s death and her mother’s thwarted dreams, balance the collection’s positive tone. This is poetry to read over a few winter evenings by the fire or summer afternoons in the shade of a tree.’ – Norm Neill'(Publication summary)

'In January 1923, Virginia Woolf noted in her diary that Katherine Mansfield had promised two years earlier to send her diary to her. She was perplexed and hurt that she had not, not knowing how ill Katherine had been. The ‘secret diaries’—Virginia’s begun after Katherine’s death in 1923, Katherine’s begun in 1920—are written in lyrical poems inspired by the friendship (and intense rivalry) of the two women. Virginia and Katherine recognised that they were ‘both after the same thing’ in their compulsive, innovative work of ‘writing their lives’.  The book presents a fresh dialogue that also suggests a tantalising possibility.'  (Publication summary)

''There is a fierce tenderness in these poems of happy remembrance and devastating sorrow. With so much love expressed so beautifully in the first half of the book, we instinctively fear what is to come, as if all that light cast shadows across our path. Though the death of a loved partner - also a poet - is deeply personal, these passionate poems open out and touch us with a consoling grief.' - Paul Kane

''"Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, stains the white radiance of eternity." - Percy Bysshe Shelley. From the first poem that speaks of the "delicate prints of oyster catchers" to the comfort of a ragged dressing gown, the protective love of the kahu-feather cloak and the "butcher-bird that perches very close", Pip, as a poet and wordsmith transports us into an experience that shines multicoloured with the beauty of a stained glass window. Each poem is a facet that adds to the mosaic, each poem a gentle play of light, illuminating page by page. For those of us who know life is a gift and are called to the hard work of hope, The Climb Back is invaluable.' - Colleen Keating

''Poignant, sensual, spiritual, sorrowful, and funny, Pip Griffin's latest poetry collection The Climb Back encompasses a life richly lived. What is not to admire about a poet who can write lines as diverse as "the shags open their sodden wings like flashers' raincoats" and "cherry trees in blossom line the streets like flower girls at a wedding". This book is a hymn to New Zealand, Pip's homeland, and a celebration of its landscape, wildlife and the Maori language. But even above this, it is a memorial to Ted, her friend, lover and fellow poet. If he were still here, I'd be clinking my glass with his, to celebrate her achievement.' - Mark Mahemoff' (Publication summary)

'The story of Margaret Caro, the poet’s aunt, and her family. First female dentist in NZ, Seventh-day Adventist and social reformer, she was a towering figure who worked on the NZ goldfields with her husband Jacob, a physician. They had three very successful sons. After her many adventures in the South Island she practised in Napier and experienced the 1931 Hawkes Bay earthquake. Includes a timeline for the family.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.