The Conch Trumpet (Paperback)

David Eggleton

ISBN 10: 1877578932 / ISBN 13: 9781877578939

Published by Otago University Press, Dunedin, 2015

About this Item

Paperback. The Conch Shell calls to the scattered tribes of contemporary New Zealand. It sounds the signal to listen close, critically and 'in alert reverie'. David Eggleton's reach of references, the marriage of high and low, the grasp of popular and classical allusion, his eye both for cultural trash and epiphanic beauty, make it seem as if here Shakespeare shakes down in the Pacific. There are dazzling compressions of history; astonishing paens to harbours, mountains, lakes and rivers; wrenchingly dark, satirical critiques of contemporary politics, of solipsism, narcissism, the apolitical, the corporate, with a teeming vocabulary to match. And often too a sense of the imperative, grounding reality of the phenomenal world - the thisness of things: Cloud whispers brush daylight's ear; fern question-marks form a bush encore; forlorn heat swings cobbed in webs. - from 'Nor-wester Flying' In this latest collection David Eggleton is court jester/philosopher/lyricist, and a kind of male Cassandra, roving warningly from primeval swampland to gritty cityscape to the information and disinformation cybercloud. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781877578939

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Conch Trumpet (Paperback)
• Publisher: Otago University Press, Dunedin
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1877578932
• ISBN 13: 9781877578939
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Calling to the scattered tribes of contemporary New Zealand, The Conch Trumpet sounds the signal to listen close, critically, and "in alert reverie." David Eggleton's reach of references, the marriage of high and low, the grasp of popular and classical allusion, his eye both for cultural trash and epiphanic beauty, make it seem as if here Shakespeare shakes down in the Pacific. There are dazzling compressions of history; astonishing paens to harbours, mountains, lakes, and rivers; wrenchingly dark, satirical critiques of contemporary politics, solipsism, narcissism, the apolitical, and the corporate, with a teeming vocabulary to match. And often too a sense of the imperative, grounding reality of the phenomenal world-the thisness of things: cloud whispers brush daylight's ear, fern question marks form a bush encore, forlorn heat swings cobbed in webs. In this latest collection, David Eggleton is court jester, philosopher, lyricist, and a kind of male Cassandra, roving warningly from primeval swampland to gritty cityscape to the information and disinformation cybercloud.

About the Author

David Eggleton (Rotuman Fijian/Tongan/Pakeha) has published ten previous poetry collections. He is a six-time winner of the Montana Reviewer of the Year, and a former Robert Burns Fellow at the University of Otago. He received the Prime Ministers Award for Literary Achievement in poetry in 2016, the same year that The Conch Trumpet won the Poetry Award at the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. From 200917, Eggleton was editor of Landfall. He received the 2018 Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writers Residency and served as the New Zealand Poet Laureate 201922.