Kevin Ireland’s sixteenth book of poems takes a wry, comic-serious look at the glorious ways we fritter away our days. It opens with reflections on airports – those necessary yet infuriating hijackers of our time and patience – then returns home again to puzzle at, satirise and celebrate the intricate and devious manner in which we fill our minds, hopes and activities with rich delays, breathless foolishness and gorgeous squanderings. As Ireland puts it:

From the first moment
of forgetfulness to the final
going down of whatever it was,
there’s nothing but talk and wine
and books and food. Life is enriched
by indolence. I think of things
not done as buried treasure.


Kevin Ireland is one of New Zealand’s best-known writers. His poetry, fiction and non-fiction have been published, anthologised and translated for over forty years. Among his many honours he has received a National Book Award for Poetry, a Montana Awards prize for History and Biography, an OBE for services to literature, a Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement for poetry, and in 2006 he received the AW Reed Award for his Contribution to New Zealand Literature.