Elizabeth Smither's poems - brief, darting, and full of unexpected insights - inhabit back gardens and vast
landscapes, art galleries, restaurants, educational courses, public transport and are peopled with family
and friends from the present and the past. They fit together in a quite distinctive way: "the point is not
simply the pleasure of juxtaposition, it is the way ... details transform each other through mutual
awareness", writes fellow poet Bill Manhire. Smither writes with a fluency and assurance,
and is so comfortable in her own voice, that it is easy to take her gifts for granted. Her first full-length
UK publication, A Question of Gravity, is an extensive selection from five of her most recent
collections, including Red Shoes (Godwit, 2003), the result of her now concluded two-year term as
The Mata New Zealand Poet Laureate.
Newcastle girls
Here’s one, shooting over the ice
on the black pavement, in a backless dress
screeching for a taxi to halt
leaning in through the open window
as if night is a fire and there’s a fire
within the taxi as well, as if
when she enters it with three companions
now running up, bare shoulders, spike heels
flying hair, clouds of cheap perfume
biting the air, a fireball in the back
will explode with the passion they are bringing
to the pursuit of love on this Newcastle night
when passersby shiver in scarves and heavy coats
and stamp their feet to get the blood flowing
as they walk towards heated cars
with something tame playing on the stereo
the black taxi the three are leaning into
lightly clutching one another’s waists
as though they are performing a conga
as they lean in towards the driver
swinging their purses which are diamante
and contain their life savings which
must not be spent on coats or boots
or even a fur tippet or gloves either
but on love and flinging themselves
towards it in the black night over ice.
Elizabeth Smither
