Jenny Bornholdt

Read Jenny Bornholdt's The Rocky Shore (2008) in one sitting, laughing out loud, and when I'd finished surprised myself by having a proper cry, unusual for me, not sure why...

Her writing is without pretence. Clear and simple, like a child telling a truth, instantly evident. Hard to achieve.

Jenny Bornholdt's book is pleasingly done, the inside of the cover is a pure pale green, the paper is the creamy, slightly rough paper which suits poetry.

I read from the book to the women in my sewing show more circle, dipping in here and there for 'good bits', worried about imposing on them - but they laughed together at the right places - so stopped while the going was good. Later I looked up and one of them was sitting with her nose in the book.
The reading was difficult - I couldn't speak the line breaks.

She often uses what other people say, sets them up nicely in the poem, you can have fun with her. I felt invited into her thoughts all the way through, an honour, to share intimacy. Her appraisal of a builder or plumber who said "Smells of soup, have you got a bacon hock in there?"

The loss of her father, the fear for the child - those are in the background, touched upon, left for you to think about. I shall re-read it and discover what it is that made me cry - probably the writing about Nigel Cox.

He once came to speak to a class I was in. He knew then that he was dying - such a sad man - but we didn't, we were so chuffed he was there, in his beautiful foreign, brightly striped shirt. After reading his diary from Berlin, Phone Home Berlin, I thought, he must have seemed like a mystery to the Germans, they will have liked his manner so much, the gentleness and ability to get things done without being authoritarian, very Kiwi.

Jenny Bornholdt was a Poet Laureate of New Zealand, and this book won the Montana Award in poetry in 2009. show less

Anyone who loves books, their shape, their feel, the words on the page, where they take you and what they do to you, will love this beautiful little book from New Zealand. It celebrates the 20th birthday of the Whitireia publishing programme. You don't need to know anything about Whitireia to love the book, however.

A completely delightful celebration of books and reading.