{"product_id":"the-chancy-now-120-sonnets","title":"The Chancy Now: 120 Sonnets","description":"\u003ch2\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e120 poems of the ‘Chancy Now’ – ‘still here, getting on, getting away \/ with things not planned, not prayed for, never promised’\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIn the 1970s a young professor, I rescued\u003cbr\u003efrom a puddle in Princes Street a Penguin\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eof Nietzsche’s\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003eThus Spake Zarathustra\u003cem\u003e, dried it\u003cbr\u003eand read it, annotating as I went, underlining\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ehis thought that one must have chaos within\u003cbr\u003eif one is to give birth to a dancing star –\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt 93, his wife Kay and son Oliver recently dead, writing nothing, C. K. Stead thought there were no more books. Then, ‘alive on pills, \/ and the surgeon’s knife’, enduring grief and recovery, sonnets began to appear, three or four a week, the poems collected in this volume.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eChaos won’t teach a sonnet to limit its lines\u003cbr\u003ebut every sonnet should have its dancing star.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the ABs under the high ball to Braunias’s lamingtons, from Dionysus to Guide Rangi, from the Uber driver (‘He’s a Wittgenstein man so we get along perfectly \/ passing over in silence what can’t be discussed’) to the author (‘My Chookspeak’s better than my French because I learned it \/ in the right way, by ear, not off the page’), 120 sonnets reveal a poet battered, bruised and still in his prime.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAfter a sonnet tending to self-pity and crap\u003cbr\u003eI consign it to the bin and set off knowing\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003etoday’s wild northerly wind and rough seas\u003cbr\u003eat Kohi will knock me into shape.\u003c\/em\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Auckland University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":69613580648482,"sku":"9781776712793","price":24.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0052\/0785\/1042\/files\/9781776712793__67218.jpg?v=1793741233","url":"https:\/\/petronella.pro\/products\/the-chancy-now-120-sonnets","provider":"Petronella's Gallery and Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}