The Lakes of Mars

the long version

"In his new collection, 'business as usual' takes poet Chris Orsman from his home in Wellington back to the Antarctic so masterfully described in his previous collection, South. Orsman is preoccupied in these poems by perspective-viewing the world through long grass, the lens of a camera, the stained glass of a porch window, the 'clear sight' of a great-grandfather marching on Parihaka, the words of Tennyson and Browning. Written from the standpoint of an unfamiliar, elemental landscape, from the cloudiness of nostalgia or from the vividness of memory, these are distinctive and scrupulous poems with a marvellous resonance."--BOOK JACKET.