Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Olivia Macassey

Through public appearances and recordings Olivia Macassey has established herself as one to watch. Not only a distinctive voice, she is developing a compelling personal style. Her work dares to disrupt what have become poetic formulae. It dares to lay bare the rarest of feelings. It dares to be intellectual at a time when evidence of profound reading may provoke various types of contempt from those who think poetry is a high brow use of advertising slogans.

And yet, if you take time to read and reread it, you will not find one line in Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction that is obscure, not one page that does not raise a smile of recognition, not one poem that does not astound you. With the gentle balance of its lines, the craft of its composition and the depth of its perception of the deepest of emotions, Olivia has created a work which not only promises much, it is warm and intelligent work in itself.

Can this be the book New Zealand poetry has been waiting for?