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Where Selina Marsh's first collection,
Fast Talking PI, boldly, insightfully, and lyrically wrestled with the realities of being an individual of Pacific descent in a primarily European world, her latest offering fiercely combats the loss of a loved one with all of the techniques of poetry and the Thai kickboxing she practices at her disposal. The compendium brims with a fluid, humming list of poems, literary shout outs, and personal elegies, as Marsh takes readers through her mother's cancer diagnosis and the long journey as her illness played itself out. Along the way, the poet offers glimpses of other parts of her world as well: scenes from Matiatia to Orapiu to Apia; classroom politics; the importance of leadership; and the reasons she feels New Zealand is a "lucky" country. The affecting, rhythmic verses in the book are given a literal, and appealing, voice in the accompanying audio CD, on which Marsh reads aloud a selection of the poems.
About the author
Selina Tusitala Marsh is a lecturer in the English department at the University of Auckland. She is the author of the poetry collection
Fast Talking PI, which was awarded the NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for Best Book of Poetry.
Her work has also been featured in
Niu Voices: Contemporary Pacific Fiction 1 and the Montana New Zealand Book Award-winning anthology,
Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poetry in English.
Summary
In Dark Sparring, Selina Tusitala Marsh combats family loss with all the techniques of poetry, ritual and Thai kickboxing at her disposal. The book and accompanying CD brim with fluid, humming list poems, literary shoutouts and personal elegies, as Marsh takes us through her mother's diagnosis with cancer and the long journey out the other side of
