Upturned

Author(s): Kay McKenzie Cooke

NZ Poetry

Kay McKenzie Cooke chronicles life as it comes to her – the quotidian happenings in and around her home in Dunedin and further south where she grew up, and not-so-ordinary upturned world she experiences when she visits her son in Berlin. And then there are those things that seem ordinary enough until the poet flips them over so she can locate the beating heart.  Whānau and tūpuna (Kay is Ngāi Tahu and Pākehā) and the natural world are the places Kay is happiest and she writes with candour about grief and joy, loss and discovery. What comes through time and again in her work is a deep resilience born of always having one eye on the great mountains and rivers of the south and the other on the small things people hold close to make sense of an increasingly perplexing world.


Product Information

"It is her patient, adroit precision with imagery, as much as her gift for hitting the right note, that bring such shine to the ordinary …" – Vincent O’Sullivan

Kay McKenzie Cooke is an award-winning poet and short story writer. Her debut collection, Feeding the Dogs, won the Jessie McKay Prize at the New Zealand Book Awards. Kay lives in Dunedin and spends part of her year in Berlin.

General Fields

  • : 9781988595146
  • : CUBA PRESS
  • : CUBA
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Kay McKenzie Cooke