Here Be Dragons

Description

ISBN: 9780473789237
Title: Here Be Dragons
Author: ARLIDGE SHELLY

Arlidge’s poems are fires in small grates in cosy houses, where witches and wizards, Tangaroa and Poseidon, and Odysseus and Penelope are apt to drop by for a chinwag, a cuppa, or a slice of freshly buttered toast.

The domestic is imbued with a mythical strangeness that we recognise in our startled way, as if seeing the ordinary thing for the first time–and it is extraordinary.

Johanna Aitchison

Unexpected and sharply observed, these poems quietly gather on the page, starting with a stream of light, ripples, a small translation. Here are human and natural worlds colliding. And Herzog!
Here be dragons: Arlidge’s lines carry a sense of danger, and possibility. Listen for the sparks. Find the shine buried under excrement. See the nearly hidden warning on the side of the road. Watch these carefully collected words as they creep towards us,
hot, crackling.

Michelle Elvy
About the Author

(Ngapuhi) lives in Kororareka, Russell. Semi-retired now, she has previously worked as an administrator, museum curator, gardener, medical receptionist and shoemaker.This is her first book.

Earlier versions of some of these poems have been published in: Landfall, Poetry NZ Yearbook, Fast Fibres and Russell Review. While she was studying towards her MCW, Shelley’s poem There is no river, Neo won Massey University’s Frean Prize.

Format: Paperback
Publication date: 29/05/2026
Pages: 60
Available stock: 23