In a Slant Light: A Poet’s Memoir
So begins Cilla McQueen’s entrancing poetic
memoir, In a Slant Light. One moment
brought to light leads to another unfolding – as in the writing of a poem: In A Slant Light is a layered, intuitive
interaction with the past.
‘The joy of writing a memoir,’ says Cilla, ‘is the wonderful sense of discovering the past as you go; writing itself becomes an act of memory.’
McQueen, one of New Zealand’s major women poets, leads us over the stepping stones of childhood recollections, some half submerged, some strong and glinting in the light of her wit:
I tried the magic trick of pulling the tablecloth out
from under our plates of tomato soup. This didn’t work.
With humour and openness, clarity and grace, the journey continues through her teenage years and the excitement and turbulence, the expansion and vulnerability, of university days and early motherhood in the 1960s and 1970s … raising a young child alone, falling in love with Ralph Hotere and witnessing his deeply immersive artistic practice …
This account of the life of an extraordinary verbal artist is immensely warm and welcoming. The lightness of Cilla’s touch coupled with the grit of her endurance through challenging personal circumstances makes the reader feel privileged to be invited in to the quiet wisdom worn here with both integrity and modesty.
This is a book not only for those who love
Cilla McQueen’s poetry, but for anyone fascinated by the social, artistic and
literary history of New Zealand.
In a Slant Light:A poet’s memoir
By Cilla McQueen
Release Date: March 2016
ISBN 978-1-877578-71-7
$35, hardback with ribbon