By Airini Beautrais
VUP, NZ$24.95 | Reviewed by Laura Fergusson

PROSE POEMS are a difficult genre to market. They sound like a contradiction in terms, or an attempt to cross too many boundaries. But those borders, the hinterland of literary definition, are inhabited comfortably and without pretension by Airini Beautrais.

Secret Heart is a collection of glimpses into a life. Beautrais roots her pieces firmly, usually in Wellington and its surrounds, with frequent elements of local detail returning the reader to the setting. She rides a tandem “down Cuba Mall, through gaps in the pedestrian traffic” (Tandem), and elsewhere “I see my friend in Pigeon Park with holes in his cardigan.” (Holes). The pieces, encompassing anecdote, description, memory and fantasy, are both personally specific, and a celebration of the mundane universality of experience that links us all.

While straddling the distinctions between poetry and prose, Beautrais juggles a similar multiplicity of tones, moving from the lyrical (“All you want is a book, and all the shelves are filled with eyes of longing.” The Library) to the harshly vernacular: “My sister works in a bagel shop in Wank Town. In Wank Town even the fish ‘n’ chip shop is up itself.” (Food and Shelter). The dislocation between these tones is exploited to create a sense of bathos in pieces such as Collingwood: “One might be tempted to think that Collingwood is the end of the world, but it’s only the end of Highway 60.”

Characters are introduced without ceremony, and discarded again as abruptly, with the exception of the extended series of pieces grouped together as Tales of a Road Tour within which we are given a more leisurely perspective. This section, which can almost stand alone, also gives us a deeper insight into Beautrais’s world, a world in which she plays with a folk/rock band, sleeps in a tour bus, drinks with her friends. The structure of the band tour gives this section a shape and definition which differentiates it from the patchwork effect of the scattered subject matter elsewhere.

Beautrais deftly assimilates classic New Zealand tropes of wind, rain, fish and chips and hills into a blend of melancholic humour and genuinely original observation. There is a pervasive sense of dampness, a worldview shaped by weather and holey socks, shot through with an appreciation of life’s varied absurdity and the continual ability of people to surprise.

The form, in Beautrais’ hands, proves itself to be unexpectedly satisfying, and its capacity to incorporate a breadth of style and substance is well demonstrated. While the local detail of Secret Heart will quickly endear it to a New Zealand audience, it has a quirky vision and a clear voice which deserves a wider readership.