Geography For The Lost
By Kapka KassabovaAUP, $25 | Reviewed by Simon Sweetman
WITH THREE other volumes of poetry and two novels behind her, this is Kapka Kassabova’s first book in nearly four years – and it is the writer returning to her strength, poetry, specifically poems that are variously studied and whimsical. Detailed and off-the-cuff. Observational asides on life from the point of view of a peripatetic soul, a transient being, a constant traveller.
Kassabova considers New Zealand her home, having emigrated here from Bulgaria. Since completing an MA in Creative Writing she has also lived in Germany, England and France – but is still certain that New Zealand is her home-base, even though she currently resides in Scotland.
The intentions are made clear early on in this volume, with ‘I Want To Be A Tourist’– a definite statement of reflection, of wanting to “find things for the first time”, of wanting “to be a tourist/In the city of my life”. But introspection is only occasional, mostly – and most successfully – Geography For The Lost ponders the traveling lives of others, and Kassabova expertly gives voice to a Brazilian DJ and, humourously, to the titular Chinese man in ‘Mister Hu’: “You wanna dance with Chinese?/Yeah, I’m a little bit drunk./Thank you. Thank you very much./Last tango in Berlin...”
The poems never suffer due to cultural observations; rather they are strengthened by this focus. A writer like Clive James tends to burden his own poetry with the expectation of his other job as a humourist and noted traveler – whereas Kassabova is free to explore and display her magpie gatherings, dotting them out on the page, laying them out – spacing them according to mood.
Like other New Zealand poets (Kate Camp and Anna Jackson spring immediately to mind) there is a confidence and maturity in Kassabova’s poetic collections and Geography For The Lost is, for me, her strongest collection to date. So many volumes of poetry form a nice, simple read – but leave me wondering if I’ll ever return. Here, ideas and vistas are mapped out for me to come back to, picking up a little more with each visit, making me, as the reader, feel like I’m doing my own version of traveling as I trawl through the pages.
The final piece, a brief essay (‘Skipping Over Invisible Borders’) has Kassabova giving even more of herself in print, and ties well with the theme, by discussing the changes and travels she has made with words, with learning to converse and write in other languages – with the literature that she holds dear. It forms the perfect coda to an immaculately conceived selection of poems.
