Cold Hub Press ~ Ted Jenner

Publication date May 26, 2017

THE ARROW THAT MISSED

Ted Jenner

ISBN: 978-0-473-39818-7

Softcover chapbook, 52 pp, 210 x 145mm

Ted Jenner’s creative output tends to veer in two directions, the one derived from his Classical scholarship and the other from his interest in dissolving the distinctions between poetry and prose. What is also in evidence in this collection is an attempt to convey the essence of a landscape and our place within it combined with a glance or two at human relationships from unfamiliar perspectives.

Born and educated in Dunedin, Ted Jenner now lives in Auckland, having taught in the UK and travelled extensively in Europe and the Middle East. More recently he lectured in Classics at the University of Malawi in Africa for seven years.

“It is a labyrinthine house of language with many rooms that Jenner inhabits and what he finds there is never less than (ordinarily) surprising and provocative.”  Michael Harlow, Landfall 219

“Ted Jenner should be read for his erudition, his wit, his remarkable attention to detail, and his insistence on remaining continually open to the richness and flux of the world.” ––Scott Hamilton, Reading the Maps (blog) 2009

OUT OF PRINT

Horses forage by the tideline

nibbling at tufts of marram.

Consecrated in the grounds of

Hato Hemi the war dead

count their blessings. Blood

has leeched into this sand

beyond memory. On ‘cemetery

hill’ crowned by its plain

wooden cross, the spiral path

leads up to the Hoteres

around bracken and couch grass

strewn with wind-blown flowers

of crepe and tulle, a glass dolphin,

tokens of love, even a pair

of angel’s wings uprooted by

the wind. The torii gateway

frames the breakers unfolding

their long curling scrolls.

The breakers dissolve in spindrift,

count nothing but themselves.

       Mitimiti, 25.1.14

© Ted Jenner 2017