Craven
Victoria University Press, 2019
Cover design by Keely O'Shannessy
Winner of the Jessie Mackay Prize for Best First Book of Poetry, at the Ockham NZ Book Awards 2020
Craven is an exceptional debut: Jane Arthur delights, unnerves and challenges in poems that circle both the everyday and the ineffable – piano practice, past lives, being forced onto dancefloors. This is a smart and disarming collection that traces the ever-changing forms of light and dark in our lives, and how our eyes adjust, despite ourselves, as we go along.
‘She seems to me a poet of scale and embodiment. Her moments are informed by awe and intelligence – quick and seamless. They don’t have to try so hard. I felt novels and films in these poems. I thought: this is a poet of capacity.’
— Eileen Myles
'The poems in Craven seduced and delighted us even as they revealed a speaker filled with uncertainty, self-loathing, futility. They did that thing that the best lyric poetry does: they showed us an emotional interior, an individual human heart (often a literal heart, a stubborn, durable, hidden muscle) by way of a patient, alert attention to the world beyond the self. This introverted speaker demands to be seen, to be heard — and she is seen and heard in these remarkable poems. Jane Arthur takes, in a phrase lifted from one of them, a “sharp, large knife” to the speaker’s observed reality: she cuts it and refashions it into something new and strange, and transports us there.'
— Judges' comments, Ockham NZ Book Awards 2020
Craven is an exceptional debut: Jane Arthur delights, unnerves and challenges in poems that circle both the everyday and the ineffable – piano practice, past lives, being forced onto dancefloors. This is a smart and disarming collection that traces the ever-changing forms of light and dark in our lives, and how our eyes adjust, despite ourselves, as we go along.
‘She seems to me a poet of scale and embodiment. Her moments are informed by awe and intelligence – quick and seamless. They don’t have to try so hard. I felt novels and films in these poems. I thought: this is a poet of capacity.’
— Eileen Myles
'The poems in Craven seduced and delighted us even as they revealed a speaker filled with uncertainty, self-loathing, futility. They did that thing that the best lyric poetry does: they showed us an emotional interior, an individual human heart (often a literal heart, a stubborn, durable, hidden muscle) by way of a patient, alert attention to the world beyond the self. This introverted speaker demands to be seen, to be heard — and she is seen and heard in these remarkable poems. Jane Arthur takes, in a phrase lifted from one of them, a “sharp, large knife” to the speaker’s observed reality: she cuts it and refashions it into something new and strange, and transports us there.'
— Judges' comments, Ockham NZ Book Awards 2020
'This is a book of unabashed feeling; of showing the underseam, the awkward stitching, the rips and tears. Of daring to expose. ... The poetic movement is honeyed, fluid, divinely crafted – no matter where the subject travels, no matter the anxious veins, the tough knots. ... So often we talk about the way a poem steps off from the ordinary and blasts your heart and senses, if not your mind, with such a gust of freshness everything becomes out of the ordinary. This is what happens with Craven.'
— Paula Green, NZ Poetry Shelf, 11 February 2020
'Wellington writer Jane Arthur's examination of the darker sides of being is a compelling read. ... Always the heart, its health and vulnerability is centre-stage and subtext to powerful effect.'
— Canvas magazine, NZ Herald, 8 February 2020
'One of the best books I’ve read this year. It’s a collection of kooky and relatable poetry with a wicked bite and sardonic sense of humour.'
— Chris Tse, Capital magazine, April 2020
'It’s hard for poems to be funny without undermining their own seriousness, but Arthur’s are like that.'
— Kate Camp, The Spinoff's 10 Best New Zealand Poetry Collections of 2019
'This book is vulnerable and boastful and certain and uncertain.'
— Oscar Upperton, The Spinoff's 10 Best New Zealand Poetry Collections of 2019
'It’s a book that says a lot of the things that we don’t want to say out loud to people, the things we keep to ourselves because to say them might reveal how anxious or neurotic or weird we are inside. But I think that makes the book extremely relatable. There’s this wonderful awkwardness to some of the poems, but they’re very endearing, and they’re sort of carried with this wonderful streak of sardonic humour ... It’s beautiful writing, an amazing debut collection.'
— Chris Tse on Nine to Noon, RNZ National, 25 September 2019
'Arthur delivers poems full of conviction yet with subtlety ... Even when she is in a surly mood, Arthur pays back the reader with patience and commitment. This is one worth checking out.'
— Otago Daily Times, 2 November 2019
'Arthur’s writing is a ninja wielding a stethoscope instead of nunchuks. ... This is poetry that reverberates and shudders well after you’ve put the book down.'
— Elizabeth Morton, Landfall Review Online, 1 April 2020
'Craven is a collection that has something for everyone, and explores life’s highs and lows in simple and reassuring words. It is a pleasure to delve into the collection, as it offers hope, charm, support and, most importantly, empowerment, to anyone who reads it ... Simply, Jane Arthur has delivered a wonderful debut collection full of vulnerability and charm.'
— Thomas Hamill, NZ Poetry Society
'Reading Craven is a raw, sensory experience ... This book gives one the urge to tear at its pages and use them to cover a bedroom wall.'
— Regional News, 12 November 2019
— Paula Green, NZ Poetry Shelf, 11 February 2020
'Wellington writer Jane Arthur's examination of the darker sides of being is a compelling read. ... Always the heart, its health and vulnerability is centre-stage and subtext to powerful effect.'
— Canvas magazine, NZ Herald, 8 February 2020
'One of the best books I’ve read this year. It’s a collection of kooky and relatable poetry with a wicked bite and sardonic sense of humour.'
— Chris Tse, Capital magazine, April 2020
'It’s hard for poems to be funny without undermining their own seriousness, but Arthur’s are like that.'
— Kate Camp, The Spinoff's 10 Best New Zealand Poetry Collections of 2019
'This book is vulnerable and boastful and certain and uncertain.'
— Oscar Upperton, The Spinoff's 10 Best New Zealand Poetry Collections of 2019
'It’s a book that says a lot of the things that we don’t want to say out loud to people, the things we keep to ourselves because to say them might reveal how anxious or neurotic or weird we are inside. But I think that makes the book extremely relatable. There’s this wonderful awkwardness to some of the poems, but they’re very endearing, and they’re sort of carried with this wonderful streak of sardonic humour ... It’s beautiful writing, an amazing debut collection.'
— Chris Tse on Nine to Noon, RNZ National, 25 September 2019
'Arthur delivers poems full of conviction yet with subtlety ... Even when she is in a surly mood, Arthur pays back the reader with patience and commitment. This is one worth checking out.'
— Otago Daily Times, 2 November 2019
'Arthur’s writing is a ninja wielding a stethoscope instead of nunchuks. ... This is poetry that reverberates and shudders well after you’ve put the book down.'
— Elizabeth Morton, Landfall Review Online, 1 April 2020
'Craven is a collection that has something for everyone, and explores life’s highs and lows in simple and reassuring words. It is a pleasure to delve into the collection, as it offers hope, charm, support and, most importantly, empowerment, to anyone who reads it ... Simply, Jane Arthur has delivered a wonderful debut collection full of vulnerability and charm.'
— Thomas Hamill, NZ Poetry Society
'Reading Craven is a raw, sensory experience ... This book gives one the urge to tear at its pages and use them to cover a bedroom wall.'
— Regional News, 12 November 2019
Photo by Ebony Lamb
