Yellow Buoy

C. K. Stead has always swum through literature, cultures, surroundings both physical and social, with a deft stroke. Completed in his eightieth year, The Yellow Buoy sees the poet firmly attached to his memories, attuned to his craft and attentive to his world. The book is divided into three parts: ‘The Yellow Buoy’, ‘The Silence’ and ‘The Green Enclave’. Here, in classic vein, Catullus returns to receive the ONZ, write to friends and ‘read the world’. Various other literary fellows appear in person, dream or conversation – Allen Curnow and Hugh Kawharu, Frank Sargeson and Barry Humphries, Creeley, Mansfield and Wordsworth.

The collection also includes warmly translated versions of poems by Eugenio Montale, Carlo Vita and Philippe Jaccottet; alongside glimpses of fantails and elegies for friends. From sonnets to syllabics, with settings ranging from Croatia and Colombia to Karekare and the Côte d’Azur, these masterly poems urge a reader to stay alert – to pay attention to ‘the poetic moment / so easily missed, / so quickly lost.’