Author(s): Joanna Preston

World poetry

The inaugural winner of the Kathleen Grattan Award, The Summer King tells stories, exploring the world we inhabit and our relationships with the other. Myth, catastrophe, family, strangers, sex, sport  all feature in this fine and fierce first collection (Gillian Clark). Preston is a new Australasian poet, based in Christchurch. She writes warm, accessible and moving poetry, showing technical skill, originality, verve, wit and humanity  (Fleur Adcock, judge of the Award). The book contains two sequences:  for prey and for sensual pleasure  triggered by the collective nouns that first appeared in the Book of St Albans.