{"product_id":"the-chancy-now","title":"The Chancy Now","description":"\u003cp\u003e120 poems of the ‘ Chancy Now’ – ‘ still here, getting on, getting away \/ with things not planned, not prayed for, never promised’ . In the 1970s a young professor, I rescued from a puddle in Princes Street a Penguin of Nietzsche’ s Thus Spake Zarathustra, dried it and read it, annotating as I went, underlining his thought that one must have chaos within if one is to give birth to a dancing star – At 93, his wife Kay and son Oliver recently dead, writing nothing, C. K. Stead thought there were no more books. Then, ‘ alive on pills, \/ and the surgeon’ s knife’ , enduring grief and recovery, sonnets began to appear, three or four a week, the poems collected in this volume. Chaos won’ t teach a sonnet to limit its lines but every sonnet should have its dancing star. From the ABs under the high ball to Braunias’ s lamingtons, from Dionysus to Guide Rangi, from the Uber driver (‘ He’ s a Wittgenstein man so we get along perfectly \/ passing over in silence what can’ t be discussed’ ) to the author (‘ My Chookspeak’ s better than my French because I learned it \/ in the right way, by ear, not off the page’ ), 120 sonnets reveal a poet battered, bruised and still in his prime. After a sonnet tending to self-pit and crap I consign it to the bin and set off knowing today’ s wild northerly wind and rough seas at Kohi will knock me into shape\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Upstart","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51388382314719,"sku":"9781776712793","price":25.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0685\/2185\/3151\/files\/9781776712793.jpg?v=1789362788","url":"https:\/\/lamplightbooks.pro\/products\/the-chancy-now","provider":"Lamplight Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}