Lloyd Jones selects fellow New Zealander Ian Wedde, ‘one of many fine New Zealand poets I could have chosen’. Lloyd tells us he has been reading the layered writing of Wedde for over 30 years – as a poet, a novelist and an art critic, and what he admires most is the sense of ‘playfulness on the surface and deeper concerns.'
He offers us several sections from the long poem, ‘The Lifeguard’, and says of Wedde’s work: 'When he is in full flight I have the giddy sense of being taken in hand and being led to places I could not have got to myself.’
Lloyd Jones has written novels, short stories and a memoir. He won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for his novel Mister Pip. His other books include Hand Me Down World and A History of Silence.
'The LIfeguard' is taken from Ian Wedde: Selected Poems, Auckland University Press, 2017