Elizabeth Smither – författare

On the day Lola Dearborn vowed to never attend another funeral, she was deliberately present at three . . .   Lola Dearborn marries into Dearborn & Zander, a family of funeral directors, when she falls for Sam Dearborn at a dance. But when Sam, and her friend Alice Zander, injured in a freak accident, die, Lola devotes the rest of her life to exploration. She takes up residence in an art-deco hotel, she befriends the members of the Sylvester Quartet after gate-crashing a rehearsal. She reflects on the different kinds of love offered by men: Luigi the Italian undertaker who buries a dog with its owner, and Charles the retired surgeon with his disruptive daughter, Brandy.   Lola''s themes underpin an exploration of love and death (including pet cemeteries), music and friendship. Set between Australia and New Zealand, it is a story both acute and amusing, knowledgeable and questing - much like Lola herself.

The grass with little daisies in itspringsas if springs are under my feet. I poke the ferrule of my umbrella in it, as ifI need a prop for steadiness and yet it is a pretence: waterlogged or notsomething like joy is running underneath. In her twentieth poetry collection,Elizabeth Smither brings together a new ensemble of surprising images and charismaticcompanions. A herd of cows gathers around a radio to listen wide-eyed to aMozart concerto. A frog leads us unhurriedly down the garden path. JaneAusten’s Emma makes an appearance. A cat critiques Wittgenstein. And aflamboyant fabric rose rescues a job interview.Each poem in The Interview Rose isa bridge between the private self and the physical world, travelling the longroute through art, religion, philosophy, and the pleasures of language.

Whimsical and tender, this latest collection demonstrates Smither’s talent for illuminating the poetry in the everyday – an out-of-season daffodil, a chipped Limoges plate. She is a master of the unfolding poem, in lines that take you from a single image to the cusp of something larger. At times meditative, at times playful, even slightly subversive, this collection impresses with a surety of word, a deft touch and a polished harmony.