The Pop-up Book of Invasions

Fiona Farrell

Oct 2013 · Auckland University Press

About this ebook

The Book of Invasions - Lebor Gabála Ýrenn - is a compilation of manuscripts describing the very specific discovery of Ireland ('on the fifteenth, on a Saturday') following the Creation and the Flood. The Pop-Up Book of Invasions is Fiona Farrell's poetic response to a six-month stay in Ireland as inaugural recipient of the Rathcoola Residency in County Cork. Part travelogue, part family record, part song and myth and history rewritten, this collection revels and laments in equal measure in a landscape deeply inscribed with narrative. The poems in The Pop-up Book draw heavily and vividly on the landscape, history and mythology of Ireland, sharing a sense of discovery, but they also make connections with home, New Zealand, childhood. Thus a canoe in the National Museum, 'Black boat from a brown bog', recalls the waka: 'You think of yours as I think of/mine, setting sail in their black/canoe'. The poet also remembers her Irish father now dead who emigrated to New Zealand and all the many migrations or 'invasions' of the past and the present. And she adapts and transforms several ancient Irish texts, rewriting their stories for a contemporary world; the voluminous notes are a fascinating Irish education in themselves. The Pop-Up Book of Invasions is a beautifully constructed, thoughtful and original book.

About the author

Fiona Farrell was born in 1947 in New Zealand. She is a poet, fiction writer and playwright. Her novels include: The Skinny Louie Book, Mr Allbones' Ferrets, and Limestone. Her poetry titles include: Cutting Out, The Inhabited Initial, and The Pop-Up Book of Invasions. In 2015 her book, Villa at the Edge of the Empire made The New Zealand Best Seller List.