Better known for her short stories and novels, Margaret Mahy
writes the occasional piece of poetry. These pieces of poetry have been collected into one
beautifully illustrated volume by Tessa Duder. To my knowledge I hadnt read any of
Margaret Mahys poems before so I was keen to see what her output encompassed. I am
very glad I did. This is a collection of mostly amusing, happy poems and snippets of
poetic doggerel (I find it hard to accept a five line verse as a fully formed poem, but
thats just me). The illustrator, David Elliot, has done a brilliant job tying the
pictures to the poems. In fact, without his illustrations this book would be much less fun
to read than it is and it was fun to read.
In her liner notes, the editor explains that this could be all the poems that Margaret
Mahy has written or there could be more poems lurking out there as this was something the
author hadnt kept robust records on. All I can say is that if another volume comes
out I shall be buying it.
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