The Mermaid's Purse by Fleur Adcock James Keery combining the acoustic expansiveness of

combining the acoustic expansiveness of Whitman or Ashbery with the lyricism of Laird's forebears Heaney

riverbanks and docks

tracing the influence of Keats

This collection wrung out my tired heart

” and a world where “we are canopy adrift

The Mermaid's Purse by Fleur Adcock James Keery combining the acoustic expansiveness ofFleur Adcock began writing the poems in this book when she was 82. The two chief settings are New Zealand, with its multi coloured seas, and Britain, seen in various decades. There are foreign travels, flirtations, family memories, deaths and conversations with the dead. Katherine Mansfield, incognito, dodges an academic conference; theres a lesson in water divining as well as a rather unusual Christmas party. We meet several varieties of small