This is a ransom note with no demands
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my family: Vivien, Glenn, Alex, Bex, Sue, Sam and Sylvia. Thank you to Angelo Libeau, Gregory Kan, Andy Connor and Rhydian Thomas. Thank you to Unity Books in Wellington, Especially Tilly Lloyd for her generous support. Thank you to my teachers: Lauren Gould, James Brown, Susan Pearce, Dinah Hawken, Adam Krause, Mandy Hager, Eirlys Hunter and most especially Bernadette Hall. Thank you everyone at Victoria University Press; Fergus, Kirsten, Craig, Holly and my editor, Ashleigh Young. Thank you to Denis and Verna Adam. Thank you to Mark Leidner, Chelsey Minnis, Dorothea Lasky whose poetry made this book possible. Thank you to the publications in which these pieces first appeared: Hue & Cry, Sport, Minarets, The Spinoff, Left, The Pantograph Punch, Sweet Mammalian, Cats & Spaghetti Press and Plain Wrap Press.
THE BEGINNING
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This edition first published in New Zealand by Victoria University Press 2016
First published in Great Britain in Penguin Books 2017
Copyright © Hera Lindsay Bird, 2016
All rights reserved
Cover photograph © Russell Kleyn
PAIN IMPERATIVES
* Mary Ruefle