{"product_id":"chancy-now","title":"Chancy Now","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the 1970s a young professor, I rescued\u003cbr\u003e from a puddle in Princes Street a Penguin\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eof Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra, dried it\u003cbr\u003e and read it, annotating as I went, underlining\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ehis thought that one must have chaos within\u003cbr\u003e if one is to give birth to a dancing star -\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAt 93, his wife Kay and son Oliver recently dead, writing nothing, C. K. Stead thought there were no more books. Then, 'alive on pills, \/ and the surgeon's knife', enduring grief and recovery, sonnets began to appear, three or four a week, the poems collected in this volume.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eChaos won't teach a sonnet to limit its lines\u003cbr\u003e but every sonnet should have its dancing star.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFrom the ABs under the high ball to Braunias's lamingtons, from Dionysus to Guide Rangi, from the Uber driver ('He's a Wittgenstein man so we get along perfectly \/ passing over in silence what can't be discussed') to the author ('My Chookspeak's better than my French because I learned it \/ in the right way, by ear, not off the page'), 120 sonnets reveal a poet battered, bruised and still in his prime.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAfter a sonnet tending to self-pity and crap\u003cbr\u003e I consign it to the bin and set off knowing\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003etoday's wild northerly wind and rough seas\u003cbr\u003e at Kohi will knock me into shape. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Unity Books","offers":[{"title":"Chancy Now","offer_id":46831176548549,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0625\/6679\/3413\/files\/978-1-77671-279-3.jpg?v=1788067044","url":"https:\/\/unitybooks.myshopify.com\/products\/chancy-now","provider":"Unity Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}