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Bonfires on the Ice

Brief Description
It’s getting colder as the flamesrise from the bonfires, real and virtual.See how they flicker in the darkling air. What is happiness in a suddenly unfamiliar world? What happens to us once the old connections spark and disappear? In this new poetry collection, with his characteristic... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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Bonfires on the Ice is the latest collection of poetry by Harry Ricketts, one of Aotearoa New Zealand's most loved poets.

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It’s getting colder as the flames
rise from the bonfires, real and virtual.
See how they flicker in the darkling air.

What is happiness in a suddenly unfamiliar world? What happens to us once the old connections spark and disappear?

In this new poetry collection, with his characteristic humanity, intelligence and humour, Harry Ricketts writes of youth, hope, books and writers, and the friendships through which we come to know ourselves. Included in this book are poems about finding one’s way through a world altered by loss, and the magical thinking that sustains us.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781776922949

Publisher: Te Herenga Waka University Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 06 November 2025

Country: New Zealand

Imprint: Te Herenga Waka University Press

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 7.0mm

Width: 138.0mm

Height: 210.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 88

About the Author

Harry Ricketts is a poet and literary scholar and has published around 30 books. He has lived in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, since 1981. Until his retirement in 2022, he was a professor in the English Programme at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. His books include the internationally acclaimed The Unforgiving Minute: A Life of Rudyard Kipling (1999) and Strange Meetings: The Lives of the Poets of the Great War (2010). His recent books include the poetry collections Winter Eyes (2018) and Selected Poems (2021), and the memoir First Things (2024). With historian David Kynaston, he is the co-author of Richie Benaud’s Blue Suede Shoes: The Story of an Ashes Classic (Bloomsbury, 2024).

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