The Incomplete Poems

The Incomplete Poems is both a summation and a wiping clean of the slate. Here, in their definitive versions, are those poems that I am prepared to stand beside as chalk and duster come to rest next to one another. (David Howard). David Howard is a poet of immense gifts. Not least the fact that he knows how to make poems of discovery that go beyond mere 'invention'. Poems that are passionately thoughtful and intelligent; and with a finely tuned lyric voice that puts feeling first. A poetry that reaches 'Beyond what is/said to what is, impossible'. Again and again, how to make the invisible, visible; and to make it sing. And he does this in poems that are very much animated by a thoughtful music: those moments of quick surprise that so often are stunning in their overall effect. And time and time again, such a pleasure to read, and to hear and know that he has something to say that matters. And what Howard knows as a poet is that 'poetry can make intimate everything that it touches'. Surely, David Howard is one of the most original voices in New Zealand poetry. (Michael Harlow)