Cilla McQueen was New Zealand Poet Laureate 2009-11. One of her writing projects during her time as laureate was "Serial", which she described as'exploring a space between prose and poetry'. It was published in chapters on the Poet Laureate website.
Retitled "Edwin's Egg and other poetic novellas", this work is now published for the first time in hard-copy format, combining McQueen's evocative text with wonderful images from the collection of the Alexander Turnbull Library.

8 slim volumes in a slipcase.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 264

Dimensions: 108 x 150 mm

Publication Date: 27-03-2014

In this absorbing poetic memoir of her early life, Cilla McQueen, one of New Zealand’s major women poets, leads us over the stepping stones of childhood memory, some half submerged, some strong and glinting in the light of her wit: In the large lead shoe X-ray machine at the back of the shoe shop, our skeletal feet appeared at the press of a button. We irradiated ourselves further when the shop assistant wasn’t looking. … I tried the magic trick of pulling the tablecloth out from under our plates of tomato soup. This didn’t work. With humour and openness, clarity and grace, the memoir continues through her teenage years and the excitement and turbulence, the expansion and vulnerability, of university days and early motherhood in the 1960s and 1970s … raising a young child alone, falling in love with Ralph Hotere and witnessing his deeply immersive artistic practice … This account of the life of an extraordinary verbal artist is immensely warm and welcoming: time falls away as we read. The lightness of Cilla’s touch coupled with the grit of her endurance through challenging personal circumstances makes the reader feel privileged to be invited in to the quiet wisdom worn here with both integrity and modesty. From the sweet shocks of her imagery to the joy of recognition of many shared experiences of a New Zealand childhood, this memoir brings a honeyed, sensitive yet utterly resilient voice in our local literature as close as the voice of a good friend. This is a book not only for those who love Cilla McQueen’s poetry, but for anyone fascinated by the social, artistic and literary history of New Zealand.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 134

Dimensions: 165 x 235 mm

Publication Date: 13-05-2016

Born in 1949, Bluff-based Cilla McQueen is one of New Zealand’s best-loved poets. Poeta: Selected and New Poems brings together a definitive selection of her poetry spanning five decades, arranged by the poet in a thematic narrative that elucidates abiding themes while maintaining a loose chronology of her creative life to date. Of mixed Scottish and English heritage, McQueen is a translocated Hebridean, a spokesperson variously for the southern islands and coast, Rakiura, Fiordland, Murihiku and Dunedin. One of a few indispensable poetic voices of the south, she has long been part of a social matrix of artists, among them Hone Tuwhare, Ralph Hotere and Marilynn Webb, dedicated to bringing out the native brogue and colours of Southland–Otago. Poeta gathers together poems from the poet’s 14 previous volumes, punctuated by 11 striking drawings, and also includes a range of new work that shows her riddling creativity continuing to grow and evolve. Collectively, the poems demonstrate a versatile and diligent wordsmith never content to sit on her laurels, ever experimenting and improving in her attempt to write the world’s poem.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 296

Dimensions: 155 x 220 mm