Author(s): Peter Olds

New Zealand Poetry

The Glass Guitar comprises thirty-three previously uncollected and mostly unpublished poems in which Peter Olds reflects frankly on some of his characteristic preoccupations: the imperfections of life and art; his travels in space and time; his sometimes challenging relationship with his mentor, friend, and fellow poet James K. Baxter. In his introduction John Gibb describes Olds as “a navigator of contrasting and sometimes contradictory worlds, a kind of battered Zen ambassador of humanity, an at times irreverent pilgrim making his way through life”, and argues the case for Olds as a multi-disiplinary artist, as evidenced in Out of the Jaws of Wesley, a miscellany of Olds’ poems, prose, book cover designs and art work, (Cold Hub Press, 2022).