This unique collection both longs for and resists the North. In storytelling couplets, the title poem engages with a woman's past as she looks outward from the shores of the Hokianga harbor in New Zealand. Other poems also explore present and future, dislocation and migration, north and south, and Earth and paradise. Separate and various in tone and form, these narrative poems are a joy to read.

Anne Kennedy teaches creative writing at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. She is the author of A Boy and His Uncle and Musica Ficta as well as the poetry collections Sing-Song and The Time of the Giants. She is also the recipient of the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award and the ICI Award. She lives in Honolulu, Hawaii.