Author(s): Oscar Upperton

Poetry | Aotearoa | Poetry sale

The dead should come back changed, or what’s the point?
Why do you hide your head beneath the bedclothes?
Doesn’t everyone name themselves?
Is your house a bottle?
Are you trapped in there?
Isn’t it nice to be this close to someone?
Can we go back to our notes?
Please?

Urgent, witty and unnervingly beautiful, Oscar Upperton’s first collection takes familiar language and makes it uncanny. Suns detach. The ocean climbs a mast. Someone forgets where their haunted house is. These poems are vitally human and consoling; they reframe the ordinary as something to yearn for.

Author Biography: Oscar Upperton was born in Christchurch in 1991, and grew up in Whangarei and Palmerston North. He now lives in Wellington. In 2019 he was awarded the Creative New Zealand Louis Johnson New Writer's Bursary. His work has featured in Sport, The Spinoff, Metro and Best New Zealand Poems.