The Centre for the Book is delighted to present a public lecture by Lynn Jenner, author of Peat.

“With Charles Brasch on my Shoulder I Examine a Big Roading Project.” 

 “Peat is an archive. The black soil, the tea-coloured water, the sticks and the great trees. Whole ecosystems from the past are stored down there.” 

Peat (Otago University Press, 2019) is a real-time record of the lead-up to and the building of the Mackays to Peka Peka Expressway on the Kāpiti coast, north of Wellington. Made up of essays and poems and two large poetic indexes, Peat has a literary and archival intent. It subjects the intention and process of the road building to scrutiny informed by the ideas of Charles Brasch. In her talk, Jenner will discuss the juxtaposition of Brasch with transport politics in more depth and the reason for choosing to write about events unfolding in the present.    

Lynn Jenner is a Northland-based writer and teacher of writing who lived on the Kāpiti Coast until 2020. She is the author of Peat (OUP 2019), Lost and Gone Away (AUP 2015) which was shortlisted in the non-fiction section of the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and Dear Sweet Harry (AUP 2010) which won the 2010 NZSA Jessie MacKay prize for Best First Book of Poetry.  Lynn has a particular interest in writing which crosses genre. Author website: Pinklight.nz 

Join us from 5.30 p.m. in Quad 1 Lecture Theatre on Monday 3 July. Free entry, all welcome.