The goose bath : poems / Janet Frame ; [edited by Pamela Gordon, Denis Harold and Bill Manhire].

Selection of poems unpublished during the lifetime of Janet Frame.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 207-213) and index.

Introduction -- I take into my arms more than I can bear to hold -- I. A dream. Goldfinch. Story. Worms. Child. A simple memory of a poet, a memory shuffled face upward. The child. For Paul on his birthday. The happy prince. I visited. A room. Hilda. Hospital dance. I do not want to listen. I'm invisible. The tom cat which Sargeson refused to have neutered. To F.S. who shaved his beard -- 2. Choosing postcards. A visitor to Cornwall. The unhappy island. The icicles. Tenant. The stones. The underground. A specimen in the Maudsley Brain Museum. The servant. The simple shepherds. Nails as a rose. A field of wheat. Blackbird hanging out your bait. Norfolk evening -- 3. The advice of light. Blame the Tokarahis. Sweet corn. The crocodile. The Leech. And the sound of the Cellos. Wrong number. I met a man. Fleas are fleas. The weapon. Love poem. A journey. Before I get into sleep with you -- 4. Drought in another country. The Guggenheim Museum, New York. An exhibit in the Pre-Columbian Room, Dumbarton Oaks Museum, Washington. Saratoga walk. Maple leaves. Promise. Today I cannot write. For Bill on his birthday. In Mexico City. Baltimore, November. Down Monument Street, Baltimore. The legend. Martha's Vineyard. Moss. A pearl of oblivion. The birch trees. Calypso. Letter from Lake Bomoseen. The sick pawpaw. The family silver. Bouquet. Snow. Let a fox come by and the porcupine night shine with starry icicles. The real porcupine night. The crows. The chickadee -- 5. Weekend. Eater of crayfish. Storms will tell. Winter. Compass. The landfall desk. On not being there. Bach. Schubert. At the opera. Words speak to Jakow Trachtenberg. These poems. Arrival. A year at home. Talk of the economy. If I read St John of the Cross. Tourist season. On December 31st each year. Pictures never painted, music never composed. Sometimes Mr Speaker and Blanco come to find if you are home. A photograph of me holding a cat. Lines written at the Frank Sargeson Centre -- 6. The garden. The anemone. Freesias. The earthquake city. The bloodless dead. The cat has a mouthful of larks. The accomplished snow. Two painters. Words. If you don't wish to write about people. An orange. Daniel. I write surrounded by poets. Some of my friends are excellent poets. The cat of habit. Swatting flies. A new cheese. Poets -- 7. Appearing -- Small farewell. The old bull. The dead. The recent dead. Friends far away die. It all happened; it was yesterday. Strung by ideas. The magazine. What I have seen or dreamed. The end. The turquoise bird -- How I began writing.

Janet Frame used to keep geese, using the base of an old garden fountain as their bath. In later years the geese went but the bath was brought indoors as a receptable into which Janet piled her jottings as she reworked and developed her poems. Over time the bath overflowed with paper, including hundreds of unpublished poems. By the time Janet died she had named her hoped-for but elusive new selection The Goose Bath.

Montana New Zealand Book Awards Poetry, 2007