Download or read book Dark Sparring written by Selina Marsh and published by Auckland University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Where Selina Marsh’s first collection, Fast Talking PI, boldly, insightfully, and lyrically wrestled with the realities of being an individual of Pacific descent in primarily European world, her latest offering fiercely combats the loss of a loved on with all of the techniques of poetry and the Thai kickboxing she practices at her disposal. The compendium brims with a fluid, humming list of poems, literary shout outs, and personal elegies, as Marsh takes readers through her mother’s cancer diagnosis and the long journey as her illness played itself out. Along the way, the poet offers glimpses of other parts of her world as well: scenes from Matiatia to Orapiu to Apia; classroom politics; the importance of leadership; and the reasons she feels New Zealand is a “lucky” country. The affecting, rhythmic verses in the book are given a literal, and appealing, voice in the accompanying audio CD, on which Marsh reads aloud a selection of the poems.