Shadow play

The poems in SHADOW PLAY were written during the five year period since James Norcliffe's previous collection, Villon in Millerton (Auckland University Press, 2007). Norcliffe professes himself not to be a confessional poet; nevertheless he freely acknowledges that places and people served as prompts for the poems. New Zealand based, Norcliffe is well-travelled and his poems have international resonance. Placing Shadow Play with one other poetry collection as a finalist for the annual international Proverse Prize for unpublished writing in 2011, the judging panel (reviewing entries with no knowledge of the writers) found an expert hand behind a wide variety of well-wrought poems on a range of topics, pleasingly interwoven with literary allusions.