What People are Saying

Reviews

A Fine Line (NZ Poetry Society newsletter – November 2011)

Reviewer Joanna Preston says:

“At its best, Kingdom Animalia is delicious – often funny, frequently touching, unmistakeably modern, and full of swerves and quirks and strange reverses.”

NZ Herald (1 November 2011)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/books/news/article.cfm?c_id=134&objectid=10763178

Reviewer Paula Green says:

“…Freegard has glued the breach between poetry and science with lyricism, inventiveness, research, playfulness and miniature bursts of storytelling. Fascinating. “

Takahē 73 (Winter 2011)

http://www.takahe.org.nz/review/Takahe73KingdomAnimalia.pdf

Reviewer Patricia Prime writes:

“…Freegard’s is a restless poetry, expressing contemporary angst within a context of travel, or analyzing the stopping-places, trying to see clearly, and identifying with the flora and fauna. Yet there is also a need to try and anchor the poems to the modern world.”

Nelson Mail (30 July 2011)

link to review

Reviewer Tedi Busch says:

“…The author’s imagination is infinite. In just one piece a witch teaches her to fly like a humming bird while advising a man from Japan about his cup of spaghetti and notes that our minds have minds of their own. Hers certainly does; I think I’ll go and read this all over again.”

Otago Daily Times
http://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/books/164172/plenty-evidence-osullivans-lesson

Reviewer Hamesh Wyatt says:  “…There is plenty of subversive humour and a little self-indulgence but never a dull moment. …….Kingdom Animalia: The Escapades of Linnaeus will get under your skin something fierce. It’s neat to have something brand-new and shiny.”

Blogs

Books in the Trees (Tim Jones) – Interview and 2 poems (A Life Blighted by Pythons and Giant)

http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/2011/07/interview-with-janis-freegard.html

http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/2011/07/tuesday-poem-life-blighted-by-pythons.html

http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/2011/08/tuesday-poem-giant-by-janis-freegard.html

Saradha Koirala on the Tuesday Poem blog + Zot and the Axolotls – a poem from the book
http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com/2011/06/earlier-in-afternoon-we-had-all-admired.html

Winged Ink (Helen Rickerby)

http://wingedink.blogspot.com/2011/06/more-poetry-books-i-have-read-13-16.html

Mary Macpherson (includes a poem, Anemone, from the book).
http://marymacphoto.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/animated-animals/

Accidental as Cobwebs (includes a poem, Turtles, that isn’t in the book, but it does have turtles in it)
http://accidentalascobwebs.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/kingdom-animalia/