The Yield is one of the most satisfying, intelligent, well-crafted and involving volumes of New Zealand poetry I have read in the last decade.”
Reid’s Reader (27 March 2017)
To me, the challenge and deep delight of poetry has always been in how much you can say with how little. I like denseness. I want one crucial word that does the work of ten. Wootton has shown herself to be a master in this regard. There is not a single word in this book that does not need to be there.”
Sarah Lin Wilson, The Reader (27 March 2018)
The Yield was shortlisted for the 2018 NZ Book Awards.
The Yield is the vivid and lyrical new collection from award-winning poet Sue Wootton.
These poems are sensorially alive, deeply attentive to language, the body, and the world around us.
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bone-knowledge beating a path through the body to the throat
labouring to enter the alphabet.
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– ‘Lingua Incognita’
Wootton addresses subjects as various as the fraught relationship between medical institutions and individual suffering, the disintegration of the polar icecaps, the energising power of solitude and the rewarding demands of creativity and love.
This is a collection about give and take, loss and gain; about sowing, tending and reaping.
Sue Wootton brings her characteristic linguistic dexterity, exuberance and versatility to every page. The Yield is rich harvest.