Dunedin poet Iain Lonie (1932–1988), a Cambridge scholar who enjoyed an international reputation as a medical historian, died before his poetry was fully appreciated. He published five slim
volumes but his style was not the one that dominated New Zealand poetry at the time. This collection, assembled from sources public and private, is the result of poet David Howard’s
determination to rescue a memorable body of work from oblivion. As well as the poems from Lonie’s published volumes, it includes over a hundred unpublished works, two essays, and an extensive
commentary. While his keen interest in mortality was focused by the premature death of his wife Judith at age 46), Lonie’s poetry is also an attempt to recover the loved in us all. As he
eavesdrops on desire and grief he reports back, often wittily, leaving the most poised body of elegiac poetry New Zealand has.
