Description:
Leaning Into the Wind is New Zealand poet Terry Locke's sixth volume of poetry. The title alludes to the troubled and chaotic times we live in.
Brief description: Terry Locke lives with his wife, Millie, at Falcons Return in a rural valley near Rotorua, Aotearoa. Besides his identity as a poet, he has had careers as a literary critic, high-school teacher and educationalist. He has an international reputation as a literacy/literature educator and researcher, and is currently finalising (with Lucinda McKnight) a new edition of Developing Writing Teachers (for Routledge, NY). As a poet, he has been influenced by a range of traditions and writers. In 2023, he published a book with Springer Nature entitled: Sense of Place, Identity and the Revisioning of Curriculum, as his contribution to debates around addressing the climate crisis. He is a member of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN).
Review Quotes:
'These are wise, humane poems. Both elegiac and life-affirming, they look back across the seasons of life while "forward-leaning", dreaming of more hopeful futures. Facing into the weather, in conversation with literature and the past, this is poetry that celebrates art's struggle to illuminate the homely mysteries of the world.'
-Megan Kitching
'Reflective yet also direct, these poems are clear echoes across the shadow of the valley of breath, where everything lives - even the dead. They animate the reader who, finding the most fitting piece, turns inward as its lines sound out the body with spirit.'
-David Howard