Books published by Massey University Press

Poetry New Zealand, this country's longest-running poetry magazine, showcases new writing from New Zealand and overseas. This issue, #55, features 182 poems by 129 poets, including Elizabeth Morton, Michele Leggott, essa may ranapiri, Bob Orr, Kiri Piahana-Wong, Jordan Hamel, David Eggleton, and Mere Taito, the winning entries in the Poetry New Zealand Prize, essays, and reviews of 25 new poetry books. Compiled in a time of pandemic, these are poems written--in the words of editor Tracey Slaughter--when 'the only line to follow was deeper in, darker down, to poetry. The page was the only safe place our breath could go.'

For New Zealanders, the First World War was not just a grueling conflict but also the nation's biggest health challenge. Military personnel had to deal with horrific injuries caused by high velocity bullets, artillery fire and chemical weapons. Infectious diseases were a constant and grave threat. In the midst of this, the devastating 1918 influenza pandemic hit both troops overseas and New Zealanders at home. For the first time, this book tells the collective story of how our troops were supported and cared for by dedicated medical teams. It explores the coming of age of New Zealand health services and details such significant figures as Henry Pickerill and Harold Gillies, who rebuilt shattered faces and treated burn victims--in doing becoming the fathers of plastic surgery.

Emigré artist Theo Schoon was fascinating, unorthodox, controversial, pioneering, and at times reckless. His life intersected with important cultural periods and places, where what it meant to be modern in New Zealand were being debated and articulated in art, literature, music, and theater. The art he pioneered and promoted--Maori rock drawings, the drawings of a psychiatric patient, Maori moko and kowhaiwhai, the abstract patterns of geothermal activity in Rotorua--were decisive for many other New Zealand artists, including Gordon Walters. And his example, as an academically trained artist with a good knowledge of modern European art and a commitment to do whatever it took to pursue his artistic projects, was both an inspiring and a cautionary tale. Schoon's is a life less well known now than it deserves to be. This superb, highly illustrated biography by one of New Zealand's best art writers corrects that imbalance and examines Schoon's claims on the development of art and culture in Aotearoa in the 20th century.

In this timely book, New Zealand's best-known commentator on population trends, Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley, shows how, as New Zealand moves into the 2020s, the demographic dividends of the last 70 years are turning into deficits. Our population patterns have been disrupted. More boomers, fewer children, an ever bigger Auckland and declining regions are the new normal. We will need new economic models, new ways of living. Spoonley says: &'It is not a crisis (even if at times it feels like it), but rather something that needs to be understood and responded to. But I fear that policy-makers and politicians are not up to the challenge. That would be a crisis.'

The challenge to getting a good night's sleep is especially hard for pregnant women. This book, based on the latest research from Massey University's Sleep/Wake Research Centre, includes up-to-date information about why sleep is important, how sleep works, and the different lifestyle and physical changes during pregnancy that can affect your sleep. It also provides practical strategies to help you get the best sleep possible in each trimester.

High Wire brings together Booker finalist writer Lloyd Jones and artist Euan Macleod. It is the first of a series of picture books written and made for grownups and designed to showcase leading New Zealand writers and artists working together in a collaborative and dynamic way. In High Wire the narrators playfully set out across the Tasman, literally on a high wire. Macleod's striking drawings explore notions of home, and depict homeward thoughts and dreams. High Wire also enters a metaphysical place where art is made, a place where any ambitious art-making enterprise requires its participants to hold their nerve and not look down. It's a beautifully considered small book which richly rewards the reader and stretches the notion of what the book can do.

"In 1921, when the School Dental Service was established, New Zealand embarked on a unique social experiment: improving the terrible state of the nation's teeth. Set up by veterans of the First World War, the service, focused on 'battling Bertie Germ,' was run like a military operation and the all-female dental nurses were treated like foot-soldiers: underpaid, overworked and poorly resourced. Eventually they rebelled. In this lively history, Noel O'Hare details the nurses' experiences on the front line of dental health, and explores what that reveals about our society's attitudes to women, work and children's health"--Back cove

This vivid memoir by well-known New Zealand actor and novelist Barbara Ewing covers her tumultuous childhood, adolescence and young-adulthood in Wellington and Auckland in the 1950s and early 1960s - a very different time - and ends in 1962, when she boards a ship for London, to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. It draws heavily on the diaries she kept from the age of twelve, which lead her to some surprising conclusions about memory and truth. Ewing struggled with what would now be diagnosed as anxiety; she had a difficult relationship with her brilliant but frustrated and angry mother; and her decision to somehow learn te reo Maori drew her into a world to which few Pakeha had access. A love affair with a young Maori man destined for greatness was complicated by society's unease about such relationships, and changed them both. Evocative, candid, brave, bright and darting, this entrancing book takes us to a long-ago New Zealand and to enduring truths about love.--

A fascinating deep-dive into the development of the Silver Ferns' traditions, the evolution of team culture and the nuts-and-bolts of leadership at an elite sporting level. The 12 legendary players and coaches interviewed - including Lois Muir, Leigh Gibbs, Sandra Edge, Bernice Mene, Ruth Aitken and Casey Williams - candidly discuss the highs and lows of their careers, and of the Silver Ferns, the effect of the intense rivalry with Australia, coping with gut-wrenching losses, and the resilience of players and coaches. For the first time the perspective of these key actors is the subject of serious analysis, and the book is a real insight into the psychology of a women's highperformance team. As such, it provides a practical guide for developing team culture and leadership for netball coaches at all levels. It also includes comments from Farah Palmer and Noeline Taurua on women in sport and leadership, and a brief history of New Zealand netball, including the gains and losses as netball moved into a semi-professional era, and the struggles for sponsorship and for media recognition, despite it being New Zealand's most popular team sport.--

"The Great War is now typically regarded as senseless and futile, but most New Zealanders at the time, rightly or wrongly, considered it to be a war to preserve security and freedoms, to punish an aggressive enemy, and to win a better world. Yet the war years proved a tumultuous time, and bitterness and animosities ran alongside idealism and sacrifice. Divisive issues, economic volatility and a rising death toll all threatened resolve. The Home Front offers a compelling account of how a small and developing country confronted the complex questions and brutal realities of a world war"--Back cover.

Three more endearing stories of helping New Zealand wildlife from the case files of Wildbase Hospital. Wildbase Hospital in Palmerston North is a very special hospital for very special animals, and in this follow-up to the hugely successful How to Mend a Kea, author Janet Hunt focuses on the tales of three kiwi who have been treated there. The stories are fascinating and touching accounts of their different experiences at Wildbase, and the innovative approaches to their treatment and rehabilitation that were needed to ensure their eventual return to the wild. Linked to the wider issues of kiwi conservation, these tales introduce readers to the challenges and triumphs of caring for New Zealand's unique national icon. Wonderful photos, a lively text and an engaging design all combine to make this a superb book.

A better quality national conversation? Conducted by clever people who know a thing or two? YouΓÇÖre holding it in your hand. From racism in small town New Zealand and being inside HillaryΓÇÖs hut at Scott Base to why dams are bad for us and growing up Chinese, this collection of provocative, impassioned essays by smart thinkers will tune up your intellectual engine. This annual journal of provocative, passionate and argumentative essays is made for anyone who thinks thereΓÇÖs little to stimulate intelligent well-informed debate in the media anymore and who hungers for some brain food.

"The future of New Zealand's rural communities is often in the news. Empty shops, depopulation and lack of jobs are offered as signs that many towns are dying. There is no getting away from the challenges to the rural sector. But what if you consider economics AND demography AND the environment, aiming for a holistic description of rural communities? Then the picture looks quite different. Rural communities have shown themselves to be resilient over many years, and that is likely to continue. Most importantly, people in rural communities, in townships and on farms, have options. This important book, based on years of research, shows how, and provides useful insights into the ongoing process of change in rural communities and the resources on which they draw to support their resilience. It offers a positive message and some blueprints for progress"--Back cover.

"New Zealand's contribution to the First World War was a massive effort for a small country. The figure most often quoted is that from October 1914 through to October 1918, just over 100,000 New Zealanders embarked for military service overseas. But that number does not include the thousands who served under other imperial flags: with the Australian Imperial Force, British Army units, the Indian Army, the Canadian Expeditionary Force, the American Expeditionary Force, the South African Overseas Expeditionary Force, the French Foreign Legion, and even the Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps. Nor does it include the women who served with other nations' medical organisations or by entertaining troops. ... Until now, they have not been included in First World War statistics, and there may be as many as 12 000 of them, 1400 of whom died."--Back cover.

A magnificent tribute to the New Zealand horse, documenting its pivotal role in the development of the early colony, in farming, transport, war, sport and in our affections. Writer Deborah Coddington and photographer Jane Ussher capture the strength, beauty and mystery of the horse across New Zealand, from bareback beach riders in the far north to huntsmen in Hawke's Bay, and from the Otago high country and the stud farms of the Waikato to the wild horses of the Kaimanawas, film horses, dressage horses and many, many more. Warmly and expertly written, and including a range of historical images, this magnificent book is brought to startling life by the astounding photographs of Jane Ussher.--