{"product_id":"the-empty-grandstand","title":"The Empty Grandstand","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Book: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLloyd Jones\u003c\/strong\u003e was seven years old the first time he climbed the steps of a grandstand with his father. The experience was baptismal. From his new elevated perspective Jones believed he could see everything that mattered – a field of play that rolled out, green with promise, from suburban New Zealand to the wider world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe grandstand is a guiding metaphor for these questing narrative poems that reach back into childhood and forward into the life of a writer constantly experimenting with form and voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJones writes of the wild secrets of boyhood – riding dogs, falling from trees, destroying the class ukuleles, learning to sail in small boats. He is alert to the airless small-town grievances that must inevitably be escaped.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs an aspiring young writer Jones travelled widely, testing his identity against difference – places, people, politics and importantly, language.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe more recent poems are a re-assembling of coordinates and a return to the local view. The grandstand has long been decommissioned – it’s a housing estate now, but the poems are full of air and greenery. Dream spaces where language is forever in play.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Author: \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cb\u003eLloyd Jones\u003c\/b\u003e is one of New Zealand’s most innovative and accomplished writers. A former journalist who has travelled the world and lived for extended periods in other countries, he has published award-winning short stories, novellas, novels, essays, and a memoir. His novels include \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Fame\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the Tasmania Pacific Prize for Fiction; \u003ci\u003eMister Pip\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the Commonwealth Prize for Literature and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, \u003ci\u003eHand Me Down World\u003c\/i\u003e, shortlisted for the Berlin International Prize for Literature, \u003ci\u003eThe Cage\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Fish\u003c\/i\u003e. He is a New Zealand Arts laureate and recipient of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Literature. \u003ci\u003eThe Empty Grandstand\u003c\/i\u003e is his first book of poems.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eISBN: 978-0-6459840-1-9\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCover artwork: Euan Macleod, Bird \u0026amp; Grandstand, 2024.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Upswell Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42238584324151,"sku":null,"price":24.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0626\/7771\/2951\/files\/Upswell-2024_The-Empty-Grandstand_Front-cover-1.jpg?v=1779074757","url":"https:\/\/upswell-publishing.myshopify.com\/products\/the-empty-grandstand","provider":"Upswell Publishing","version":"1.0","type":"link"}