Beauties of the Octagonal Pool

Gregory O’Brien’s first collection since Afternoon of an Evening Train (2005), Beauties of the Octagonal Pool is centred on the ‘octagonal pool’ of the Waitemata Harbour. Arranged in eight sections, the book collects poems written from and out of a variety of times, locations and experiences, from the water-frontages of Fiji, Fiordland and the Mediterranean to the built history of Moscow and Berlin. Expansive, charming, wide-ranging, O’Brien’s poetry always has a thoughtful musicality, a shambling romance, a sense of humour. In testament to this, the poem ‘Beauties of the Octagonal Pool’ does not itself appear in the book, having been abandoned after O’Brien became marooned in it, half way through. But its ghostly themes haunt the collection and add ballast to its ambitious eight-part structure – a structure held together by the supremely assured and inviting voice of one of our best poets.