Make Love and War

Make Love and War is Michael O’Leary’s first all new poetry collection since Toku Tinihanga (2003). The first section comprises his romantic and elegiac poems, written about friends, people and places and includes the elegy for the late musician/writer Graeme Collins as well as several love poems, including the title poem. The second section moves away from shorter lyrics and includes two technically adroit longer poems ‘Auckland Revisited’ (which explores his early years in Auckland) and ‘Station to Station’ – an on the road rail blues song for David Bowie. As with O’Leary’s earlier works popular music is an important influence on the structure and form of his unique poetic. This new collection is sure to please fans old and new alike.