It is probably unusual to find poems in a sailing magazine, but among fabulous photographs and articles about old ( and newer) boats, The Mahurangi Cruising Club Yearbook 2014 devotes a number of it very glossy pages to
just that. In amongst stunning images of gaff-rigged and nostalgia-invoking photos of old treasures still to be found racing on the Auckland harbour on Regatta Day, poetry editor Ian Free has managed to treat the readers of this
fine annual record of the club’s activities, to a number of poems – all beautifully illustrated. W.H.Auden starts off his sailing experience by ‘butting through scarps of moving marble’ on p.8. Then ‘my own Turu Manu’ takes off
‘ready to fill the sky with jubilation’ above ‘the sea like pewtered paua shells shivering with excitement’ (p.21). On page 75 Michele Leggott has her ‘Oystercatcher’ and then over the page, a generous double spread of more
poems, photos and images, including Wensley Willcox and the Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz with his poem entitled ‘Islands’. It’s a real excitement to be in there with them, and on the sea ‘living with stories’ among the Ranger,
the Waitangi, the Jessie Logan, the Moana and the Breeze and all those splendid ‘modern classics’ making their mark.