Terrier, Worrier
Auckland University Press, 2025
Part autobiography of thought, part philosophical tract, part poetics, a book about chickens and family and seasons.
‘Terrier, Worrier is a remarkable and playful book on language, anxiety, poetry and the strangeness of being a person. I loved its short length especially, as well as its fragmentary form falling somewhere between a diary and a collection of poetic essays . . . I wish more of my favourite poets wrote these kinds of books.’
— Nina Mingya Powles
‘Terrier, Worrier is extraordinary, in both concept and form. It joins the conversations of great writers and thinkers, past and present, who analyse how we function aesthetically in our little lives.’
— Anne Kennedy
Part autobiography of thought, part philosophical tract, part poetics, a book about chickens and family and seasons.
‘Terrier, Worrier is a remarkable and playful book on language, anxiety, poetry and the strangeness of being a person. I loved its short length especially, as well as its fragmentary form falling somewhere between a diary and a collection of poetic essays . . . I wish more of my favourite poets wrote these kinds of books.’
— Nina Mingya Powles
‘Terrier, Worrier is extraordinary, in both concept and form. It joins the conversations of great writers and thinkers, past and present, who analyse how we function aesthetically in our little lives.’
— Anne Kennedy
Cover design by Greg Simpson, from drawings by Briana Jamieson
Book of the week review, at Volume Books: Book of the Week: TERRIER, WORRIER by Anna Jackson — VOLUME "Terrier, Worrier is generally written in the past tense, with many stanzas beginning with ‘I thought’, yet for me, curiously, wonderfully, it carries the charismatic freight of the present tense... Terrier, Worrier is the kind of book you can’t put down. " Paula Green, Poetry Shelf 'It’s sparky and fun and deep, it’s gorgeously written, with beautiful turns of phrase. It’s also quite educational – I learned a lot of things reading this. It’s like having a really really good conversation with Anna, and getting to watch her think in action.' - Helen Rickerby, from her launch speech at Unity Books. ‘The aliveness of this new literary sequence comes as no surprise as Anna Jackson’s writing is consistently electric; however, there is a distinctive energy about this work that sets it apart from Anna’s previous collections.’ – Amy Marguerite, from her launch speech at the Women's Bookshop. 'I mustn't make it sound like a game, a display, though it is playful in the best sense: an exuberant, inventive series of vaults and somersaults through associations, meanings, paradoxes. It's also a meticulous meditation on what goes on inside our skulls; a quest to define identity and language, a poetic sequence much concerned with the nature of poetry.' - David Hill, Kete books "It never occurred to me before that creating a poem and creating a molecule had very much in common, but I’ve changed my mind. Jackson’s wonderful collection of parts, of poetic bits, leads us into any number of shapes – depending on how we position the electric spark we start out with." Mary Cresswell, Flaxroots Stella Chrystostomou from Volume Books on the radio: Book review: Terrier, Worrier: A Poem in Five Parts | RNZ |
"I wondered if there were ever tone-deaf sparrows, or whales for whom the ocean resounded with nothing but a metallic banging." |
