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CRANIAL BUNKER, Stephen Oliver's latest poetry collection copies available in NZ on release mid to late March 2023 from Greywacke Press, Canberra. greywackepress@gmail.com

‘Stephen Oliver’s work ranges effortlessly from satirical ballads to the finely wrought lyric to the book-length epic, from the intimate voice of feeling to driven rhetoric. .... he reveals his unmatched talent for observation, an ability to make us see freshly.’—Nicholas Reid of Canberra, Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2021

‘Oliver’s winsome, rueful, self-effacing, and above all inventive essays manifest at once an acrid irony toward all overweening aspirations and yet still cherish a hope for personal and even social transformation … it is to Oliver that we should look for the genuine commonalities between Australia and New Zealand, and their respective literatures. It is here that I find the poetry and prose of Stephen Oliver so valuable.’—Nicholas Birns, New York University

‘Oliver’s work in general varies considerably in tone and genre. He is probably one of the most accomplished satirists writing in either country. Conversely, Oliver’s work can also be lyrical, sometimes in a satirical context and sometimes more purely.’—Geoff Page, The Australian  

‘Stephen Oliver’s new memoir Unposted, Autumn Leaves  .... passes on timeless advice: “Each poet, working within the tradition, must—given the allotted time-span—locate and make sense of it all for as long as the poet is functioning and prescient, and must continuously return that which is received from the world back into the world, but charged, reality invigorated by vision.”  .... Oliver navigates the seas of his own past with wonderful poetry, strong imagery and a darn good yarn.’—Chris Reed, Booklovers