People with Real Lives Don't Need Landscapes

John Dolan is a sophisticated, inventive, savvy poet who writes with confidence. An American now living in Moscow, his work has energy, imagination, humour, and lively speech rhythms and shows considerable range. Find the Leopard in This Picture is a big bouncy collection, displaying a voice quite unlike any other in New Zealand at the moment and one which has fruitful connections elsewhere. It draws on both popular and high culture and is, as he says, "more everything than usual: more light, more weighty, more topical, more intellectual, more gory and sad, more wild and tender - all at once". Find the Leopard in This Picture is the kind of collection which makes other poets sit up and think and which startles and intrigues audiences.