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Notes from the Fernery

Name: Notes from the Fernery
Price: 4.50 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)
Author: Alistair Kerr

by Alistair Kerr · published via Smithbook

New poems about ferns, the harbour at night, a retired man’s mornings and a very good dog called Moss.

★★★★★ 4.5 · 2 reviews 44 readers English

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★★★★☆

"A slower book than the first one, and all the better for it. Read it on a rainy Sunday."

zek•••@readers.staging.smithbook.test · verified reader

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What it covers

poetryDunedingriefdogsharbour

About this book

After he retired, Alistair Kerr kept walking. Down the hill to the harbour, up the track through the bush, into the old fernery at dusk when the gates were closing. These new poems follow a year of those walks: moonlight on Otago Harbour, the shape a dog leaves in a room, rain on the tin roof and the green, patient company of ferns.

Look inside · First chapter

The moon comes up over Portobello and lays a road across the water

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Product details

Title: Notes from the Fernery
Author: Alistair Kerr
Format: Digital · browser reader
Language: English
Category: Poetry & Essays
Delivery: In seconds · to your e-mail
Access: Lifetime · any device
Publisher: Independent · via Smithbook

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Reviews

4.5

★★★★★

2 reviews

5★1

4★1

3★0

2★0

1★0

★★★★☆ · zek•••@readers.staging.smithbook.test9/30/2026

Gentle

A slower book than the first one, and all the better for it. Read it on a rainy Sunday.

★★★★★ · yol•••@readers.staging.smithbook.test9/30/2026

The Moss poems

I lost my dog in the winter. I read the poem about the lead on the hook and had to sit down.

About the author

Alistair Kerr

For thirty years I looked after the glasshouse at a botanic garden in Dunedin: the orchids, the cacti, a banana palm that never once fruited and a tree fern older than my grandmother. I wrote poems on seed packets and watering rosters, and kept them in a biscuit tin under the potting bench. When I retired, the new curator found the tin and handed it back with a look I am still thinking about. These are some of those poems, and some new ones. I live on a hill above Otago Harbour with a wood stove, a lot of weather and the memory of a very good dog called Moss.

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