A prize-winning memoir, lovingly evoking New Zealand and the coming of age of a much-loved poet. Kevin Ireland leads the reader out the back, through the mangroves, under the bridge and over the moon in this delightful memoir. We meet the characters - for characters they are - who preceded him, give birth to him, laugh with him, fight over him, love and desert him. We explore with him the landscape of his childhood in Takapuna and Cambridge, we are his intrepid companions on fishing expeditions, we share his outrage at the indignities of the education system, and we linger with him over the books that finally become his life.Winner of the history and biography section of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards.