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Lately, as soon as the man and his dog have been despatched to the orchard, I have settled with a cup of coffee to explore an anthology of New Zealand poems.

This week's Write Space by Margaret Beverland.

These I Have Loved, compiled by the late Harvey McQueen, is a thematically arranged body of work from near-forgotten treasures, through the classics of Glover, Frame, Tuwhare and Baxter, to contemporary poets like Sam Hunt, Kate Camp and Amy Brown.

A friend once said that if you like only twenty percent of a book of poems, you have made a good buy. I have never put this theory to the test, and have been fortunate to purchase the occasional volume that ends up with a far higher percentage of dog-eared pages. These I Have Loved is one of them.

Harvey chose the title, as the poems are ones that recall particular moments in his life's journey. Poems about the shaping of our nation, the tragedies, the Treaty, places and the people, things that are fundamentally important to us as a nation and that bring us together to mourn, or to celebrate.

The cover of the book, ‘These I Have Loved'.

Although I write a little poetry, this does not mean that I understand everything that other people write. Not that this matters, according to the American poet Billy Collins who questions why a poem needs to be beaten to within an inch of its life to extract the underlying meaning.

I believe if a poem sends tingling warm fuzzies up my spine, as does Mendelssohn's violin concerto in E minor, than that is sufficient cause to dog-ear the page and return to it again and again.

For me, the point of difference in this collection is the thoughtful introduction to each themed grouping, personal and warm with just enough information to open up a poem and make it accessible. Perhaps this is why my copy of this book is well dog-eared with hints of coffee stains and muffin sticky fingers. Well it will be now I have returned the copy loaned to me and have since purchased my own.

My one regret is that Harvey McQueen is no longer with us, having died in the early hours of Christmas morning, 2010. I will forever envy my sister-in-law for having a signed copy. Next time I see her, I hope to hear that it, too, is well thumbed, dog-eared and with crumbs nestled comfortably into the spine.