It's What He Would've Wanted

‘Nick Ascroft is good at Scrabble and indoor football. Does this make him an excellent poet? Annoyingly … yes.’ -Shayne Carter, author of Dead People I Have Known

‘Ascroft’s poetry is a galactic nebula, brightly lit and sparkling with colour.’ -Victor Billot, Landfall

‘Fellas, the book is … good. Ascroft’s poems are unsanctimonious, witty, deeply humane comments on the compromises that comprise life, the bargains we make with ourselves, each other, and our egos and neuroses to get through the day.’ -Rebecca Hawkes, author of Meat Lovers

‘Nick Ascroft is a wonderfully adroit poet … They’re not always an easy read, these poems, but they’re always a rewarding one.’ -Harry Ricketts, RNZ

‘It’s the personal poems that really take up the scalpel, examining with a careful detachment and irony. The generosity and hope swimming throughout these is especially appealing.’ -Erica Stretton, Kete Books

Nick Ascroft is the author of five previous poetry collections with Te Herenga Waka University Press, most recently The Stupefying (2022) and Moral Sloth (2019). Living in Thorndon, he is a public servant and the president of Scrabble Wellington.