Secret Heart is a collection of superbly crafted autobiographical prose poems, all true stories. The tone is mostly mordant, downbeat, disenchanted - at least at first, until the reader becomes aware of the sharp humour that keeps turning these poems back from introspection and out into the social world. One thing this book offers is a young woman's wry self-portrait. Another is a warm and vivid memorial of the vibrant milieu of Wellington's Te Aro flat under the shadow of the inner-city bypass.