Ruth Carr’s i felt like a fight, alright? is a strange little artefact from the frontwoman of New Zealand electronic band Minuit.

It's part poetry collection, part lyric-book, part notebook debris, part miniature emotional weapons cache. It gathers one-liners, poems, lyrics and short prose pieces that have the vibe of being emptied from pockets after surviving several lives and found. The tone moves between deadpan, devotional, wounded and absurd. There are poems about death, god, movies, bodies, fear, private mythology, refusal, and the strange theatrical business of staying alive while pretending not to make a scene. Carr’s lines often have the snap of lyrics but the looseness of marginalia: small pieces that look casual until they bite. 

Not sleek. Not institutional. Much better: odd, alive, scrappy, emotionally sharp, and very much its own little feral system.

First edition, published by Minuit Productions Ltd, 2011. Paperback with illustrations, handwritten elements, poems, lyrics and short prose throughout. Some shelf wear and rubbing to cover and edges; light corner wear visible. Interior clean and intact. Uncommon New Zealand music/literary object; price reflects scarcity and cult appeal rather than mass-market poetry logic, which is usually where joy goes to be audited.