New Days for Old is a delightful experiment in form by New Zealand poet James Brown. Each scene in this book is like a 1-minute pop song: its depths are at first easy to miss. But as the story proceeds, the grand scheme of things hoves into view: we are born, we crawl and then are carried away, and everything is a-shimmer, even the disappointments. New Days for Old is a life story in small scenes. Funny, moving, erotic, political and undeniably odd, it turns our most familiar-feeling days into something altogether new.