NZ Poetry

Poet and performer Sam Hunt first became aware of the poems of James K Baxter as a schoolboy. Aged 14, he was strapped for reciting Baxter's poem 'Evidence at the Witch Trials' in an English lesson (one of the final in a series of events resulting in his expulsion from college). James K Baxter later became a friend and mentor who greatly influenced the unconventional poetic course Sam Hunt's life would take. Here, Hunt offers a selection of almost 50 poems by Baxter that have made an indelible impression on the grooves of his brain... read more

Sam Hunt is New Zealand's best-known poet. For almost 40 years he has been writing, reading and performing poetry, touring New Zealand constantly and reading his poems in pubs, theatres, schools and many other venues. No other poet in New Zealand has managed to make a living by performing their poems, and it says much about the affection with which Sam is regarded in New Zealand that he has continued to do this for so long. It is well over ten years since a new collection of Sam's poems has appeared and over 15 years since a volume... read more

'The sweet daily bread of language. Smell it rising in its given warmth taste it through the stink of tears and yesterdays and eat it anywhere with any angel in sight.' Janet Frame used to keep geese, using the base of an old garden fountain as their bath. In later years the geese went but the bath was brought indoors as a receptacle into which Janet piled her poems and jottings as she reworked and developed them. Over time the goose bath overflowed with paper, including hundreds of unpublished poems. By the time Janet died she had... read more

New Zealanders are lovers of gardens and poetry and this beautiful volume brings these two passions together, in a treasury of 88 moving and arresting poems, chosen by respected anthologist and poet Harvey McQueen and accompanied by outstanding flower imagery. Some of the poets featured in the collection include Lauris Edmond, Jenny Bornholdt, Ursula Bethell, Fleur Adcock, Cilla McQueen, Bernadette Hall, Hone Tuwhare, Albert Wendt, Brian Turner, Janet Frame, Bill Sewell, Allen Curnow, Elizabeth Smither and Karlo Mila. First... read more

From Baxter to Hunt, Frame to Glover, Curnow to Edmond, animals are widely found in New Zealand verse, and are the subject of some of our most famous and endearing poems. In her selection Siobhan Harvey brings them together in an intelligently and affectionately chosen anthology that's beautifully enhanced by outstanding animal photographs by Mark Smith. This just-published anthology provides something for everyone, and is divided into sections headed: * Bow-Wow * Miaow * A Box of Birds * Other Pets * Creepers and crawlers * Moana * Zoo * Farm.

Poet Meg Campbell not long before she died, expressed the wish to be published with her husband, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, in a joint collection of their poems. Sadly, she died before this could be accomplished. Campbell has now carried out her wish with this striking and unusual collection of love poems mainly from the exacting early and middle years of their marriage. Tested by mental illness, infidelity, doubt, and independence, their love remained strong to the end. Campbell has matched the love poems, his and hers, wh... read more

'There was the wind too, that scoured bald hills for answers, finding only insects to shatter against our skin, our crib rocked in the night: the house built on sand. You held the weather in your eyes, dark and writhing when you turned them to the sky, watched clouds smoulder among the stars.'

What is your favourite poem? Who is it by? Why do you love it? When do you recite it? How does it make you feel? A poem's ability to create an emotional response is quite remarkable. A favourite poem may capture something everyday and domestic, or try and answer one of life's big questions. Our Favourite Poems is a quite different anthology, because it asks the New Zealand public, 'Which piece of verse moves you the most?' Canvassing the country, New Zealanders are voting for their favourite poem, with the top 100 or so poems being... read more

Since June is a poised and confident first book of poems. Language slips and miscommunications lead to suddenly unnerving perceptions and leave the reader both moved and a little unbalanced. Louise Wallace can start a poem in the “real” world, then take it off to somewhere else entirely. She’s not afraid of “odd” and she has this great weird syntax which can really disrupt a poem and change all that’s gone before. These are marvellous poems.( Jenny Bornholdt). Louise Wallace grew up in Gisborne a... read more

The Nature of Things is a celebration of the relationship between poetry and the New Zealand landscape. It matches a wide range of poems that in some way evoke or describe our landscape with images from the pre-eminent New Zealand photographer Craig Potton. The poems have been selected and the introduction written by James Brown, one of New Zealand's leading contemporary poets. The Nature of Things includes work from many of the central figures of New Zealand poetry, both historical and contemporary, to create a hugely appealing, a... read more

The Lakes of Mars is a stunning new collection of poems by Chris Orsman that follow on from his most recent book, South: An Antarctic Journey, a sequence about Captain Scott's final expedition to Antarctica. These new poems are a characteristic mix of thoughtful reflection and precise imagery of landscape and object.

21st century New Zealand poetry.

A fabulous, feisty selection of Stephanie Johnson's poems from the last 20 years. The poems range from love poems, to poems about children and some political poems. Some of them are humorous, others are more serious. In a sense, they chronicle a woman's life from her late twenties to her early forties. Her only other volume of poetry, The Bleeding Ballerina was published in 1987.

DoP - 2007 Auckland In his third collection, poet Richard Reeve examines a litany of historical contexts, from the violence of Tiberius and Edward III to the death of James Cook’s Polynesian companion, Tupaia, to counterpoint the habitual barbarity, selfishness and stupidity of humans with our potential. At the collection&Ati... read more

Simple Broken Beautiful is the title on a notebook of poetry written by Leigh Davis in 2008. This was during radiotherapy treatment following surgery for a brain tumour, which was affecting his ability to express himself in words. The notebook writing was the beginning of a work that developed into a long poem called 'Stunning Debut of the Repairing of a Life'. The resulting manuscript won The Kathleen Grattan Award for Poetry 2009, judged by Ian Wedde.

'The Romantic inheritance may be poison, but it seems to be all we have. When I first began writing I didn't look at it this way, which made being a poet, and writing poetry, easier. Ever since that time I have been trying to teach myself how to write again. This has felt mostly like a kind of beachcombing, fossicking beyond the high-tide mark of expressivism, never entirely giving up hope of discovering something that might still be useable. While the bulk of these poems were written recently, a few of them go back twenty-five ye... read more

Who knew that inside the rugged exterior of many a farmer beats the heart of a poet? Photographer Stephen Robinson came across some of these poems on his travels and set out to collect up more of them to accompany a wide-ranging set of his farm-themed images. From the joys and exhaustion of high-country mustering by veteran herders to the tribulations (and eventual acceptance) of never-ending mud by a dairy farmer's wife, these are the pictures and stories of a part of the real New Zealand that is not often seen by city folk! Str... read more

Poetry NZ, New Zealand

In this collection of poetry, John O’Donohue evokes the vital energy and rhythm of Conamara.

Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance collects the work of 27 poets who came of age during the 1960s and 1970s, stamping their mark irrevocably on the New Zealand poetic scene and introducing new forms, new language and new freedoms. We hear the instantly recognisable, laconic but swaggering voice of Sam Hunt as he performs one of his 'road songs'; the understated reading of Bill Manhire; the plain-spoken storytelling of Keri Hulme; and the quiet humour of Cilla McQueen - lively, entertaining and moving work from some of Ne... read more