Thursday

Poetry NZ Yearbook 2019


FRONT COVER:


Cover Design by Jo Bailey /
Typesetting by Megan van Staden



Poetry NZ Yearbook 2019
Editor: Jack Ross

ISBN 978-0-9951029-6-5. 344 pp.

Auckland: Massey University Press, March 2019


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TITLE PAGE:




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CONTENTS:

    Editorial:
  1. Jack Ross / What makes a poem good? / 14

    2. Featured Poet:
  2. Stephanie Christie / 22
    1. Michrochasm / 26
    2. Crossing the Park / 28
    3. Unfinished Objects / 29
    4. Amethyst / 31
    5. –OH / 32
    6. Mag[net]ic / 38
    7. Flow(n / 40
    8. Clod / 42
    9. Krisis. / 44
    10. Poverty Mentality / 46
    11. FleshselF / 48
    12. SQWANDER / 50
    13. Nix / 52
    14. Madeness / 55
    15. Stephen Hawking’s Dead / 58
    16. Mall Song / 59
    17. Parachute / 61
    18. Felt calculus / 63
    19. Bode / 64
  3. Jack Ross / An interview with Stephanie Christie / 68


    4. New Poems:
  4. Gary Allen / The God complex / 76
  5. John Allison / Die Luft hier in Laft ... / 77
  6. Aimee-Jane Anderson-O’Connor / Mice / 78
  7. Miguel Ángel Arcas / Finales de los sesenta [trans. Charles Olsen] / 79
  8. Shelley Arlidge / Albatross / 81
  9. Stu Bagby / Who is it who remembers? / 82
  10. Tony Beyer / The Globe / 83
  11. Victor Billot / So as not to wake / 85
  12. Benjamin Blake / Lost Recordings / 86
  13. Cindy Botha / My Mother’s Hands, Mine / 87
  14. Mark Broatch / Kererū / 89
  15. Steve Brock / Humble Wine / 90
  16. Owen Bullock / not knowing / 91
  17. Chris Cantillon / Truckdriver / 92
  18. Marisa Cappetta / Homeless like bones / 93
  19. Mariana Collette / DNA / 94
  20. Rose Collins / the Port Hills hare considers rock fall risk / 96
  21. Jennifer Compton / Cat Sitting in Brunswick East / 97
  22. E. J. Doyle / Inheritance / 98
  23. Rachael Elliott / Wheel / 99
  24. Johanna Emeney / RLSV / 101
  25. Bonnie Etherington / Catcall on Oakton Street / 103
  26. Mike Evans / Impermanence / 104
  27. Rachel J. Fenton / Break / 105
  28. Jess Fiebig / morning after / 107
  29. Sue Fitchett / I, robot / 108
  30. Katie Fitzpatrick / Confession / 109
  31. Dara Flaws / Dad / 110
  32. Alexandra Fraser / Piha night / 112
  33. Kim Fulton / This is it, Ruahine Range / 113
  34. Ruth Hanover / The Oranges / 115
  35. Paula Harris / I will go on tour and read my poetry all over the world / 116
  36. Jenna Heller / tanka / 118
  37. Sara Hirsch / Nocturnal / 119
  38. Joy Holley / Twenty / 121
  39. Alice Hooton / Lover / 122
  40. Amanda Hunt / Family Skeletons / 123
  41. Gail Ingram / Morning flight / 124
  42. Ross Jackson / The exit / 125
  43. Adrienne Jansen / The children in the dark canoe / 126
  44. Lincoln Jaques / The Things He Left Behind / 127
  45. Annie Tuarau Jones / For My Sister / 129
  46. Robert Kempen / Hey, what is going on / 130
  47. Paula King / The Square / 132
  48. Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod / The Daughter Goes To Hospital By Car / 133
  49. Katrina Larsen / Life is Like a Bag of Cats / 134
  50. Jessica Le Bas / Near Blind Channel / 135
  51. Wes Lee / By the Lapels / 137
  52. Michele Leggott / the wedding party / 138
  53. Izzy Lomax-Sawyers / Pre-loved / 141
  54. Olivia L. M. / The harrowing ... / 142
  55. Victoria McArthur / Self Portrait / 143
  56. Olivia Macassey / Elephants / 145
  57. Isabelle McNeur / Moss / Happy Parents under the Microscope / 146
  58. Mary Macpherson / On being unwilling to click ‘I forgot my password’ / 149
  59. D. S. Maolalai / Raspberries / 150
  60. Ria Masae / Children’s Eyes / 152
  61. Layal Moore / Two / 154
  62. Margaret Moores / Black and white / 155
  63. Martha Morseth / The street / 156
  64. Fraser Munro / Paper bags don’t have feelings / 157
  65. Emma Neale / The TastiTM Taste Guarantee / Affidavit / 158
  66. Keith Nunes / In the bookshop uttering / 162
  67. Stephen Oliver / Protocols / 164
  68. Bob Orr / The Vegas Girl / 166
  69. Hayden Pyke / Danger is my Family Name / 167
  70. essa may ranapiri / Gallows / 168
  71. Vaughan Rapatahana / Rangiaowhia, 1864 / ngā rākau / 169
  72. Ron Riddell / Remains of the Day / 172
  73. Gillian Roach / The Object Disappeared / 173
  74. Fiona Roberton / Chinese medicine / 174
  75. Jeremy Roberts / A Movie Ticket & a Little Bit of Philosophy / 175
  76. Siobhan Rosenthal / Whanau / 176
  77. Dadon Rowell / Lily Bennett / 177
  78. Sigune Schnabel / Grenzland [trans. Simon Lèbe] / 178
  79. Sarah Shirley / Long lie / 180
  80. Tracey Slaughter / mostly a/b/c/d / archaeological / 181
  81. Barry Smith / Arrival / 184
  82. Ian C. Smith / Remembering Willie Pep / 185
  83. Lauren J. Smith / you never know what’s on the other side / 186
  84. Elizabeth Smither / Ten conductors / Strange dream / 187
  85. Stephen Smithyman / My Father and the Poplar Tree, 1979 / 189
  86. John Tarlton / On Sabbatical / 190
  87. Loren Thomas / Friends / 191
  88. Tybalt / intimacy is a sick puppy / 192
  89. Bryan Walpert / from Micrographia: Of the Bookworm / Of the pores of bodies / 193
  90. Laura Williamson / Wrong turn on the Hump Ridge Track / 196
  91. Sue Wootton / from Typewriter songs: Anywhen / Olivetti / 198
  92. Sigred Yamit / Sweater / 200
  93. Grace Yee / for the good husband / 201
  94. Mark Young / Concerning / 203
  95. Zuo You / I Accepted His Apologies [trans. Yi Zhe] / 204

    96. Competitions:
  96. Poetry New Zealand Poetry Prize
      First prize:
    • Wes Lee / The Things She Remembers #1 / 206
      • Second prize:
    • Brett Gartrell / After the principal calls / 210
      • Third prize:
    • Natalie Modrich / Retail / 213
  97. Poetry New Zealand Yearbook student poetry competition
      First prize (Year 11):
    • Aigagalefili Fepulea‘i-Tapua‘i / 275 Love Letters to Southside / 214
      • First prize (Year 12):
    • Kathryn Briggs / Earth is a Star to Someone / 217
      • First prize (Year 13):
    • Amberleigh Rose / Snake’s Tongue / 218

    98. Essays:
  98. Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod / Telling Without Looking / 222
  99. Jessica Pawley / Dreaming of Death: The Hangover of History in Derek Walcott’s ‘The Schooner Flight’ / 234
  100. Erena Shingade / A Buddhist Hermitage on Great Barrier Island: Richard von Sturmer’s Suchness / 247

    101. Reviews:
  101. Ella Borrie / Owen Bullock / 262
    • Owen Bullock. semi. ISBN 9781922186980. Glebe, NSW: Puncher & Wattmann, 2017. RRP $AU 25.00. 126 pp.
  102. Mary Cresswell / Anna Jackson - Marlène Tissot - Tātai Whetū - Majella Cullinane / 265
    • Anna Jackson. Dear Tombs, Dear Horizon. ISBN 978-0-9941345-7-8. Limited edition of 200 copies. Wellington: Seraph Press, 2017. RRP $20. 24 pp.
    • Marlène Tissot. Last stop before insomnia / dernier arrêt avant l’insomnie. Trans. Anna Jackson & Geneviève Chevallier. ISBN 978-0-9941345-7-8. Seraph Press Translation Series No. 3. Wellington: Seraph Press, 2017. RRP $20. 40 pp.
    • Tātai Whetū: Seven Māori Women Poets in Translation. Ed. & trans. Maraea Rakuraku & Vana Manasiadis. ISBN 978-0-9951082-0-2. Seraph Press Translation Series No. 4. Wellington: Seraph Press, 2018. RRP $20. 40 pp.
    • Majella Cullinane. Whisper of a Crow’s Wing. ISBN 978-1-98-853122-9. Dunedin: Otago University Press / Ireland: Salmon Press, 2018. RRP $27.50. 88 pp.
  103. Rachael Elliott / Rogelio Guedea - Jan Fitzgerald / 271
    • Rogelio Guedea. Punctuation. Trans. Roger Hickin. ISBN 978-0-473-42191-5. Lyttelton: Cold Hub Press, 2017. RRP $25.00. 48 pp.
    • Jan Fitzgerald. Wayfinder: New & Selected Poems. ISBN 978-0-947493-49-3. Wellington: Steele Roberts Aotearoa, 2017. RRP $24.99. 64 pp.
  104. Johanna Emeney / Michele Leggott / 275
    • Michele Leggott. Vanishing Points. ISBN 978-18694-0874-9. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2017. RRP $27.99. 132 pp.
  105. Matthew Harris / Mark Pirie / 279
    • Boots: A Selection of Football Poetry 1890-2017. Ed. Mark Pirie. ISBN 978-0-473-40157-3. Wellington: HeadworX, 2017. RRP $30. 102 pp.
    • Mark Pirie. Sidelights: Rugby Poems. ISBN 978-0-473-40868-8. Wellington: HeadworX, 2017. RRP $20. 80 pp.
  106. Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod / Jenny Powell - Damian Ruth - Mercedes Webb-Pullman / 283
    • Jenny Powell. South D Poet Lorikeet. ISBN 978-0-473-41105-3. Lyttelton: Cold Hub Press, 2017. RRP $29.95. 88 pp.
    • Damian Ruth. On Edge. ISBN 978-0-473-40382-9. Wellington: HeadworX, 2017. RRP $30. 134 pp.
    • Mercedes Webb-Pullman. Track Tales. ISBN 978-1-925536-35-5. Magill, South Australia: Truth Serum Press, 2017. RRP $Aus 11.00. 118 pp.
  107. Bronwyn Lloyd / John Howell - Annabel Wilson / 289
    • John Howell. Homeless. ISBN 978-0-473-40731-5. Submarine Poetry. Wellington: Mākaro Press, 2017. RRP $25.00. 68 pp.
    • Annabel Wilson. Aspiring Daybook: The Diary of Elsie Winslow. ISBN 978-0-9951092-3-0. Submarine Poetry. Wellington: Mākaro Press, 2018. RRP $25.00. 128 pp.
  108. Elizabeth Morton / Michael Steven - Tony Beyer / 297
    • Michael Steven. Walking to Jutland Street. ISBN 978-1-98-853118-2. Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2018. RRP $27.50. 88 pp.
    • Tony Beyer. Anchor Stone. ISBN 978-0-473-341104-6. Lyttelton: Cold Hub Press, 2017. RRP $39.95. 166 pp.
  109. Jack Ross / Dan Davin - Alistair Paterson - Johanna Emeney / 303
    • Dan Davin. A Field Officer’s Notebook: Selected Poems. Ed. Robert McLean. ISBN 978-0-473-43068-9. Lyttelton: Cold Hub Press, 2018. RRP $29.95. 82 pp.
    • Alistair Paterson. Passant: A Journey to Elsewhere. ISBN 978-1-7862989-7-3. London: Austin Macauley Publishers, 2017. RRP £8.39. 302 pp.
    • Johanna Emeney. The Rise of Autobiographical Medical Poetry and the Medical Humanities. ISBN 978-3-8382-0938-8. Studies in World Literature, 5. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2018. RRP €29.90. 264 pp.
  110. Richard Taylor / Keith Westwater - Peter Rawnsley / 314
    • Keith Westwater. No One Home: A Boyhood Memoir in Letters and Poems. ISBN 978-0-9951092-0-9. Submarine Poetry. Wellington: Mākaro Press, 2018. RRP $25.00. 88 pp.
    • Peter Rawnsley. Light Cones. ISBN 978-0-9951092-1-6. Submarine Poetry. Wellington: Mākaro Press, 2018. RRP $25.00. 74 pp.

    111. About the Contributors / 321

    About Poetry New Zealand / 341


EDITORIAL:
What makes a poem good?


It’s a somewhat absurdly ambitious premise for an editorial, you may think. Certainly I did, when I was booked to speak on the topic at the 2018 Manawatū Writers’ Festival.

I won’t attempt to reprise everything I said on that occasion (vanity —— not to mention sanity —— forbids), but I thought I might mention a few points. First up is a quote from Robert Graves, one of my favourite poetry gurus:
The most popular theory advanced to account for the haunting of houses is that emanations of fear, hate or grief somehow impregnate a locality, and these emotions are released when in contact with a suitable medium. So with a poem or novel, passion impregnates the words and can make them active even divorced from the locality of creation. (On English Poetry, 1922)

You see what I mean? What a man! Graves, fresh from the trenches of the Western Front —— and even fresher from the psychoanalyst’s couch —— went on to argue in favour of the even more sweeping opinion that ‘Art of every sort . . . is an attempt to rationalize some emotional conflict in the artist’s mind.’

If the work created as a result succeeds somehow in resolving or at least exteriorising the conflict in question, he claims, then it can be said to be successful —— for that artist, at any rate. There is, however, no automatic reason to expect this success to translate to others. If, by some stroke of luck, it does, then we have what is commonly thought of as a ‘work of art’; i.e. something that speaks meaningfully to the emotional conflicts and traumas of others, as well as to yourself.

Certainly, as an editor, I have to acknowledge a certain futility in most of my attempts to make objective judgements about poems. A. E. Housman said that he always knew the real thing because it made the hairs on his chin stand up while he tried to shave. In other words, even that most austere of Classicists had to resort to a physical reaction rather than any more reasoned definition of poetry.

As my father grew older, and especially after his first stroke, we began to see a more emotional side of him (the exact words the doctors used were ‘emotionally labile’ —— apparently a common symptom of cerebral damage). In layman’s terms, he would burst into tears at the drop of a hat. Any mention of war sacrifice, moral courage, or bravery of any kind, would have him sniffing away in a manner that would probably have embarrassed him profoundly as a younger man. It certainly embarrassed us as the more-or-less standard products of a repressed Kiwi upbringing.

Even at the time I felt ashamed of this embarrassment, and tried to persuade myself to look on at such displays with joy and affection. It’s hard to overcome the conditioning of a lifetime, though.

Now it’s happening to me! I have always been pretty susceptible to uplifting speeches or noble acts in movies —— that moment in Rabbit Proof Fence, for instance, when the little girl pulls herself up off the sand to struggle on for just a few yards more with her sister in her arms . . . Pretty much the whole of that movie, in fact. I could make a list. Jimmy Stewart in Mr Smith Goes to Washington (‘Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for . . .’); Cher in Mask (‘Now you can go anywhere you want, baby’); Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird (‘Stand up, child, your daddy’s passing’). You know the sort of thing.

It’s starting to affect my poetry reading, too. It’s not that all the poems I like now have to be tragic or elegiac: humour is a pretty strong emotion, too, and everyone needs a good laugh from time to time. It’s just that I’m no longer afraid of being moved by them —— by the last lines of Brett Gartrell’s ‘After the principal calls’, for instance:
The dogs broke into the hen house
stringing two birds out in bloody feathered scraps.
My son cornered the panting terriers
washed the blood from their lips
as they licked the tears from his eyes.

Or, for that matter, by the whole of Wes Lee’s extraordinary ‘The Things She Remembers #1’, which is almost the only poem I could imagine knocking Brett’s into second place in our annual Poetry New Zealand competition:
Standing looking in the mirror saying:
No, No / The cold orange lipstick of the
Big Nurse / The patient who screamed like
a bird / her mouth wide as the abyss /
The patient who jumped on my back, kicked
in her heels, tried to gee me up like a
donkey / The painful embarrassment of being
thirteen / The laughter of the nurses / At
a terrible time I believed / At terrible times
I still believe / There are still things left to
sell / On the bus a wasp and a homeless man.

My God, there’s some pain in that poem! I hope that it had some success in working out certain traumas for its author (as prescribed by Robert Graves). Whether it did or not, it certainly works for me.

It’s not that I sit here boo-hooing as I read through all the submissions for each issue —— but every now and then something in one of them sits up and looks alive, persuades me that something is being worked out there that might be relevant to others simply because it seems so relevant to me.

It must have been very difficult for A. E. Housman to shave without constantly cutting himself. Every time he thought of ‘Into my heart an air that kills / From yon far country blows’ or ‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun / Nor the furious winter’s rages’, up the little hairs would go.

I wouldn’t trust myself to read out loud either Brett or Wes’s poems —— or quite a few of the other wonderful poems I have included in this edition of the Yearbook, either —— but I’m very glad the poets wrote them. Glad to have had the privilege to read them and to present them for the rest of you to fall for as hard as I did. (That’s if you’re not still stuck at the embarrassment-before-strong-emotion stage of your development. You wait: the time will come when you, too, find your face wet with tears when the townsfolk burst in to give their hard-earned savings to Jimmy Stewart at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life.)

Housman called poetry ‘a morbid secretion’. Graves, too, sees it as the necessary working-out of a repressed trauma or complex. Whether or not that helps as a tentative answer to what makes a poem good, I don’t know. I just know that spotting the real thing has become, for me, as much of a somatic as a psychosomatic matter.


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So, to reprise, the winners of the third annual Poetry New Zealand Poetry Prize are as follows:
First prize ($500):Wes Lee,
for ‘The Things She Remembers #1’
Second prize ($300):Brett Gartrell,
for ‘After the principal calls’
Third prize ($200):Natalie Modrich,
for ‘Retail’

I’ve already given you some idea of what I found so extraordinary in the first two of these poems.

The third is a complete change of pace. Natalie herself refers to it as ‘a very therapeutic poem’, and while it did make me laugh like a drain —— for which I thank her profoundly —— it also made me think a little about all the rest of the people doing what she calls ‘soul-crushing’ retail jobs. I don’t know if reading such things helps at all, but I’m prepared to believe it might. After all, Housman said that his poetry was meant for the ‘ill-treated . . . / For them to read when they’re in trouble / And I am not.’

This time the three poems have been printed separately, in their own section of the journal.

The same is true of the winning entries for the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook student poetry competition. All three of these poems seem to show an almost frightening maturity and skill. The difficulty in judging the competition was not so much in finding merit, as in deciding which of so many good poems to put first.

Aigagalefili Fepulea‘i-Tapuaʻi’s ‘275 Love Letters to Southside’ is a passionate piece of work —— richly imbued with the spirit of her beloved heimat:
When I learnt that no place outside of South Auckland would want to pronounce my name properly
I scraped it off their tongues
So now all they do is spit on us instead . . .
Haven’t my ancestors’ screams been muffled between textbook pages?
Didn’t a white teacher at my South Auckland sch tell us we’re just ‘typical South Auckland crap’?

If that teacher ever reads this poem, I hope he or she feels very small.
Kathryn Briggs’s ‘Earth is a Star to Someone’ is equally passionate, in a very different context. ‘Let —— This —— Matter,’ she pleads:
Let us be heard,
Let us take up the space we deserve in the universe.

Let all this youth, all this idealism, count for something. I certainly hope it does. I guess we all do.

Amberleigh Rose’s ‘Snake’s Tongue’ comes from a very different side of the poetic universe. Here passion has been turned to self-destruction, but there’s an aching residue of hope in there, too, somewhere, I feel:
Last night we slept in our blood stains
and whispered over the sound of our bones
trying to leave our skin and you
were the prettiest girl I had ever seen.
What was that? Not love?

Quite a few of the poems I read while judging this competition frightened me profoundly, I must confess. Where are all the flowers and bunny rabbits we used to write about at school? In fact (as a reviewer once remarked of one of my own books), ‘the spirit of darkness certainly prevails’.



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There are 100 poets in this issue (besides Stephanie Christie, our featured poet). There are also three essayists and 10 reviewers —— though some of these have also contributed poems: 110 authors in all.

Among the poets I’ve included are such well-known names as Sue Fitchett, Michele Leggott, Stephen Oliver, Bob Orr, Vaughan Rapatahana, Elizabeth Smither and Emma Neale. In her reply to my acceptance letter for the poems she’d submitted, Emma, now firmly established as the new managing editor of Landfall, explains the process of selection better than I could ever imagine doing:
... it’s finally made me realise that rejections aren’t always a comment on literary merit! And it doesn’t even mean an editor dislikes someone’s work, it just means there is chronically limited space.

Quite so. What she said. My long list for this issue was full of beautiful poems which have, one after the other, had to bite the dust for one reason or another. Never assume that your poem didn’t make it into that giant file! And don’t think that I didn’t sweat blood over those rejections, either.

Of course my subjective reactions have a great deal to do with the poems you see before you. As long as I’ve been reading her, which is almost 20 years now, I’ve been impressed and (at times) flabbergasted by the sheer virtuosic brinksmanship of Stephanie Christie’s poetry. It’s great to be able to introduce her poems to —— I hope —— a wider audience than they’ve so far reached in this country. Her fractured word-play —— reminiscent at times of late Celan but with a pop culture edge he never achieved —— can be daunting at first, but I think you’ll see after a while how relentlessly quotable she is:
I hold onto hope because I want something
to do with my hands
(‘-OH’)

Every morning the first word I say is
Yes.
(‘Felt calculus’)

Nothing’s happened. You make me feel
less alone. You’re also real.
That might ruin everything.
(‘Unfinished Objects’)

If you need more evidence, here it is, in the form of a rich selection of 19 recent poems, plus a tell-all interview!


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The reviews section is a bit smaller than in previous issues: not because I don’t think they’re important, but because I want to give them more space on their own. We’ve decided to follow Landfall’s good example and to cover most of the books we receive on our website, the Poetry NZ Review [https://poetrynzreview.blogspot.com/].

The reviews that we do include in the text will now be more in the nature of review-essays, and there will be no more simple notices of books. This also has the advantage of enabling us to include more poems and stand-alone essays. There are three of the latter in this issue, covering issues such as narrative strategies in poetry, Zen Buddhism, mourning, and death, in poets as diverse as Airini Beautrais, Richard von Sturmer and Derek Walcott.

I’m also happy to be able to include here some dual-text poems in Chinese, German, Spanish and te reo Māori. What more need I say? Enjoy!


— Jack Ross
November 2018



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ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS:

  • Gary Allen was born in Northern Ireland, and has published 18 collections in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States; most recently a long poem, Sour Hill, by Greenwich Exchange Publishing, London. He has been published widely in international literary magazines including Poetry New Zealand, Australian Book Review, Meanjin, Westerly, London Magazine, The New Statesman, The Poetry Review, Stand, The Threepenny Review and Queen’s Quarterly.
  • John Allison was born in Blenheim in 1950. Prior to moving to Melbourne to live in 2001, his poetry was published extensively here in New Zealand and overseas. He was the featured poet in Poetry New Zealand 14, and is the author of four collections of poetry. He returned to live in Christchurch in 2016.
  • Aimee-Jane Anderson-O’Connor was recently announced as the winner of the 2018 Charles Brasch Young Writers’ Essay Competition, and was the co-winner of the 2017 Monash Prize for Emerging Writers. Her work has appeared in Starling, Mayhem, brief, Poetry New Zealand, Landfall, Turbine, Mimicry and Verge. She writes thanks to the tireless support of some of the best people on this great watery rock.
  • Miguel Ángel Arcas is a Spanish poet, and director of the Cuadernos del Vigía press in Granada. His first collection of poems, Los sueños del realista (2000), received the Miguel Hernández National Poetry Award, and he received the XXII Ricardo Molina Poetry Award of the City of Cordoba for Llueve horizontal (2015). He has two collections of aphorisms, Aforemas (2004) and Más realidad (2012). His most recent collection of poetry is Alevosía (2016).
  • Shelley Arlidge is a Russell gardener and poet. She is currently working towards an Master’s in Creative Writing at Massey University, and has had work published in Fast Fibres, Landfall and Poetry New Zealand.
  • Stu Bagby was first published nationally in AUP New Poets Vol.2. He has written four books of poetry and a play, and has edited three anthologies.
  • Tony Beyer lives and writes in Taranaki.
  • Victor Billot lives in Dunedin. He has published three poetry collections, including Ambient Terror (2017). His work has recently been published in Cordite, Meniscus, Minarets, The Spinoff and takahē. He works for Otago University Press. www.victorbillot.com.
  • Benjamin Blake grew up in Eltham. He is the author of the novel The Devil’s Children, the poetry and prose collections A Prayer for Late October, Southpaw Nights, Reciting Shakespeare with the Dead and Standing on the Threshold of Madness, as well as the forthcoming split All the Feral Dogs of Los Angeles (with Cole Bauer). He lives in Masterton. www.benjaminblake.com.
  • Ella Borrie is a poet and mug collector living in Wellington, although her heart is in the Southern Alps. She has an English and a Law degree from the University of Otago, was the co-editor of Antics 2015, and her work appears in Mimicry and Starling.
  • Cindy Botha writes: ‘I live in Tauranga, having moved to New Zealand from South Africa 20 years ago. I read obsessively, drawn by the possibilities of language, but only started writing last year, a few months short of turning 60. I’m trying to make up for lost time.’
  • Kathryn Briggs won first prize in the Year 12 section of the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook student poetry competition. She is a student at Baradene College of the Sacred Heart, Auckland.
  • Mark Broatch is a journalist, critic, author and stay-at-home dad. He has been a Buddle Findlay Sargeson fellow, and was awarded a residency at the Michael King Writers’ Centre in 2018 to complete a novel.
  • Steve Brock published his first collection of poetry, The Night is a Dying Dog (Wakefield Press), in 2007, and received a grant from Arts SA for the completion of Double Glaze, published by Five Islands Press in 2013. He is co-translator, with Sergio Holas and Juan Garrido-Salgado, of Poetry of the Earth: Mapuche Trilingual Anthology (Interactive Press 2014). Steve completed a PhD in Australian literature at Flinders University in 2003. His work has featured in the Best Australian Poems (Black Inc.), and has been published in journals in Australia and overseas. His most recent collection is the chapbook Jardin du Luxembourg (Garron Publishing, 2016). Steve was a featured writer at Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2017.
  • Owen Bullock’s most recent publications are Work & Play (Recent Work Press, 2017) and semi (Puncher & Wattmann, 2017). He teaches creative writing at the University of Canberra.
  • Chris Cantillon lives in Whanganui and works as a property and estates lawyer in a local firm. He is presently working on a young-adult novella concerning a feisty new dog with shifting aspirations.
  • Marisa Cappetta’s first collection, How to tour the world on a flying fox, was published by Steele Roberts in 2016. In 2013, Marisa received a mentorship from the New Zealand Society of Authors, with mentor James Norcliffe. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Hagley Writers’ Institute, and is the winner of the Hagley Writers’ Institute Margaret Mahy Prize. She has been published in takahē, The Press, International Literary Quarterly, Enamel, Shot Glass, Snorkel, Blackmail Press, Turbine and Landfall, as well as in several anthologies. She has had two poem posters made by Phantom Bill Stickers.
  • Mariana Collette writes: ‘I am from the Kāpiti Coast. I have written two books: Lady Luck — Conversations with Creative New Zealand Women, and a young-adult novel called Lola Night. I have had a play performed in Auckland: Friends Help You Move. Real Friends Help You Move Bodies. My poetry has been published in Easy Bites, The Nu Project Magazine and Geometry.’
  • Rose Collins has a Master’s in Creative Writing from Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters. Her work has been published in a number of journals, including Sport, Turbine, 4th Floor and Sweet Mammalian. She is the Writer in Residence at Hagley College for 2018, and she lives on Banks Peninsula with her family.
  • Jennifer Compton was born in Wellington, and now lives in Melbourne. She is a poet and playwright who also writes prose.
  • Mary Cresswell is from Los Angeles and lives on the Kāpiti Coast. Her latest book, Field Notes, contains poems written purely for enjoyment. It was published by Mākaro Press in mid-2017.
  • E. J. Doyle is a scientist and poet, and is currently working on a fantasy novel.
  • Rachael Elliott has a Master’s in Creative Writing, and has previously edited Nexus magazine. Her work has appeared in 4th Floor, JAAM, Mayhem and previous editions of Poetry New Zealand. She is currently recovering from an epic case of writer’s block, in Hamilton.
  • Johanna Emeney lives in Auckland with her husband, two goats and six cats. Her poetry books are Apple & Tree (Cape Catley, 2011) and Family History (Mākaro Press, 2017). In 2018, ibidem Press published her academic text, The Rise of Autobiographical Medical Poetry and The Medical Humanities.
  • Bonnie Etherington’s first novel, The Earth Cries Out, was published in 2017 by Penguin Random House. Her short fiction, poetry and nonfiction have appeared in various publications in New Zealand and overseas, including in Guernica, Headland, Ika, Meniscus and takahē.
  • Mike Evans is an engineering manager from Plimmerton, who moonlights as a poet. He completed the VUW Institute of Modern Letters Poetry Workshop paper in 2010, and his favourite poets include Dylan Thomas, Pablo Neruda and Hone Tuwhare.
  • Rachel J. Fenton lives in Auckland. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize, and published in Landfall, English, Journal of the English Association (Oxford Academic), The Rialto and various national and international journals and anthologies.
  • Aigagalefili Fepulea’i-Tapua’i won first prize in the Year 11 section of the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook student poetry competition. She is a student at Aorere College in Papatoetoe, Auckland.
  • Jess Fiebig lives for new words, cups of tea, sunshine and her wire-haired terrier. She lives in Christchurch and tutors at the School of Young Writers, and her poems have recently appeared in Aotearotica, Landfall, takahē and the New Zealand Poetry Society journals.
  • Sue Fitchett is a conservationist and Waiheke Islander. She is the co-author or editor of several poetry books. She authored Palaver lava queen (Auckland University Press, 2004) and On the Wing (Steele Roberts, 2014). Her work has appeared in various publications in New Zealand and Australia, and in art shows. She received a Louis Johnson New Writer’s Bursary in 2001–2002.
  • Katie Fitzpatrick is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland. She specialises in research and teaching in the areas of health education, sexuality education, physical education, sociology of health and the body, and research methods. She has a particular interest in exploring issues of health and the body through poetry, and how poetic forms of representation can cross the boundaries between the arts and research.
  • Dara Flaws writes: ‘I’m a 21-year-old graduate of Victoria University in Wellington. I studied theatre, English literature and creative writing, and have been writing ever since I learned how. My first full-length novel was written at the age of six, and entitled Tibs the Monkey. I have a strong interest in writing for children; however, in recent years my passion for poetry and writing honestly and relevantly has dramatically increased.’
  • Alexandra Fraser has been published in various anthologies and magazines in New Zealand and overseas. She was placed first in the 2017 New Zealand Poetry Society competition with her poem ‘After the Cyclone’. Her first collection was Conversation by Owl-light (Steele Roberts, 2014). She is a recent graduate of the AUT Master’s in Creative Writing programme, and a member of the Central Auckland Poets group (CAP).
  • Kim Fulton writes: ‘I grew up in Auckland, and I have lived throughout New Zealand. I have a Master’s in Creative Writing from Massey University. My thesis looked at indirect approaches to loss in elegiac poems. My writing has appeared in Landfall, Mimicry, Poetry New Zealand, the New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology, Hue and Cry, JAAM and takahē. When I’m not writing, I enjoy running and playing soccer. I work at Otago Polytechnic’s Auckland campus.’
  • Brett Gartrell lives and works in the Manawatū, caring for small broken things. He wrote these poems as part of the Master’s of Creative Writing degree at Massey University.
  • Ruth Hanover’s writing — shaped by a degree in English, ESOL teaching in Cairo and Stockholm, and being in therapy — has been anthologised in Manifesto Aotearoa: 101 Political Poems (Otago University Press, 2017), and published in London Grip, a fine line and takahē. Her poems were placed third in the New Zealand Poetry Society Competition in 2016, and highly commended in the Caselberg Poetry Prize in 2017. She won the takahē Poetry Prize 2017. In 2017, her first poetry collection, Other, was awarded an NZSA/Pen Complete Manuscript Assessment through Creative New Zealand.
  • Matthew Harris has a PhD in English from Massey University, and works as a senior tutor in its School of English and Media Studies. He is a writer of poems, fictions and short films — 43000 Feet (2012), Snooze Time (2014) and Madam Black (2015) — and has travelled the international film festival circuit from Rhode Island and Tribeca in the United States to Clermont-Ferrand festival in France, accruing various awards.
  • Paula Harris lives in Palmerston North, where she writes poems and sleeps in a lot, because that’s what depression makes you do. She won the 2018 Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize and the 2017 Lilian Ida Smith Award, and was a writing resident at Vermont Studio Center in late 2018. Her poetry been published in various New Zealand and Australian journals, including Poetry New Zealand Yearbook, Snorkel, takahē, Landfall and Broadsheet. She is extremely fond of dark chocolate, shoes and hoarding fabric. She tweets randomly at @paulaoffkilter.
  • Jenna Heller lives in Christchurch with her partner and their two teens. She is a member of the South Island Writers’ Association, and more of her writing can be found in Popshot, Star 82 Review, Flash Frontier and takahē.
  • Sara Hirsch is a London-grown writer and educator currently based in New Zealand. She is an award-winning poet, a TEDx speaker, has two full-length collections published with Burning Eye Books and recently graduated with a Master’s in Creative Writing and Education from Goldsmiths University. She is currently attempting to dismantle the patriarchy, one poem at a time. www.sarahirsch.co.uk.
  • Joy Holley is currently studying English, philosophy and creative writing at Victoria University. Her writing has also appeared in Starling, The Spin Off, brief and Headland.
  • Alice Hooton’s first book of poetry, Shamfeign, was published by Brightspark Books in 2011. She lives in Mairangi Bay, Auckland, and is involved in the eternal struggle between family and finding time to write.
  • Amanda Hunt is a poet and environmental scientist from Rotorua. Her work has been published in Landfall, takahē, Te Awa, Mimicry and Poems in the Waiting Room, on poetry and conservation websites, and in numerous New Zealand Poetry Society anthologies. In 2016, she was shortlisted for the Sarah Broom Poetry Prize. Her work has been highly commended in several New Zealand Poetry Society International Competitions.
  • Gail Ingram’s poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous publications, including Poetry New Zealand, takahē, Atlanta Review, Blue Five Notebook, Cordite Poetry Review and Manifesto. She is a poetry editor for takahē magazine and associate editor for Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction. She teaches at the School for Young Writers in Christchurch, and holds a Master’s of Creative Writing from Massey University. https://www.theseventhletter.nz/.
  • Ross Jackson is a retired teacher who lives in Perth, Western Australia. He has had poetry published in many literary journals and on the web. Aloneness, ageing and life in the suburbs are recurring themes in his work.
  • Adrienne Jansen writes fiction and nonfiction as well as poetry. She has published three collections of poetry, and a fourth, All of us — a collection of poems on the theme of migration, with Carina Gallegos — will be published in late 2018. She lives in Titahi Bay, north of Wellington, with her family.
  • Lincoln Jaques was born in the UK but grew up in Auckland, where he completed a Master’s of Creative Writing at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). He has previously published poetry in several journals and collections, including Poetry New Zealand, JAAM, Southern Ocean Review, Spin, Fresh and Shot Glass Journal (US). He was the winner of the 2015 Auckland Museum ANZAC International Centenary Poetry Competition.
  • Anneliese (Annie) Tuarau Jones is a 19-year-old aspiring writer. She is studying at Massey University and majoring in creative writing. She is working on several ideas for novels, and is starting to write poems on the side as she goes.
  • Robert Kempen lives in Auckland. His poetry has appeared in Poetry New Zealand and brief. He is working on an 80-page poem, ‘The sun its eyes’, which is nearly completed.
  • Paula King writes: ‘I am an artist and teacher living in the Manawatū. I have had work published in Turbine, takahē, Swamp and the unexpected greenness of trees. I am currently studying at Toioho ki Apiti (the Māori Visual Arts programme at Massey University), and working on a series of paintings based around themes of house and body.’
  • Elizabeth (Libby) Kirkby-McLeod is an Auckland author with a Master’s of Creative Writing, first class honours. Elizabeth has had poetry published in New Zealand, and was long-listed for the 2008 Six Pack 3 authors anthology. She has a children’s book forthcoming with Gilt Edge Publishing. Elizabeth also reviews poetry, and is an active member of the New Zealand Society of Authors.
  • Katrina Larsen lives in Tauranga, where she enjoys spending time with amazing friends and family. She has previously been published in Blackmail Press, takahē and Poetry New Zealand.
  • Jessica Le Bas has published two collections of poetry: incognito and Walking to Africa (Auckland University Press, 2007, 2009), and a novel for children, Staying Home (Penguin, 2010). She currently lives and works in the Cook Islands.
  • Simon Lèbe was born in London in 1961, and spent a large part of his childhood in France and Switzerland. He completed a degree in Fine Art in London in the early 1980s. Self-taught, he has worked in various fields of translation since 1990, and has been living in Wuppertal, Germany, since 1994.
  • Wes Lee lives in Wellington. Her poetry has appeared in The Stinging Fly, New Writing Scotland, Westerly, Landfall, The London Magazine, Cordite, The London Reader, Irises: The University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s Poetry Prize Anthology 2017, and many other journals and anthologies. She was a finalist in the Sarah Broom Poetry Prize 2018.
  • Michele Leggott was the inaugural New Zealand Poet Laureate under the National Library scheme (2007/08), was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2009 for her services to poetry, and in 2013 received The Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry. She is an award-winning poet, a founding director of the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre (http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/) and a professor in the University of Auckland’s English Department.
  • Bronwyn Lloyd is a crafter and writer who has published numerous catalogue essays and articles on New Zealand painting and applied art since 1999. Her first collection of short stories, The Second Location, was published by Titus Books in 2011.
  • Isabelle (Izzy) Lomax-Sawyers is a new poet and Dunedin-based medical student. Her personal essays have been published in Corpus and in the Journal of Paediatric and Child Health.
  • Olivia L. M. is a woman of Māori descent, originally from Granity.
  • Victoria McArthur is a photographer based in Christchurch. When not out and about taking photographs and planning artistic projects with fellow industry creatives, Victoria can be found writing small notes to herself at random hours of the day that will either encompass a hilarious story or a sentence that needs to be remembered for further poetic writings. These notes are often confused with the weekly shopping list, and her pockets are generally full of small 15cm x 15cm cube notes, folded in half a dozen times over, with writing that starts off neat and ends up looking like old scripture — the kind that needs a translator.
  • Olivia Macassey’s poems have appeared in takahē, Poetry New Zealand, Landfall and other places. Her second book, The Burnt Hotel, was published in 2015 by Titus Books. She currently edits brief, and lives in Northland. www.macassey.com.
  • Isabelle McNeur studies at Victoria University of Wellington, where she has completed several courses at the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML). In 2015 she won the Margaret Mahy Award for Best Folio at the Hagley Writers’ Institute, in 2017 she won the Prize for Original Composition at the IIML, and in 2018 she will complete the Hachette Mentorship Programme.
  • Mary Macpherson is a Wellington poet and photographer. Lately she has been interested in writing about how digital life has become like real life.
  • D. S. Maolalai recently returned to Ireland after four years away, and now spends his days working maintenance dispatch for a bank and his nights looking out the window and wishing he had a view. His first collection, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden, was published in 2016 by the Encircle Press. He has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
  • Ria Masae won the 2015 New Voices: Emerging Poets and 2016 Cooney Insurance Short Story competitions. Her work has been included in publications such as Landfall, Ika, Otoliths, Blackmail Press and Snorkel. Her poetry also featured in the 2017 Best New Zealand Poems collection. She is currently working on her first poetry collection.
  • Natalie Modrich has recently returned to studying a Bachelor of Arts in English at Massey University. She took a semester off in 2017 to travel Europe after working in a soul-crushing retail job. The poem featuring in this yearbook is a very therapeutic poem.
  • Layal Moore writes: ‘I was born in 1987 of Lebanese/Irish ethnicity, grew up in Devonport, Auckland, and attended Michael Park Rudolf Steiner School for most of my schooling. My mother died when I was nine, and, years later, my younger brother committed suicide. I now live on the Hibiscus Coast with my partner and three children.’
  • Margaret Moores was a bookseller for many years, but is now a PhD student in Creative Writing at Massey University. Her poems and short fiction have been published in journals and anthologies in New Zealand and Australia.
  • Martha Morseth is a Dunedin poet whose work has appeared in the Listener, Landfall and other literary magazines.
  • Elizabeth Morton is published in New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Australia and Ireland. Her first poetry collection, Wolf, was published by Mākaro Press in 2017. She was feature poet in Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2017. www.ekmorton.com.
  • Fraser Munro lives in Auckland. His poem included in this issue was written while studying to be a psychotherapist and driving a tow-truck on the weekends.
  • Emma Neale is the editor of Landfall. Her novel Billy Bird was shortlisted for the Acorn Award at the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award. She lives in Dunedin.
  • Keith Nunes lives in Pahiatua, and so do a few other people. He won the 2017 Flash Frontier Short Fiction Writing Award, has been published around the globe, placed in competitions and been a Pushcart Prize nominee. His book of poetry/short fiction, catching a ride on a paradox, is out there.
  • Stephen Oliver is the author of 19 volumes of poetry. He lived in Australia for 20 years, and now lives in New Zealand. He has published widely in international literary journals and anthologies. He is a regular contributor of creative nonfiction and poems to Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature. His poems have been translated into German, Spanish, Chinese and Russian. His poems have appeared in the anthologies Writing To The Wire (University of Western Australia Publishing, 2016) and Manifesto Aotearoa: 101 Political Poems (Otago University Press, 2017). Oliver’s latest poetry collection is LUXEMBOURG (Greywacke Press, 2018).
  • Charles Olsen is an artist and poet from Nelson, who has been based in Madrid, Spain, since 2003. He has translated both Spanish and New Zealand poets. charlesolsen.es.
  • Bob Orr has lived most of his adult life in Auckland, but now lives on the Thames Coast. He was the recipient of the 2017 Writer in Residence award at Waikato University. His most recent book is Odysseus in Woolloomooloo (Steele Roberts, 2014). He is currently working on poems inspired by a Waikato childhood.
  • Jessica Pawley writes: ‘Born in New Zealand in 1989, I have spent most of my life in a book — either reading it, or writing it. Air Born, the first novel of my YA SciFi quadrilogy Generation Icarus [published under the name J. L. Pawley by Steam Press], was launched in New Zealand in 2017, and is now published in five countries and three languages (with more editions pending). The second book, Take Flight, was released in 2018, with the third and fourth, Sun Strike and Free Fall, coming in 2019. The series has also been optioned for screen adaptation.’
  • Hayden Pyke writes: ‘I’m from Hamilton. I have been writing poetry and short stories for more than a minute now, and have had some success, including a placing in Poetry New Zealand. I write late at night when the rest of my life isn’t around.’
  • essa may ranapiri is white and queer, Māori and takatāpui. They [not her or he] have been published in various journals, including Mayhem, Poetry New Zealand, brief, Starling, Them and Poetry Magazine (Chicago). You can find more work by them at essawrites.wordpress.com.
  • Vaughan Rapatahana’s latest poetry collection is ternion (erbacce-press, Liverpool). He is honoured to be included in the latest Best New Zealand Poems. His next collection is translated into French and is due out in mid-2018 — L’Homme Blanc est Venu (Éditions de la Tortue, France).
  • Ron Riddell has worked and performed in many countries. A painter, musician and the author of a number of plays and novels, he has published more than 20 collections of verse. His work has been translated into German, Japanese, Turkish, Arabic, Hindi and Spanish.
  • Gillian Roach is an Auckland poet and novelist. She has a BA in English literature and language from Victoria University of Wellington, and a diploma in journalism. Gillian recently graduated with a Master’s of Creative Writing from AUT.
  • Fiona Roberton lives in Wellington with her husband, Pete, and daughter, Kate. In addition to looking after a toddler, she volunteers for Mary Potter Hospice and writes for a parenting magazine.
  • Jeremy Roberts lives in Napier, where he MCs at Napier Live Poets and interviews poets for the Radio Kidnappers Hawke’s Bay Poetry Live show. He has performed with musicians locally and overseas. Recordings can be heard at https://soundcloud.com/jeremy-n-roberts. His poetry collection, Cards on the Table, was published by Interactive Press in 2015.
  • Amberleigh Rose won first prize in the Year 13 section of the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook student poetry competition. She is Deputy Head Girl at Kuranui College in the South Wairarapa.
  • Siobhan Rosenthal writes: ‘I’m currently homeless, a student of creative writing, and living in my car due to the high cost of Auckland living. I was recently invited to spend time as part of the collective living on the Ihumatao Protest Camp and write poetry for it. I have PTSD and am interested in the intersection between the personal and the political. I have won international awards for my writing and published in multiple outlets, including the London Times. My poetry was recently selected by Domestic Violence charity Shine to accompany a national art exhibition on the subject to be held shortly in the South Island.’
  • Jack Ross is the managing editor of Poetry New Zealand. He works as a senior lecturer in creative writing at Massey University’s Auckland Campus. His latest collection, A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981–2014, was published by HeadworX in 2014. His blog is The Imaginary Museum: http://mairangibay.blogspot.com/.
  • Dadon Rowell is currently writing a Master’s thesis in English at the University of Waikato. Her work has previously featured in Mayhem.
  • Sigune Schnabel was born in 1981, and studied for a diploma in literary translation in Düsseldorf, Germany. Her work has appeared in anthologies and literary journals, and her poetry has won prizes in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Her poetry collection, Apfeltage regnen, was published by Geest-Verlag in September 2017.
  • Erena Shingade’s writing has been published in magazines such as Landfall, Minarets, Mimicry, Atlanta Poetry Review and Ka Mate Ka Ora. She has composed and performed music for the poetry of von Sturmer, Lyn Hejinian, Wallace Stevens and others, and has worked as a teaching assistant for the University of Auckland.
  • Sarah Shirley is a junior doctor living in Hamilton with her husband, two children, and an old brown dog. Her poems have appeared in takahē, Pedestal, The Healing Muse, star*line, Intima, Atlas, Landfall and elsewhere.
  • Tracey Slaughter’s collection of poetry, conventional weapons, is due for release from Victoria University Press in April 2019. She is the author of the short story collection deleted scenes for lovers, and her poem ‘breather’ won second place in the international Peter Porter Poetry Prize 2018. She teaches at the University of Waikato, where she edits the literary journal Mayhem.
  • Barry Smith is a retired scientist; now a writer and printmaker. His work has appeared in several New Zealand literary journals (Poetry New Zealand, takahē, Southern Ocean Review, Kokako, Bravado) and several anthologies.
  • Ian C. Smith’s work has appeared in Antipodes, Australian Book Review, Australian Poetry Journal, Critical Survey, Prole, The Stony Thursday Book and Two-Thirds North. His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy (Ginninderra, Port Adelaide, 2014). He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders Island, Tasmania.
  • Lauren J. Smith is a trainee doctor in Greymouth, through the University of Otago. She also has an interest in poetry, and has been published in the London Grip, takahē and the New Zealand Medical Student Journal.
  • Elizabeth Smither’s latest collection, Night Horse, was published by Auckland University Press in 2017, and won the poetry award in the 2018 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. She was awarded the Sarah Broom poetry prize in 2016.
  • Stephen Smithyman is a retired schoolteacher who lives in Melbourne. His poems have won numbers of awards. He won the Victorian Cancer Council Outstanding Poem award in 2011, the Poetica Christi Prize in 2013, and the Glen Phillips Poetry Prize in 2016.
  • John Tarlton is a fine artist and writer, currently living at Foxton Beach. Early in his career he published poems in Poetry New Zealand, Landfall and Quote/Unquote, to name a few. He holds a PhD in Vocational Art Education from Griffith University, Australia, and a Master’s in Fine Arts from the State University of New York at Albany. A survey of his paintings and prints is scheduled to open in October 2019 at Te Manawa Museum of Art, Science and History, Palmerston North.
  • Richard Taylor is an Aucklander who has had work published in various publications, including some previous editions of Poetry New Zealand. RED was published by Dead Poets in 1996 , and Conversation With a Stone by Titus Books in 2007. It is said of Taylor that his mind is like an enormous ice-cream.
  • Loren Thomas is a writer and photographer based in the Waikato region. She has previously been published in Poetry New Zealand, Mayhem, Starling and brief.
  • Tybalt is from Auckland. She writes short stories, and plays a lot of visual novels. IG: @tybaltnotyet.
  • Bryan Walpert is the author of six books of poetry, fiction and criticism, most recently the poetry collection Native Bird (Mākaro Press, 2015) and Poetry and Mindfulness: Interruption to a Journey (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). He is an associate professor in creative writing at Massey University.
  • Laura Williamson is a writer based in Central Otago. Her articles, stories and poems have appeared in publications around New Zealand and the world, including North & South, The Otago Daily Times, The Age, The Kiwi Diary, Wet Ink Magazine and the anthology of the New Zealand Poetry Society. Her book The Bike and Beyond: Life on Two Wheels in Aotearoa New Zealand is out now as part of the BWB Text series from Bridget Williams Books.
  • Sue Wootton lives in Dunedin. Her most recent publications are her novel, Strip (Mākaro Press, 2016), and her fifth poetry collection, The Yield (Otago University Press, 2017). She edits the health humanities e-zine Corpus: Conversations about Medicine and Life, found online at corpus.nz.
  • Sigred Yamit writes: ‘My poems have appeared in Printable Reality, Poetry New Zealand, Mimicry and Starling. In my spare time I watch documentaries, write poetry, and try to fix my sleeping pattern (I’ve failed yet again).’
  • Grace Yee’s poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies in Australia, including Heat, Southerly, Island, Mascara Literary Review and Westerly. She grew up in New Zealand, and is currently teaching in the creative writing programme at the University of Melbourne.
  • Yi Zhe writes in both English and Chinese, and now teaches at Changsha New Oriental School in China. His work has appeared in a number of publications, including Westerly, Bellevue Literary Review, Acumen and Two Thirds North.
  • Mark Young is the author of over forty books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, & art history. His work has been widely anthologized, & his essays & poetry translated into a number of languages. He lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia.
  • Zuo You is a Chinese poet based in Xi’an. His poems have appeared in major literary magazines in China. Suffering from a hearing impairment, he can speak only a few simple words.



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ABOUT POETRY NEW ZEALAND:

Poetry New Zealand is New Zealand’s longest-running poetry magazine, showcasing new writing from this country and overseas. It presents the work of talented newcomers and developing writers as well as that of established leaders in the field.

Founded by Wellington poet Louis Johnson, who edited it from 1951 to 1964 as the New Zealand Poetry Yearbook, it was revived as a biennial volume by Frank McKay in 1971, a series which lasted until 1984. David Drummond (in collaboration with Oz Kraus’s Brick Row Publishing) began to publish it again biannually in 1990. The journal reached its 48th issue in 2014, the year its present managing editor, Jack Ross of Massey University’s School of English and Media Studies, took it back to its roots by renaming it the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook.

Poetry New Zealand has been edited by some of New Zealand’s most distinguished poets and academics, including Elizabeth Caffin, Grant Duncan, Riemke Ensing, Bernard Gadd, Leonard Lambert, Harry Ricketts, Elizabeth Smither and Brian Turner. The journal was overseen from 1993 to 2014 by celebrated poet, novelist, anthologist, editor and literary critic Alistair Paterson ONZM, with help from master printer John Denny of Puriri Press, and guest editors Owen Bullock, Siobhan Harvey and Nicholas Reid.

The magazine’s policy is to support poetry and poets both in New Zealand and overseas. Each issue since 1994 has contained a substantial feature showcasing the work of a developing or established poet. It also includes a selection of poetry from New Zealand and abroad, as well as essays, reviews and critical commentary.

The editor is grateful to Associate Professor Jenny Lawn, Head of the School of English and Media Studies at Massey University, for her financial support of this edition.

Managing editor
Jack Ross
editor@poetrynz.net

Advisory board
  • Thom Conroy
  • Jen Crawford
  • John Denny
  • Matthew Harris
  • Ingrid Horrocks
  • David Howard
  • Jan Kemp
  • Bronwyn Lloyd
  • Alistair Paterson
  • Tracey Slaughter
  • Bryan Walpert

Website: www.poetrynz.net
Webmaster: Warren Olds
Blog: poetrynzblog.blogspot.co.nz
Index: poetrynz.blogspot.co.nz

Submissions: The submission dates for each issue are between 1 May and 31 July of each year. Submit either (preferably) by email, with your poems pasted in the body of the message or included as a MSWord file attachment; or by post, to the address below, with a stamped self-addressed envelope, and contact details in your covering letter.

Dr Jack Ross
School of English and Media Studies
Massey University, Albany Campus
Private Bag 102904
North Shore Mail Centre
Auckland 0745

Please remember to include a short biography and current postal address with your submission. Contributors to each issue will receive a free copy.



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