The New Zealand Poet Laureate blog

Korekore Rawea: Karakia (Low energy)

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 21:15:00 +0000

When we close our eyes
in mihi to the divine
it makes us feel our tūpuna
our whenua
that we all
take a breath
in thanks
we shall not hate
that we will, love
reach out
and support one another
in shared
karakia

— Robert Sullivan

(from Hopurangi Songcatcher: Poems from the Maramataka. Auckland University Press)

For this poem, apart from the spiritual blessing of karakia, and its power to heal, I was also thinking about the Palestinian doctor, Izzeldin Abuelaish and his book I Shall Not Hate. I had the privilege of meeting him during an Auckland Writers’ Festival. His message of reconciliation is powerful.

Welcome to Robert Sullivan, our new Poet Laureate

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 21:00:00 +0000

The National Library is delighted to celebrate National Poetry Day by announcing Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi, Kāi Tahu) of Ōamaru as the New Zealand Poet Laureate for 2025-2025.

Robert Sullivan, New Zealand Poet Laureate. Photo supplied.

Gina Smith, Acting Te Pouhuaki | National Librarian described Robert’s appointment as recognition for a distinctive and important voice of poetry in Aotearoa New Zealand. ‘Robert amplifies Māori and Pacific voices in thoughtful engagement with complex cultural narratives. He has great standing as a poet, teacher and scholar, he holds considerable māna and leads with grace and humility.’

On learning of his appointment as Poet Laureate, Sullivan reflected, ‘I’m very grateful to receive this laureateship. It recognises the continuum of Māori poets who are publishing such rich, vibrant work. There are too many to name all of the Māori poets writing, composing and performing today but they inspire me through seeing our tupuna in their soulful words.

Many poets and writers helped me with my poetry and writing, and especially Maualaivao Albert Wendt, Michele Leggott, Anne Kennedy and Witi Ihimaera, but it’s my mum and dad who did the most. This is such a great boost. I stand on their shoulders, and the shoulders of all our tūpuna, Māori and Pākeha.

I’d like to mention the poets who have passed away who inspired me too, especially Hone Tuwhare, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, and Keri Hulme.’

From its inception as the Te Mata Estate Winery Laureate Award in 1996 through to 2007 the Laureates were Bill Manhire, Hone Tuwhare, Elizabeth Smither, Brian Turner and Jenny Bornholdt. Since 2007, when the National Library took over the appointment of the Poet Laureate, the Laureates have been Michele Leggott, Cilla McQueen, Ian Wedde, Vincent O’Sullivan, CK Stead, Selina Tusitala Marsh, David Eggleton and Chris Tse.

The value of the New Zealand Poet Laureate Award is $150,000 over the three-year period. The Laureate receives $40,000 per year, with the balance held by the National Library to cover the cost of the Laureate’s tokotoko, and to support their travel and participation in literary events.

Biography

Robert was inspired by his schoolteacher in Year 6 (Standard 4) at Onehunga Primary School, Mrs Nair, to write poetry. “She got the class to lie on the school field and write poems about clouds. My cloud poem was about an alligator, and a boy lying in the grass watching it glide by. It made me realise that a poem could take me somewhere else, to another world, and I could write it.”

Robert Sullivan’s nine books of poetry include the bestselling Star Waka (Auckland University Press, 1999), reprinted five times, translated into German (Mana Verlag), and short-listed for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards (2000). His newest collection of poems, the bestselling Hopurangi / Songcatcher: Poems from the Maramataka, was shortlisted for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

His epic, Captain Cook in the Underworld was a finalist in the Poetry Category for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards (2003). It is also an oratorio for the composition by John Psathas, Orpheus in Rarohenga, performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the Orpheus Choir of Wellington for the choir’s fiftieth anniversary. Robert’s poem ‘Kawe Reo / Voices Carry’ is installed in bronze in front of the Auckland City Library. His first collection, Jazz Waiata, won the Jessie McKay PEN (NZ) Best First Book Award in 1991.

As an editor, he worked with Maualaivao Albert Wendt and Reina Whaitiri on the groundbreaking anthologies of Polynesian poetry in English, Whetu Moana and Mauri Ola. The first anthology won the Montana New Zealand Book Award for Reference and Anthology (2004). He also edited with Reina Whaitiri the major anthology of Māori poets in English, Puna Wai Kōrero which won the Creative Writing category in the Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards in 2015. His most recent anthology is Koe: An Aotearoa Ecopoetry Anthology edited with Janet Newman (2024).

His poetry appears in numerous literary magazines and journals in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the United States.

Other awards include The Lauris Edmond Memorial Award for a distinguished contribution to New Zealand Poetry (2022), Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Hawaii (2001), and the University of Auckland Literary Fellowship (1998).

As well as poetry, his children’s book of Māori myths and legends, Weaving Earth and Sky, illustrated by Gavin Bishop, listed as a Storylines Notable Non-Fiction Book (2003), won the Non-Fiction category and the New Zealand Post Children’s Book of the Year (2003).

His graphic novel Maui: Legends of the Outcast, illustrated by Chris Slane, was shortlisted for the LIANZA Russell Clark Medal.

Robert has participated in many writing festivals throughout New Zealand including Kupu: the Māori Writers Festival, the Auckland Writers Festival, Christchurch Word, New Zealand Readers and Writers Week, Wellington’s Verb Festival, Dunedin Writers Festival, Hawke’s Bay Readers and Writers Festival, Northland Writers’ Festival, and Words on Wheels (WoW) in the South Island, and the Honouring Words Indigenous Writers tour of the North Island.

His international festivals include the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Vancouver, Calgary, Mumbai, Honolulu, and Toronto writers’ festivals, and Taipei International Book Exhibition.

He has a PhD in English (supervised by Selina Tusitala Marsh), an MA Hons (supervised by Maualaivao Albert Wendt), and a BA in English and Māori Studies all from the University of Auckland. He also has a Diploma in Library and Information Studies (Victoria University) and a Diploma in Teaching (Waikato University). Robert studied also at Newmarket Primary, Onehunga Primary, Manukau Intermediate (Royal Oak), and Auckland Grammar.

He worked as a librarian at Auckland Public Library, and the University of Auckland Library. He then worked as an academic focusing on creative writing at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, Manukau Institute of Technology, and Massey University Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa where he is Associate Professor in Creative Writing.

Currently he is President of the New Zealand Poetry Society / Te Rōpū Toikupu o Aotearoa.

Robert belongs to Ngāpuhi Nui Tonu (Ngāti Hau, and Ngāti Manu), and Kai Tahu (Kāti Huirapa ki Puketeraki), with affiliations to Ngāti Raukawa, and Ngāi Tai. He is also of Irish, Scottish and English descent. He lives in Oāmaru on the coastline known as Te Tai o Āraiteuru.

Some final words

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 21:00:00 +0000

If I had to pick just one word to sum up my term as Poet Laureate, it would be: community. Everything that I’ve done or experienced in the role over the past three years has been possible because of people who see the power of poetry to bring people together – whether it’s in a creative writing workshop for students or including a poetry reading on the line-up of a musical festival.

Poetry is written from a poet’s individual perspective and experience, but once their poems are released into the world, in print or from a stage, they take on a life of their own. I’ve seen the spark in people’s eyes when a poem connects with them or they experience poetry in a way that changes their perceptions of what’s ‘allowed’. Whether that spark is a moment of delight or recognition, it’s the unmistakable power of words and storytelling to help us to make sense of ourselves and the world.

We’re so lucky to have a thriving poetry scene in Aotearoa. Visit one of our independent bookshops and you’ll see shelves and tables bulging under the weight of new poetry releases. There are regular open mics, slams and readings in many towns and cities, and plenty of places to find poetry online and in print. Read NZ’s 2025 National Reading Survey found that 32% of adults in Aotearoa have read a poetry book all or part way through in the past 12 months, a significant increase from 25% in 2021. Ka rawe!

However, we can’t take any of this for granted. It’s been a tough time for artists and creatives: funding is scarce, venues are shutting down and audiences are understandably being more cautious with where and how they spend their money. There’s also A.I.’s impact on the creative sectors, which has already highlighted concerns with copyright and ethics. Despite these challenges, none of this diminishes the value of the arts and how they contribute to health and well-being.

It’s been a privilege to travel around Aotearoa and the world sharing my work, connecting with audiences, and promoting the incredible poets and poetry we have in this country. Every conversation, interaction and event has changed my own ideas about poetry and reenergised my love for it.

Although my focus has been on Aotearoa’s poets and poetry, I’ve also met many international poets during my term. I’ve shared stages with people whose work I’ve admired for years, like UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, Warsan Shire, Sandra Cisnero and Nicholas Wong, as well as poets previously unknown to me like Andre Bagoo, Babs Gons, Daryl Lim Wei Jie, Felipe Franco Munhoz, Phodiso Modirwa, Kim Moore and Joanna Yang.

Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems 2023 event, Te Papa, August 2024.
Pictured left to right are: Cadence Chung, Jackson McCarthy, Hannah Mettner,
Leah Dodd, Sinead Overbye, Arihia Latham, Chris Tse, Emma Shi,
Isla Huia, harold coutts and Tracey Slaughter

It’s impossible to thank everyone who has supported me during my term, but I would like to mention a few people: Rachel Esson and the team at the National Library for welcoming me as part of their whānau; Peter Ireland for his sage advice and care; Zoe Roland, Reuben Love, David Vieco and everyone who has assisted with the many events we’ve put on; Phantom Billstickers; Jacob Scott; Matahiwi Marae; Te Mata Estate; and Aotearoa’s incredible independent book stores.

I also want to thank the many festivals, event organisers and organisations who have invited me to perform or speak. Thank you for your hospitality and for creating spaces for poets to shine.

To the poets I met on my travels – it’s been a joy to read your work and perform alongside you, seeing first hand the ways you bring your stories and truths into the light.

Finally, I wouldn’t have made it through the past three years without the love and support of my parents, family, friends and colleagues. Thank you for putting up with my absences and for making sure I took time out to recharge.

It’s been an honour to be New Zealand’s Poet Laureate. Nothing could’ve prepared me for the incredible adventures I’ve had over the past three years. I wish whoever steps into the role all the best – I can’t wait to see all the amazing things they’ll do during their term.

Keep writing, keep reading and keep sharing. Poetry can be found everywhere you look, especially where you least expect it. And don’t forget to visit the National Poetry Day website to see what’s happening near you this week.

Until we meet again... mā te wā.

Audience at the ‘(Re)geneartion next: The Poet Laureate steps down’ event. Photo by Chris Tse.

Celebrate New Zealand’s poetic talent: Nominate a New Zealand Poet Laureate

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 20:30:00 +0000

Kia hiwa ra!
Kia hiwa ra!

The National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa is seeking nominations for the New Zealand Poet Laureate Award 2025–2028.

Poetry is a quintessential part of New Zealand art and culture, and through the New Zealand Poet Laureate Award the government acknowledges the value that New Zealanders place on poetry.

The National Librarian Te Pouhuaki will appoint the New Zealand Poet Laureate after reviewing nominations and seeking advice from the New Zealand Poet Laureate Advisory Group.

Nominees must have made an outstanding contribution to New Zealand poetry, and be an accomplished and highly regarded poet who continues to publish new work. They must also be a strong advocate for poetry and be able to fulfil the public role required of a Poet Laureate. The role includes engaging with a wide range of people and inspiring New Zealanders to read and write poetry.

Candidates are expected to reside in New Zealand during their tenure as Laureate.

The term of appointment for the next Poet Laureate will run until August 2028.

Nominations close on Wednesday, 30 July 2025 at 5pm.

The next New Zealand Poet Laureate will be announced on Friday 22 August 2025.

Enquiries about the New Zealand Poet Laureate Award can be directed to Peter.Ireland@dia.govt.nz

Brian Turner ONZM (1944–2025)

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 03:04:00 +0000

The poetry of Brian Turner is a paean to the local; poetry grounded in a particular setting, but redolent of universal meaning. As an epigram for his poem Just this, Turner quotes the American poet and environmental activist Gary Snyder:

Find your place on the planet, dig in,
and take responsibility from there.

The ‘place’ for much of Turner’s poetry is the landscape of Central Otago, which is where he lived from 1999. The tiny settlement of Oturehua, in the Ida valley of the Maniototo river, was where Brian Turner dug in.

Brian Turner reading at the Circle of Laureates event, National Library, 2016.
Photographer: Mark Beatty

An English translation of Oturehua is ‘the place where the summer star stands still’ a perfect setting for a poet whose lifelong quest involved trying to ‘find and hold on to anything that’s struck me as heartfelt and constant, something that seems durable and likely enduring.’

In poems of plain-speaking eloquence, which ‘crackled with the intensity of their sheer power of observation’ Brian Turner reminded us to pay careful attention to nature, to protect it from the depredations of the heedless and to be enchanted by the rhythms of rivers and hills.

The National Library acknowledges with sadness the passing of Brian Turner, a much-loved figure in New Zealand Literature and in the promotion of environmental awareness.

Brian, who died on 5 February, was Te Mata Estate Winery Poet Laureate between 2003 and 2005. In November last year he was made New Zealand Poet Laureate of Nature for his lifetime’s work in poetry and activism, fighting for and celebrating the natural world.

Place

Once in a while
you may come across a place
where everything
seems as close to perfection
as you will ever need.
And striving to be faultless
the air on its knees
holds the trees apart,
yet nothing is categorically
thus, or that, and before the dusk
mellows and fails
the light is like honey
on the stems of tussock grass,
and the shadows are mauve birthmarks
on the hills.

— Brian Turner
From, All That Blue Can Be, John McIndoe, 1989

Brian Turner — New Zealand Poet Laureate of Nature

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 03:55:00 +0000

On November this year, the Central Otago Environmental Society awarded poet Brian Turner the honour of New Zealand Poet Laureate of Nature in recognition of his lifetime’s work in poetry and activism, on behalf of the natural world.

Brian in the grounds of Dunstan hospital in Central Otago.
Photographer: Jillian Sullivan

The National Library was delighted to support this initiative:

‘Brian’s whakapapa of speaking to and of the environment in New Zealand is founded on a lifetime’s presence in our landscape, both the physical and literary forms of it. He is much loved, respected and recognised in these spheres and to acknowledge that with this honour is apt and fitting.’

On sharing the news with Paula Green, Paula created a celebratory post about Brian for Poetry Shelf.

Brian Turner was the fourth Te Mata Estate Winery Poet Laureate between 2003 and 2005.

Read the Poetry Shelf post

Launching ‘Still Is’

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 01:30:00 +0000

On Friday 21 June, the National Library hosted the launch of former Poet Laureate Vincent O’Sullivan’s last poetry collection Still Is, published less than two months after he passed away in April.

Book cover of Still Is (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2024).

The evening was a heartwarming celebration of Vincent’s life and career, with contributions from Vincent’s family and those who knew him well. Te Herenga Waka University Press’ Fergus Barrowman shared lively anecdotes that highlighted Vincent’s wit and talent, shedding light on what it was like to work closely with him for 40 years.

I was honoured to be asked to read at the launch alongside former Laureates Bill Manhire and Jenny Bornholdt, and poets Gregory O’Brien and Diana Bridge who all spoke movingly about their friendships with Vincent. We each read a poem from Still Is as well as one of our own poems to complement Vincent’s. I wrote a new poem for the occasion in response to Vincent’s poem ‘The Trouble With Windows’.

Subtitles missing

Lately I have become untethered from stillness.
Here, in my little brown house caught in the shadow
of a neighbouring tower block, every room
rattles my patience. The tui and the sparrows
frolick at my kitchen window. I have never been
able to read their intent. I watch my neighbours
watch the day go by, each window a screen
of unquiet resolution. I feel as if we are
collectively haunted by some outdated expression
of freedom because the day is a dream we dream
when we have no other way to take flight.
On this side of the glass the view is idyllic
and industrious: every car on the motorway
is a passing vignette and every container ship
works against silken blue. Across the harbour,
the Eastern ranges remain staunch in their place.
Time collects on the wind, unbothered, while
my attention divides and scatters itself again
and again in search of an elusive synchronicity.
My imagination’s fieldnotes are entirely made up
of subtitles for every window I look into or
out of. Nearly all of them are questions, like
‘How can we prove what never occurred?’
and ‘What waits for us on the other side?’.
Like daybreak, the tui and the sparrows reappear.
They ask for so little. A lesson, surely, given
we are prone to asking for what must be earned.

— Chris Tse

Chris at the Still Is book launch and reading. Image credit Marcelo Duque Cesar.

A tribute to Vincent O’Sullivan (1937–2024)

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 03:20:00 +0000

He is one of us, he is one of our own.
He bears the coasts, the mountains for us,
He calls to the north and the south on our behalf,
To the east and the west, he carries the voice of his people.

Nō tātou ake ia, he tangata ia nō tātou tonu
Ka wahā e ia ngā takutai, ngā maunga, mō tātou,
Ka karanga ia ki te raki, ki te tonga mō tātou.
Ki te rāwhiti, ki te hauāuru rā anō, ka kawea e ia te reo o tōna iwi.

(Translation: Piripi Walker)

These words were written by Vincent for Requiem for the Fallen, a collaborative work with his close friend, the composer Ross Harris, which was performed at Old St Paul’s for the New Zealand Arts Festival in 2014. These lines seem apt, as the National Library shares its sense of loss to New Zealand letters, with Vincent’s death in Dunedin on 28 April.

Vincent O’Sullivan. Photo by Helen O’Sullivan

The relationship the National Library and Alexander Turnbull Library had with Vincent lies at the heart of our work, and evidence of this abounds. It includes his research here as pre-eminent scholar of Katherine Mansfield, notably producing his co-edition of the five volumes of Mansfield’s letters with Margaret Scott between 1984 and 2008. The Turnbull Library is also home to Vincent’s literary papers, at MS-Group-1526.

In 2013 Vincent was appointed New Zealand Poet Laureate. He made his intentions clear early on: ‘I don’t think many prescriptions for poetry stand up apart from one – if it isn’t individual, if it’s not “the cry of its occasion”, then why aren’t we doing something else’ His time as Laureate was marked by a generosity towards and recognition of fellow poets in New Zealand and around the world, with a special place reserved for the voices of the oppressed poet.

His volume of collected poetry Being Here, was launched at the National Library in April 2015 and we have chosen to include its title poem to represent his achievements, his profundity and elegance. The photo of Vincent was taken in Italy by his wife Helen.

Requiescat in pace, Vincent.

— Peter Ireland, for the National Library

Being Here

It has to be a thin world surely if you ask for
an emblem at every turn, if you cannot see bees
arcing and mining the soft decaying galaxies
of the laden apricot tree without wanting
symbols – which of course are manifold – symbols
of so much else? What’s amiss with simply the huddle
and glut of bees, with those fuzzed globes
by the hundred and the clipped-out sky
beyond them and the leaves that are black
if you angle the sun directly behind them,
being themselves, for themselves? I hold out
my palms like the opened pages of a book
and you pile apricots on them stacked three
deep, we ask just who can we give them to
round here who hasn’t had their whack of apricots
as it is? And I let my hands tilt and the plastic
bag that you hold rustles and plumps with their
rush, I hold one back and bite into it and its
taste is the taste of the colour exactly, and this
hour precisely, and memory I expect is storing
for an afternoon far removed from here
when the warm furred almost weightlessness
of the fruit I hold might very well be a symbol
of what’s lost and we keep wanting, which after
all is to crave the real, the branches cutting
across the sun, your standing there while I tell you,
‘Come on, you have to try one!’, and you do,
and the clamour of bees goes on above us, ‘This
will do’, both of us saying, ‘like this, being here!’

— Vincent O’Sullivan

Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems 2023 selected by Chris Tse

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 04:37:00 +0000

Since 2001 the International Institute of Modern Letters has been home to Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems. There is a guest editor for each selection and in 2023, this was our Poet Laureate, Chris Tse. Our Poets Laureate feature prominently in editors to date and Chris joined Laureate alumni Elizabeth Smither, Ian Wedde, Vincent O’Sullivan, Jenny Bornholdt, Selina Tusitala Marsh, and David Eggleton in accepting this rewarding if daunting assignment.

Of the 25 poems (from nearly 4000!) to make the cut, Chris observed:

‘Individually, these 25 poems are tender, aggressive, funny, angry, and contemplative. Collectively, they emphasise the power of poetry to communicate with an open heart without fear of retribution. These are the poems that surprised and delighted me the most, that made me pause to sit in my own discomfort or revel in another poet’s joy. Above all, they’re the poems I thought other people need to read.’

To read Chris’s full introduction and to read (and hear some of) the poems, and to spend time looking back down the years of New Zealand poetry in this century, have a look at the Best New Zealand poems website.

Thank you, Chris, a job well done!

Peter Ireland
for the National Library

Half-time

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 21:47:00 +0000

It was a scorching day in Washington DC in late July, but rather than seeking shelter from the heat and humidity in one of the city’s many air-conditioned museums, I found myself in a school gymnasium thrumming with the laughter of 40 kids and adults chasing a soccer ball across the polished floor. The kids were ‘poet-athletes’ taking part in a summer camp programme with DC SCORES, a not-for-profit organisation that uses soccer and poetry to ‘give kids the confidence and skills to succeed on the playing field, in the classroom, and in life’. My indoor soccer days were far behind me, so I was there in my capacity as Aotearoa’s Poet Laureate.

I was in Washington DC as a member of Slow Currents, a cohort of Asian diaspora writers from Aotearoa and Australia. In 2022, we participated in online workshops with Asian American writers, including Pulitzer Prize winners Viet Thanh Nguyen and Hua Hsu, and acclaimed Palestinian American poet George Abraham. The main purpose of our trip to DC was a two-week residency to work on our individual projects and to meet with key people in the Asian American writing community to share knowledge and ideas about how we can empower and create opportunities for our own communities. We also lined up some last-minute events while we were in town, including performances at the famous Busboys & Poets, and the first-ever open mic at the Kennedy Centre. (The Asian American Literature Festival, which we were due to participate in, was abruptly cancelled in the week leading up to us arriving in the States. To date, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center has failed to give organisers and participants a transparent reason for the cancellation. There’s murmurs that the programme’s trans and non-binary content spooked the Sminthsonian’s conservative stakeholders.)

The culture galleries at the National Museum of African
American History & Culture, Washington D.C. Photo by Chris Tse.

Before leaving a typical Wellington winter for summer in Washington DC, I reached out to the New Zealand Embassy to see whether there might be opportunities for me to partner with them for an event while I was in DC. The timing couldn’t have been better—the Embassy had been working with DC SCORES to plan a day to celebrate the FIFA Women’s World Cup being hosted in Aoteaora and Australia.

Despite my initial scepticism about soccer and poetry being natural bedfellows, I was instantly won over by the kids’ enthusiasm for both. After sharing some of my poems, I fielded some creative and incisive questions from the kids. What I love about moments like this is that it strengthens my own relationship to poetry, and reminds me how powerful it can be to connect with others through the power of storytelling and poetry. As much as the laureateship has been about raising my own profile as a poet and promoting poetry in general, it’s also taught me a lot about myself and how the role of Poet Laureate can act as an intermediary — something like a poetry matchmaker, if you will.

Today is National Poetry Day, which means I’m now halfway through my two-year term. Over the past year, I’ve met and spoken with thousands of people of all ages and backgrounds, from running writing workshops in schools to meeting with a public sector organisation’s pan-Asian staff network. Each of these engagements has been a chance to share my love of poetry and gauge people’s feelings about what is often considered an impenetrable and inaccessible art form.

I know some have had bad experiences with poetry because of how it was taught at school, but my appeal to them is to let that go — start afresh and embrace poetry that speaks to them and their interests. As an artform, poetry is as varied as music or film—there truly is something out there for everyone, from Chaucer to spoken word. I’m heartened when teenagers tell me they’re reading contemporary New Zealand poets (by choice!) or when a retired grandmother makes their debut at an open mic. All of this reinforces to me that poetry can be for everyone — it’s about finding a way into it that resonates with them.

I’d be lying if I said the past year hasn’t been hectic — my entire life has shifted to put poetry front and centre. It’s been chaotic in the best way and surprising too (for starters, I never imagined I’d see my face plastered on the backs of buses). Invitations to speak and perform have come from as far as Invercargill and Leeds in the U.K., which is where I’ll be next month for a festival. As I told the kids at DC SCORES, I knew I’d never represent Aotearoa in sport, but I’m immensely proud to represent our country and its phenomenal poets on a global stage.

Chris Tse reads to poet-athletes at DC SCORE's summer school programme in Washington D.C., July 2023.

If there’s one thing I want to achieve before my term is over, it’s to shift perceptions about poetry being ‘difficult’ to help people find new ways into enjoying it. We’re surrounded by poetry, from the way shadows scatter themselves on the pavement to someone being moved to speak out about injustice.

I’ve no doubt that I have another busy year filled with poetry ahead of me, and I can’t wait to share it with Aotearoa and the world.

Chris would like to thank the New Zealand Embassy in Washington DC for arranging his visit to DC SCORES, and Creative New Zealand for its support of the Slow Currents residency.

Number 13 — Inauguration weekend poem

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Thu, 04 May 2023 22:58:00 +0000

I’m trying to get into the habit of writing new poems to read at each event I participate in as the Poet Laureate, and I knew that for my inauguration weekend, I wanted to read something that acknowledged the Poets Laureate who have come before me.

I decided to write an acrostic using the surnames of the 12 previous Laureates. I’ve found that the acrostic form has forced me to write more linearly than I usually do. Thus each line revealed itself one by one over a couple of months as I chipped away at the poem. The final result is part homage and part manifesto, a testament to the power of poetry to change hearts and minds.

Number 13

Must be the way a poem kickstarts a world into being that

alters how time leans into itself. The rise and fall of oceans

never felt so slow or sticky on your skin, salt crusting between

heartbeats. The delicious moon—all-seeing and all-knowing—

inches across the night sky while sad songs crackle on the

radio. Must be fire and flood swooping in to play their part when

everything is bent beyond recognition. Pray for the good old days.

The before times. The once and once more. We have a habit of

U-Turning when faced with not liking where we’re heading. Oh

wicked, stubborn fate—who’s to say that we can outpace the

hardest of truths? That we are fallible. That we are fools for

attempting to chart our own lives. Poets will ensure that these

revelations are broken to us in the kindest way, like a parent

easing their child into a bedtime ritual. The mind wanders,

skips over crucial details when recalling a memory

made at our most vulnerable to scarring. Are those made

in usual circumstances worth holding in the eternal vault?

Take dreams as an example: there is nothing unusual or

humbling about sleep. Most dreams aren’t memories worth

entertaining. And yet, I have a recurring dream in which

RuPaul asks, ‘What would you say to 10-year-old Christopher?’.

This is the trope I hate the most: tricking my inner child to

unpack intergenerational trauma or make peace with what

returns to sting me when I let down my guard. If I only had

nerve to excoriate the judges for this scripted farce, but I can’t

escape expectation. I’ve been thinking about legacy and

royalty—arrangements designed to make us feel like we

belong to some powerful chain. Link by link we forge

ornamental pathways backwards and forwards, left and

right—words whistling in every direction in search of

new ears to fall upon. A poem is a key, is a map, is a

hidden place filled with the answers to questions you

only ever ask yourself when you’re alone. There’s nothing

lost between a poem and its reader—an open mind and

derring-do will take you far if you hand yourself over to

the invisible strings of each melodious line. If gravity were to

loosen its grip you might find yourself melting into the

eventide, echoes of other worlds ushering you onwards,

grief-stricken by what has been, or empowered by what is

granted a spotlight in your fantasies. I still long for utopia

or at the very least a future where we no longer need to

teach children how to hide from mass shooters stalking

their school corridors. I have excavated and polished all

my fears and frustrations to display in the world’s most

complicated museum exhibition. No amount of hurt can

quieten my overachiever Asian gene or deny my status as an

unreasonable artist with many obsessions to nurture until

everything is about race or gender or queerness. I want an

easy life too—hands free to caress the world in its velvets,

not to obsess or fret about the sharp edges that catch my

wild tongue. A pattern must be broken. A heavy heart needs

emptying to make room for courage. So I listen to Robyn’s

‘Dancing On My Own’ for the thousandth time to feel something

deeply—to unearth a memory loaded with the most powerful

emotion that will transform my simple words into a paean to

our shared joy. In the future, our desires will be soundtracked by

sadbangers—we will cry and let our cathartic tears crystallise

under our feet as we dance ourselves towards the blinding

light of better days. We will sing; we will lift our arms and

levitate, enraptured by the possibility that poetry holds.

If this is the path, if this is the way forward, let all our

voices be bold. Hear me: I am the Poet Laureate and I

approve this message! Now is the time for poetry to

nurse our crushes until we all die of embarrassment. I’ll

stand tall, facing the past, and instruct everyone to keep

tipping the scales in our favour. Assume the position—

ease our bodies against the tide that roars at us, “No

Admission”. I believe in our strength; I believe in self-

deprecation and letting poetry ruin every party it crashes.

Must be the page turning or the world tipping on its

axis, tradition glazed with the woozy afterglow of poets

reciting verse to manifest rebirth, a murmuration of

starlings filling the vast attics of our futures. If there’s

harmony there must be a chorus, voices matched and

etched into the walls we are learning to scale with ease.

Give me neither poverty nor riches; give me myself again.

Give me love and give me hope; give me myself again.

Line by line and brick by brick, build something that will

equip us to change the world. I am sentimental for a

time that does not yet exist but that I know is somewhere

out there—a half-beginning, a half-sense of something

not entirely out of reach. Must be the way a poem can

tell you where to stand to see every crack or where to

start a fire to light the way for others. Describe what you

expect to see on the other side. Tell us how you want to feel.

— Chris Tse

Chris Tse (the 13th Poet Laureate) holding his tokotoko carved by Jacob Scott.
Photo by Rebecca McMillan Photography. All rights reserved.

Opening of “Long Waves of our Ocean: New responses to Pacific poems” exhibition

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 21:32:00 +0000

Chris joined us at the National Library recently for the opening of Long Waves of our Ocean: New responses to Pacific poems and premiered his poem, the longest wave as a response to the central place of poetry in the exhibition.

The title of the exhibition is a line from the poem Stepping Stones by Albert Wendt:

"...and our islands are your anchor and launching site
for the universes that repeat and repeat

like the long waves of our ocean like Tagaloaalagi’s
compulsive scrutiny of what is to come and fear"

— Peter Ireland

~the longest wave~

I run from the mountains / through urban sprawl / through shopping malls / through air-conditioned office buildings / I run from desperation / and headlong into a joy that I hope will crush me / I run from ransom notes left on shattered windscreens / dead ends / bad weeks that won’t end / I run from narrative and happy endings / history presented as spillage / everybody involved making a petty mess / I run from storms swallowing the skies / through fire and locust plague / I run with zoo animals released back into the wild / like public servants unshackled from security clearances and !P@55wordS / I run from social media and porn bots / from influencers selling me plastic bodies / from the urge to sleep through the anthropocene / I run from Christmas decorations in October and hot cross buns in January / through time-lapse decay and benefits realisation / through the haze of burning press releases about liveable cities / I run from my embarrassing teenage poetry / from thinly veiled metaphors jumping in and out of closets / in and out of the shared body heat of a crowd / out of breath / out like a light / but still wired / let me sleep / through white noise and bird song / through neighbours’ squabbles about boundary lines / I run from borders / away from units and definitions / away from inboxes overflowing with flattering comments / I run from infographics and statistics / that explain why we are miserable / from proof of our self-inflictions / I run in search of direction / away from need and want / from could’ve, should’ve, would’ve / I run from the canon / from my catalogue of ailments / past the sun and moon locked in their orbits / past the billboards advertising an impossible future / away from the party / each of us saving the best parts for later / but never finding the time to enjoy / I am here for a good time / I am here in salt / preserved for good measure / I am the longest wave / stretching beyond myself / I run to be lost and found / I run towards land / I run home

— Chris Tse

Chris reading ~~~the longest wave~~~ at the opening of Long Waves of our Ocean: New responses to Pacific poems, National Library, Wellington. Photo by Celeste Fontein.

More about Long Waves of our Ocean: New responses to Pacific poems

Welcome to Chris Tse our new Poet Laureate

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 20:30:00 +0000

The National Library is delighted to celebrate National Poetry Day by announcing Chris Tse of Wellington as the New Zealand Poet Laureate for 2022-2024.

Te Pouhuaki National Librarian Rachel Esson described Chris’s appointment as recognition of “a poet leading a generational and cultural shift in the reach and appreciation of poetry in Aotearoa.”

Fellow poet Freya Daly Sadgrove says Chris “will unite and embolden the full breadth of Aotearoa’s poetry community as well as entice new audiences with his innovation. He’s a glam-rock poetry superstar with a big, gorgeous heart and he will raise the profile of Aotearoa poetry right now like no one else.”

Self-portrait Chris Tse. Photo provided.

For Tse, his appointment was a thrill and an honour.

“The number 13 is a lucky number in my family, so it feels very auspicious to be named the 13th New Zealand Poet Laureate.

“Stepping into this role as a queer, Asian writer is an incredible and life-changing opportunity. I’m thrilled and honoured to be following in the footsteps of some of our literary greats.

“New Zealand’s poetry scene is thrumming with diverse and innovative voices on both the page and the stage, and I can’t wait to use my tenure as Poet Laureate to help people discover the riches of this scene.”

Congratulations Chris we look forward to hearing more from you.

Why Hollywood won’t cast poets in films anymore

1. There are public reasons and there are private reasons.

2. The public reasons are toothless exaggerations

3. In private, we recount the times we’ve been made to feel damaged.

4. The night writes its power ballads behind closed doors.

5. We have dressed our wounds with the sins of our tormentors.

6. When we were happy, we filled our suitcases with fresh bread.

7. Now that we are filled with rage we choke our duck ponds with dry crusts.

8. There was a time when the colour of a nightclub brawl did not exist.

9. Nowadays, a bookstore drive-by shooting no longer elicits social media outrage.

10. We must acknowledge that there are no more wars left to cry over.

11. Except for the wars we wage against ourselves, which we refuse to acknowledge.

12. We carved our names into every building to remind ourselves never to return.

13. You can dance for a destination, but you will never get there in one piece.

14. Careers based on public humiliation are no longer worth curating.

15. At no point have we accepted responsibility for casting the first stone.

16. If it’s all lies, we must pretend not to notice.

17. If it’s all truth, we must pretend not to care.

18. Either way, it’s meant to hurt.

19. It’s meant to make you want to leave your husband for a tax accountant.

20. It’s the way we step out of a burning theatre as if nothing’s wrong.

21. As if the smoke in our eyes is a lover’s smile caught in sunlight.

22. An uncontrollable fire is perfectly fine, given the state of the world.

23. Then why do I feel so angry?

24. Are you angry?

25. I’m angry.

— Chris Tse

Poster announcing Chris Tse as the new Poet Laureate.
Thank you to Phantom Billstickers for the poster.

Whale Psalm

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 22:00:00 +0000

The whale, says Jonah, is the black night filled with terrible screams.
The whale is missiles that winnow the grain from the wheatfields.
The whale is the city with bombed-out basements and burning high-rises.
The whale is the country, bogged down in booby-traps and wreckage of tanks.
The whale shoulders the load, a tower of coffins.
The whale is village-fiddlers tuning up a death march.
The whale is soldiers shouting their poems in the ruins.
The whale is a prayer on the lips of children.
The whale is liberty pecked at by birds of prey.
The whale is the enemy, with its taboos, its vanity and its ignorance.
The whale is life incarnate and a desperation to survive.
The whale is the weight of creation stranded on the tipping point.
The whale is always further away than first thought, but inescapable.
The whale wants to save us.
The whale wants to win the war.
The whale turns the spotlight on the whale-hunters and the war-generals.
The whale has climbed the diving board above the dried-up sacred fountain.
The whale must dive into the circus barrel, and there is no way out.

— David Eggleton

Mostly Black

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Sun, 19 Jun 2022 22:00:00 +0000

Before, as it was, it was mostly black,
dark beaks, polished talons, feathers, a black
regime drenched in the melancholy black
of rains that took tides further towards black.
From hinges of sunlight hung blocks of black,
and risen humps of islands were matt black.
Cinders sailed from bush burn-offs, carbon black.
Beads on antimacassars gleamed jet black.
Through pine's silent groves possum eyes shone black.
Above tar-seal a melted rainbow turned black.
At disintegration of monolith black,
green, all that blue can be, then back to black.
Green of pounamu lost under lake's black.
Blackout's lickerish taste, blood-pudding black,
and midnight mushrooms gathered from deep black.
Tattoos drawn with bent nib and homemade black.
Batman's mask, a dull sheen of cue ball black.
The primeval redacted, placed in black
trash bags, or else turned out as burnt bone black.
Pull on the wool singlet of shearer's black,
for blacker than black is New Zealand black,
null and void black, ocean black, all black.
In Te Pō's night realm, from Te Kore's black,
under the stars spreads the splendour of black.

— David Eggleton

Te-Ara-a-Parāoa, Path of the Sperm Whale

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 14:00:00 +0000

Aotearoa's white peaks spyhop above waves,
seeking albatross worlds of mislaid moons.
Screeching kākā skim fast through tree-tops.
Parāoa breaches in a frost-smoke chrysalis.
Iwi on the shore perform haka of welcome.
Drizzle dances on the head of the whale.
Hoisted up out of water, blowing a guffaw,
blunt headlands slap and wallow in their turn.
A living wall slides past, gentle-eyed, vast.
Luminous planktons glow in dark ocean;
neon flying squid flash through salty air.
Silvery-bubbled, ripple-driven, Parāoa
tilts her tail-flukes, keels and plunges:
guiding her calf down Kaikōura Canyon.
Bob of a fur seal pup snouts through
seaweed wrack, in the surf's long swell.
A breeze licks over spun gobbets of foam.
A green tendril climbs sunwards in a spiral

— David Eggleton

Matariki

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 04:57:00 +0000

Matariki's eyes are fiery in the night.
Feather-shawled mountains gleam their beaks.
Great trunks, sawn through, tumble and tilt.
Bold carvings, auctioned in whispers,
echo as prophecies, sung by wind-swept trees.
The hangi smokes great boars, basted in juices.
Plagued by caterpillars, slithered by eels,
a patchwork quilt of farm unravels.
In lightning and hail, each snail snivels;
learned visitors take shelter with skinks,
under rocks from nesting angry falcons.
Ghosts hoard waka in marshes, under silt.
An arcade is roofed with engraved glass;
a pedestal is bound by polished brass;
faces are wound tighter than a watchspring.
Wigs become a sheep flock gathering.
There's daughter of the kauri, Amber Reeves,
sailing for London from the Antipodes.
Through cavern gloom, suspended by ooze,
many worms glow as the matrix broods.

— David Eggleton

Key to the Hermit Kingdom

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 00:01:00 +0000

Once far to the back, now far out in front,
to bear the brunt and wear the shame,
the minister for health arrives by stealth;
children have assembled for the last bull-run.
The basis of life in these islands is sun.
Random offence takes knee-jerk exception
to a nation's internet solipsism.
They want to topple Cook's statues, wave through
freedom protestors, tweeters who invite you
to burn replicas of J.K.Rowling at the stake,
or shout cancel in Putin's graffitied face,
then pose on Instagram to game the blame.
As yesterday's cassette static unspools,
white noise buzzes across the tells
of a whole world in bruise-coloured blue,
globe mortified by heat-wave distortion,
though too we might die of rabid exposure,
our tarpaulins snatched away by storm-cells,
Our gathered thoughts await their closure;
while all look on, thanks to their lit devices;
and beware the naked blade that flashes
in dearer chainstore supermarket aisles;
beware pop pop pop of police gunshots,
attempts to liberate property from capital.
When asked, step away from those unmasked;
accept the chill vaccine that burns the arm.
Everything depends on the arrival
of red wheelbarrows from China for big box stores,
before global supply links break again:
ever-remoter quotas of autumn's dry spell
frozen, like jagged truths of rock pools drained,
those barren rocks where marooned sailors listen
for the lure of mermaids and police sirens.
Winter's stew of anonymised outrage
lasts lockdown season in the Hermit Kingdom.
Then jet-set Spring arrives, tanned and smiling,
in a jeep towing Summer's caravan,
which brings an all-weather finish to year's end.

— David Eggleton

Poet Laureate Award call for nominations

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Mon, 30 May 2022 21:13:00 +0000

Kia hiwa ra!
Kia hiwa ra!

The National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa is seeking nominations for the New Zealand Poet Laureate Award.

Poetry is a quintessential part of New Zealand art and culture, and through the New Zealand Poet Laureate Award the government acknowledges the value that New Zealanders place on poetry.

The National Librarian Te Pouhuaki will appoint the New Zealand Poet Laureate after reviewing nominations and seeking advice from the New Zealand Poet Laureate Advisory Group.

Nominees must have made an outstanding contribution to New Zealand poetry, and be an accomplished and highly regarded poet who continues to publish new work. They must also be a strong advocate for poetry and be able to fulfil the public role required of a Poet Laureate. The role includes engaging with a wide range of people and inspiring New Zealanders to read and write poetry.

Candidates are expected to reside in New Zealand during their tenure as Laureate.

The term of appointment for the next Poet Laureate will run until August 2024.

Nominations close on Friday, 29 July 2022 at 5pm.

Please email your nomination to lily.reid@dia.govt.nz

Email is preferred, but you can also mail your nomination to:

New Zealand Poet Laureate Award
National Library of New Zealand
PO Box 1467
Wellington.

Attention: Lily Reid

Enquiries about the New Zealand Poet Laureate Award can be directed to Peter.Ireland@dia.govt.nz

The End of History, and Warhead

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 23:18:00 +0000

The End of History

1989, when the fall of Berlin's wall
chiselled away loose masonry,
brought promise for humanity,
as tank man stood tall in Tiananmen Square.
Dignity seemed worth more
at the end of the Cold War than ever before.
Lovers kissed for cameras, which made
every photograph special, like a bouquet,
while wires that held the whole shebang
upright were hidden well away.
They placed white carnations in rifle muzzles.
They dumped Klashnikovs for bumpers of champagne.
They waved banners and the snare drum beat.
They climbed to the top of decline and fall.
The fix was in, nothing for it but to swim.
1989, when the world-wide-web's pipedream lit up;
telexes hiccupped, telephones tittered, faxes coughed,
though so many were soon to return
in coffins from whatever war was next.
Some had paintstripper to remove the pain;
some smooshed their wonted ancient grain.
Sir Galahad rode in with leather apron on,
making light of the massacre, the heavy weather,
the forked lightning, the stacks of stooks
in summer stubble, scorched for yonks.
Choppers prepared for evacuation.
Citizens rejoiced in satellites, holding hands,
blindly high on their own resolution,
across the ocean and down in the deeps,
whose dungeons opened and released the Fates,
in bubbles of oxygen that seemed herculean.
Yesterday's progress ended and was rebooted.
Deplorables became renewable; edibles became incredible.
Assemblies clanked through flung-open gates.
And you will know us by our toppled hopes,
the flogged scars and stripes that bless the bloody flag.
We were going forward, the damned, on our five-year plan,
in spirit of prayer to stardust of paradise,
with lassoed monuments and new statues raised;
but hope is the thing that scatters,
through tarred and feathered streets,
as tear-gas arrives and water cannon swings.
There were human pyramids and plagues
of new missiles; jogging shoes hung from gallows.
The blow-up globe was punctured and hissed
with escaping breath as another dream
began to count down to lift-off;
and then we were stuck in the 1990s,
with a long night coming on,
and very few left to sing revolution's song.

— David Eggleton

Warhead

Say no to the Mad Emperor of the Russians,
in thrall to his own truth-flubbing trolls,
and his judo-player skills and his steroid flushes.
An unholy fool, dancing like a very angry bear
on the hot coals of burning Ukrainian cities.
Let him be deposed and shunted to a far-off gulag,
drowned like Rasputin, stopped like Trotsky with a pick-axe.
Let him not die in his bed like the monster Stalin,
for he is one of those tyrannical jerks,
photo-shopped all ripped veins and vascular,
as bigged-up as Josef Stalin's Collected Works.
What Pootin doesn't know isn't knowledge,
because Pootin went to KGB Spy College.
He's a rabid mole who has swallowed a wasp;
a death guru with a cobra's cross-eyed stare,
who flicks his forked tongue out to test the air.
A total mass murderer as Mister Anonymous,
a radioactive creature from a toxic lagoon.
Sputnik space-case they should have sent to the moon;
makes like he's in a North Korean restaurant: dog eat dog.
Expressionless face of a long-term drunk,
he's a breezeblock Brezhnev, a pisspot Lenin;
he's in a rusted suit made of the Iron Curtain;
he's the skull and crossbones on a bottle of poison.
Everything he touches turns to smashed-up melamine;
he wears a fake tan like his pal Trumpentine.
He's an old-shoe Communist, placed as People's Tzar,
in an oligarchical Formula One racing car:
leads the pack with World Domination blah blah blah.
Pootin be like the psycho comrade in wolf's clothing,
he's the very dead soul of serfdom resurrected,
another well-known germophobe, always well-protected.
A barren rock, a cement mixer mixing a dunce's lies;
a minuscule human blob with rage-filled eyes;
a villainous Marvel figurine: Incandescent Vlad Puteen.

— David Eggleton

For Tom

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 22:44:00 +0000

Words and aroha for Tom Mulligan

In terms of a place to stand, for New Zealand’s Poets Laureate, there is no warmer invitation for them to feel at home than at Matahiwi marae near Clive in Hawkes Bay. It’s onto this marae that they have been welcomed since 2007 by kaumātua Tom Mulligan. And it is to Tom that Marty Smith addresses her fond acknowledgement in this recent essay.

Marty Smith, teacher, and poet has played a key role in shaping the special weekends where the Laureate, their family and friends, National Library staff, John and Wendy Buck of Te Mātā Estate Winery, artist Jacob Scott, students from local schools and others are welcomed onto Matahiwi. The weekend during which the Laureate receives their own tokotoko created by Jacob.

For Tom weaves threads of just such a weekend with a ‘party’ given to acknowledge Tom’s role in the Laureate story. For this, Marty wrote a poem for Tom, had it printed and housed. To say more will give the show away. The marvellous photographs of Matahiwi and Tom are by Florence Charvin. Words and aroha by Marty Smith.

Writing on behalf of the National Library, it is a special pleasure to share Marty’s story with you.

— Peter Ireland

For Tom

Part I — Tom

There’s a cold wind cutting in from the South, and Tom’s got his woolly Magpies hat down over his ears, jacket collar up. The urupa in behind him, he turns and pays respect to the dead, turns back to the living, raises his arm, and sweeps it out wide to Te Mata, then up to Maui Pōtiki, high and proud on top of the tekoteko, braced against Te Ika, straining on the rope that holds heaven to earth.

John’s jacket is zipped right up, he’s tucked in beside Jacob, listening, soaking everything in. On Jacob’s knees, the tokotoko is waiting, wrapped in cloth, and everyone glances away and back at it, trying to make out the shape. (What is it? Hone’s one was a wine thief). Peter’s sitting by John, head gravely tilted, listening to Tom. His team from Wellington are over with the manuhiri, in the wind a little. Beside them, the student performers are staunch, sitting up straight, trying not to shiver in thin shirts and blazers. The poets on the paepae are directly out of the southerly, warmly enfolded.

It’s always like this (except for it’s mostly sunny, and sometimes boiling) when we turn out to manaaki the new Poet Laureate at Matahiwi. John and Tom, right in the centre. Jacob, who can call him Uncle Tom, shapes every tokotoko true to the nature of its poet; each is famous in its own right. These days, Peter Ireland and the National Library run the events, and I help, and God help us if we programme anything when a Magpies game is on. Once, our night-time celebration was a real corker, jazz singers sang in a low light in front of autumn-gold grapevines draped over wineboxes from Te Mata Estate, people sipped John’s first-class wines and sighed at lines from our finest poets; John and Tom went to the rugby.

Tom needs his stick to walk now, and he tells Peter he’s going to step back. I think of Tom and John, settled in their seats, listening to the poets on the paepae, everything they’ve worked for coming alive. It’s like Maui himself above them, hauling up the patterns of words.
And I think, I’ll make Tom a poem of his own.
A picture comes of Peter and me with Tom in his office, making plans, peaceful in the space where he turns ideas. We’re quiet and patient, and wait, and the silence turns into leaves stirring in the gentle breeze. Jacob says Tom makes space for others to let their ideas unfold; space that stretches so they can build pictures like building blocks on top of their idea. He says Tom’s especially good at underpinning foundations.

Tom Mulligan and Marty Smith. Marty is reading Tom this story. They are laughing at the line about John and Tom going to the rugby. Photo Florence Charvin.

Part II — Hairy process

So, the poem has chosen itself. The words that spring into shape are all single syllables with short stops, just as I think: Tom’s poem should be hand printed.

Neville did say to me once that I could come and use his press. Neville’s a sort of cousin, he’s a Smith, and we have the same great-grandparents. He has a collection of printing presses, loves them: trays of print, blocks, the works. He learned to set type and he printed with hand presses when he started in the trade, and he never gave up loving it. After he retired from Brebner Print, he moved some of his printing gear into a lock-up, along with his collection of art deco cars, which he polishes to a high shine and parks precisely. There are shelves and shelves of old valve radios in a small room to the side.
Neville says he’ll help me make Tom’s poem, he’s glad to. He knows Tom through the Magpies and Hawkes Bay Rugby Union.

It’s a hairy process. You have to pick the letters out from the print tray one at a time and put them into the composing stick back to front and upside down. They have a nick in the front, and if all the nicks line up, they’re right. The trouble is you can’t find them in the print tray by looking at them: very little looks like what it is. The ‘p’s look like ’b’s, and they’re right beside each other in the tray, and that’s just the start of it. You have to follow a chart to pick the right one out and some of them are bastard ones – crooked, or italics, or with a worn bit. Neville throws them straight on the floor. I’m cack-handed and he gets impatient with me for not remembering to keep the pressure on the letters with my thumb, because if they fall out, it’s a disaster. The letters are tiny and hard to read and only an expert – Neville – could put them back, and it would take ages. And he’s wanting to go back to working on the car he’s fixing. When he’s (fairly) sure I’m not going to drop them, he goes off to glue something inside it. I’m nosing around in his trays and trays of letters, and he comes to show me the printer’s blocks. Pictures. Now we’re talking. He patiently pulls out one drawer after another, and in the Sports drawer, he finds a silver fern. Yes, for the Magpies. So, I hunt through the trays, sliding them in and out. Some of them are Victorian. He finds me the rugby block, and I find a tūī in ‘Birds’. I want a tūī, my gardening tūī walks on the ground beside me.

I get right down to the second to the last line and then I run into the amateur’s mistake: there are too many letters in my line to fit into the composing stick. It only has twenty-four spaces. I have to change the line. And change it quickly because Neville is waiting to put it into the chase and lock it in safely (before I drop it and lose the morning’s work and create an afternoon’s work for him) and get off to his afternoon.

And I’m panic rearranging the lines in my head while I’m arranging the letters and hoping for the best.

‘You won’t change anything, will you? Because that’s it, it’s all done.’
‘No,’ I say, ‘I won’t.’
Then later that night I have a cold horror because I forgot to put my name on it.

Part III — Plate glass photos

And all this is happening the weekend after the Christchurch Mosque shootings, after I’d been to Blenheim to see Mum, about to shift out of her home and into a ‘home’. We’d sorted through dozens of Aunty’s plate glass photos from the early 1900s. We’d held them to the light to see her grandfather and father, each on the handle of a cross-saw, heads only half as high as the trunk of the tree beside them. Silver collodion plates of bullock trains and packhorses; lilies in glass bottles; eleven cats on a ladder, all sitting still.
Mum’s the only person left alive who saw them moving, who knows what their voices sound like. She never heard her grandmother speak Māori in the house. She got a hiding for it at school, Mum says, and only spoke with her brother in the garden, when he came down from Taranaki to visit. Her garden was all flax, no flowers. Mum used to hide in the flax bushes and listen. Miriam Ellen, her fierce cheekbones in silver light against the flowered wallpaper, frozen in glass by her daughter.
I like to think they helped me make that last line.

Part IV — Last say to the home side

I run my poem by Hinemoana Baker, who lives in Berlin now. We’ve been writing together for twenty years, and she knows Tom. She came to Matahiwi as one of Ian Wedde’s poets, and sang a waiata to Ian, and to Maui, who is of the sea, as she is. Hinemoana says it’s right that the last word should be Tom, because on most marae, the home side have the last say.

I’m listening to the memorial service on the car radio the next morning, then I go back to the print shop, and I’m thinking, I just straight up have to say to Neville that I’m sorry, but the name really has to be on there, for Tom. He doesn’t turn a hair, and he lets me change two more words around, too.
‘Are you sure?’, he asks, looking at me hard.
He screws it back into the chase, and then he puts it in its place in the press. It’s an electric press and it’s only a small job, so he has to paint the ink on by hand.
‘Can I have two colours?’
‘Are you sure?’
I say I want the text to be green for the marae, and the tūī and the fern to be black.
He just looks at me. He doesn’t say that it will take him another two hours, he
just patiently picks out the tūī and the fern and screws the case back, puts it in its place in the press, and paints the green ink onto the roller.
‘Stand back,’ he says, ‘You don’t want to get hit by moving parts.’
Then he pushes the industrial button and the printer whirrs into a mass of moving parts and makes some printing noises and a poem flies out. It says, birds burst out pells and whistles.
Humming, he puts the chase back on the bench, and picks out the p with his printer’s tweezers and I hurry to the tray to get a b, like a nurse getting things for the surgeon.
He picks out a bastard o that doesn’t make a complete circle and drops it on the floor. I scurry to the tray for a round o. When he’s satisfied, he prints the green. He washes every speck of green off the roller and wipes it clean. He unscrews the chase again and puts back the tūī and the fern. He paints the roller with black ink, and then he prints the black. Then he washes off the roller and wipes it down.
‘That’s it,’ he says, ‘You put the letters away.’
And I undo my poem, letter by letter. I carry each individual letter back to the tray and check each one against the chart and the other letters in the tray before I put it in. I’m deadly serious. I’m thrilled by the ephemeral nature of printing. There are the copies for Tom, and that’s it. No going back.

Neville’s gluing carpet inside the car when I go to find him. He’s pleased. He keeps a copy for the Printers Association.
‘Tom’s a good guy,’ he says.

Part V — Little whare

So, I have my beautiful poems, and now I want a box for them. I mean to paint it the colour of Matahiwi but I can’t find my stash of boxes after the Christmas clear up, and I can’t buy one small enough. I don’t want the poems slopping around. I think of my friend, Andy Macfarlane, who makes exquisite things with wood: delicate and full of grace. He’s an artist whose art is private and prolific. I take him a rough print of the poem for size.
‘What do you think of my new head?’ he says, gesturing towards a massive standing head, staring out into the rain as if out to sea at Easter Island. It’s made all out of small pieces of off-cut wood so that it looks also like one of the giant president heads, cut from granite, staring out over America. The head has his characteristic punk earring, made from bolts and rings. All Andy’s heads have a grave bearing, with comic dashes of levity. This one’s staring at the back porch, the summer table with the canvas chairs covered with wood of all lengths, a vice, saws and clamps and all manner of tools; containers of small pieces of wood of various thicknesses. I look at these and think about sides and edges for what I think of as the arms.
‘What are you thinking of doing?’
I show him the poem so he can see the size.
‘I want it to hold all the poems. I want it to be able to stand up so you can read the poem, and take them out easily, if he wants to give one away, and for them not to fall out. I’d like it to look like a little whare, and have arms, and the little part at the top for the head. I can’t remember the names.’
‘Like a pataka?’ he says. And he rolls a smoke, while he considers it. ‘What about like that little shrine at Fernhill?’
I think about that blue and white Madonna behind the plate glass and the pure pitch of the roof pointing to the blue sky.
‘That would be the right feel, but it still has to look like a whare, eh? And I want to paint it green.’

We start picking through the wood. He takes some fine small flat pieces and says, ‘What about this for the sides?’
‘Perfect.’
‘Do you want them upright like this? Thick here? How wide would you like the bottom?’
‘Only wide enough to hold them in.’
He squints through his smoke, head back, while he considers the bits of wood.
‘We could make a little lip, and put a little wedge at the back, so they’re tilted. Then they won’t fall out.’
We wander along the table, picking up bits of wood. He has a small container of fine pieces, just like the bits which slide between each letter-print line to hold it in place and create the white space between lines. He starts pulling pieces out.
‘Which parts would you like coloured?’
‘The arms, definitely. And maybe somewhere inside, do you reckon?’
‘What do you think of this colour?’
He has a steely-grey green.
‘I need it to be the green of Matahiwi,’ I say.

Matahiwi marae Te Matau-a-Māui. Photo Florence Charvin.

Part VI — Green of Matahiwi

I’ve studied the colour in photos and in the background of the video of Selina’s celebration, (so colourful, it’s changing the green). I go looking in my test pots — I have about twenty different greens — and mix the colour. I mix the colour in my deep memory of all the times I’ve gazed at Maui, listening to Tom. I have to cover the colour with clingfilm to take to Andy, it dries at least two shades lighter.
‘It’s this green.’
‘Put it on here,’ he says, and gives me a brush. He has an upturned white bucket.
‘On there,’ he says, ‘You can see the colour.’
I do a bit of a smear and it looks too emerald, too vivid on top of pure white. He mixes a bit of the grey-green in. It’s close, but I mix a bit more of my green in, and then make a proper mix. I reckon I’ve got it near enough, and I don’t want to dull it.
‘Do you want me to paint it?’
‘No, I’m going to put it together with little pegs to see how it looks, and get it fitted together, then I’ll paint it and glue it. I’ll give you a ring when it’s done.’

About a week later, he puts a note in my letter box to tell me it’s done. Andy eschews cell phones and we don’t have a land line any more.

I know it will be great. I’m thinking of the eerie, delicate, funny crown he made for Oberon in the school play. Wire bent delicately as twigs, nuts and berries (literally nuts and bolts) hanging like delicate charms. I’m thinking of his pop-art paintings of the queen, a gold sun like a halo behind, both mocking and elevating her beautiful coronation self. I’m thinking of the time something sad happened to Henry at school, and Andy made him a tiny perfect grand piano out of balsa wood to take with him when he left home to go to med school, that he still takes from house to house with him.

And when I see it, I really don’t know what to say. It makes me feel like crying. The little whare sits delicate and calm, the poem sitting inside, looking out. The walls, with the layers of slightly different woods, like a real home. There are always surprises – I’m not expecting the fingers at the end of the maihi to be there, or those perfect circular shapes. Later he tells me he made them by holding them down with a board while he drilled half holes through.
‘It’s so beautiful,’ I say, ‘Tom will love it.’

Poem Tom Mulligan by Marty Smith. Photo Marty Smith.

Part VII — So much aroha

Peter organises a special occasion for Tom, and it’s not only the kaikaranga, bending down to shake leaves, who wear black. Maui’s eye glows white under the knot of his hair, the wind wisps streaks across a very blue sky.

We’re in the wharekai, under the murals Jacob made years ago with his art students. They tell the story of work, rows and rows of stone-fruit trees for Watties; long lines of fat chops for the works at Whakatū, closed-down for years. The site is just across the creek from where Tom is seated, to the side of the honour roll of soldiers who died in the war; some, four or five sons are on the end wall, alive and glowing as he fights the fish. The line of his frown and the perfect curves of the waves make me think, Jacob did that himself.

The space around Tom is warm; peaceful and full. He listens carefully to John telling the story of their past. Peter speaks, and John leans back in his chair, absorbed, hand against his cheek. Jacob stands, clears his throat, and walks ceremonially to the table, bearing back something wrapped. (What is it?) Everyone cranes forward. The tokotoko comes clear: a simple spiral, rich in colour like rimu, and smooth, and solid. It’s grounded by a round knob on top, to fit into Tom’s hand. Tom is overcome, and Jacob, speaking, is close to tears.

I’m completely undone when I read Tom his poem, and he seems stunned. I talk about Neville, and Andy, and the wood, and the Aunties murmur, ‘So much aroha’. When I kiss Tom, his whānau stands and sings, and everyone joins till the room fills and swells and I’m not the only one crying.

Tom Mulligan. Photo Florence Charvin.

Marty Smith biography

Marty Smith’s Horse with hat was a finalist in the Poetry Award in the 2014 NZ Post Book Awards, and won the Jesse Mackay award for Best First Book of Poetry. She is writing about the people on the Hastings racecourse with the help of an arts grant from Creative New Zealand.

Marty helps Tom and the community of Matahiwi as MC for the poetry readings and performances at the inauguration of the Poet Laureate. She helps Peter and the National Library as MC for Poets Night Out, the evening celebration. Big shout out to her mate, Carla Crosbie, and the team at HB Readers and Writers, who run a beautiful event, every time.

A Poem for Waitangi Day

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Sat, 05 Feb 2022 20:39:00 +0000

From the Void, Te Kore, seven kinds of light:
first, glowworm glimmer; then pale gleams;
next, a dim aura; the stars grow fainter
as Papatūānuku separates from Ranginui;
pale beams follow; before summer's
bright clarity emerges;
and down in the gully we walk out into the sun,
crossing the creek as if time has just begun.

We wave charms and amulets,
horoscopes and horticultural guides
to best brands to buy
for Generation XY,
Generation Alibi.
All in this waka together,
bombarded by small pieces of pumice and scoria;
so emotionally invested
in Kiwiland's avatar —
where we the people, we the sheeple.
we the peeps, we the perps,
we the fraudsters, we the Treaty-honouring,
dwell and dwell
on a happening turned into an awakening.

Can't hongi with the poets, just elbow-bump
at a hangi for the Queen;
lower masks, rub noses, and tipple a snifter
of Bailey's Irish Cream.
Bring home ashes in a trim hessian bag:
those lately gone to the realm of Hine-nui-te-pō.
The manes of white-haired New Zealanders
nod sagely like toe-toe plumes in the breeze.
The CEO's a paladin who just lost his rag:
a prince of millionaires
with a Herne Bay heli-pad.
Plenty of bottom end to go around the bend;
a magistrate's gravelly speech,
throws the rule-book in a straight line,
as southern rātā and pōhutakawa
paint the whenua red.

III

Place-names vanish, to be replaced
by brand-new ancient dreams,
when the motu turns over in its sleep
and rumbles and steams.
Root vegetables bake delish in a dish;
I speak of the potato and the kūmara.
Commended souls do eye-rolls.
The festive season has its reasons.
The dire-wolf bares its teeth
to express grief;
puddles exclaim with pelting rain;
myriad tones of voice let rip
to the muffled hills as one song,
through the car window's quarter-light.
The rubble of jaded intellects is landslip.
If this be Doomsday, it is not in jest.
Isolation with the hard borders of lockdown
declares the importance of being earnest.

Here come the clouds; how vapid they are,
as if texting each other with sun emojis,
or pursuing futile chases that dissolve
into future expanses of climate change.
The lazy wind gives a farewell wave and dies;
a tsunami rolls and rolls,
far-out as a January day,
foamy as a car-wash.
Beneath the calm surface of bland
quivers a passive-aggressive possessive
that whips out like a lizard's tongue
to drag home its target like a wrapped-up fly.
Silly old fossil fuels flow from Noah's flood;
there's reverence and sublimation in hydro-electric structures.
Will the weather never get green?
It's going to be a fly-by of better loyalty cards
through blue skies from now on,
and a free Sweetwaters concert in every rest-home.

There's a convenient convenience store,
but no public convenience to be seen.
There's abject poverty up there on the screen,
but it's quickly covered by a request
to recycle your plastic dreams
of pre-packaged lunch deals and bank loan schemes.
Shoegazers on tv denounce single-use.
Low tolerance levels are expected to increase.
Seals flip and glide and swim in-shore.

The sacred nacre of pāua, spit of oyster spat,
a smelt blaze and the tag of string flutter;
starred wire fences cut across contours;
the falling folds of the bush-line
are petticoats of green crinoline.
Musculature of rugged ranges,
coloratura of operatic tūī,
chaffing of chaffinches,
beady wax-eyes that cluster in view,
a rumour of rosellas, a squabble of sparrows.
Flipped vortex of a spinning top;
lawn rolled up like carpet and flung on a truck.

There's pounamu that dwells in a tapu pool
to be prised and appraised anew,
as a stoned head bends and lends an ear,
while marl rebuffs the translucent inanga.
Brisk claw and scrape of a twig by a kākā;
kererū going for it — the reddish berry,
with bunt and swoosh, sough and shush.

A supply chain strains around the massive
neck of a kauri tree, and talismans are token
in this one hundred per cent pure Arcady,
the Lord knows where, between shade and azure.
It is, in semblance, a looking-glass land,
solid gold golf ball whacked into the gulf;
moth-land, moon-land, shear-land, gland-land,
whose North Island might checkmate South Island,
and take as pawns Stewart Island, the Poor
Knights, the Great and Little Barrier
bishops in a game of Crown and Anchor.
And let the glacial attitudes of the Pākehā
melt like snow creatures, or ice crystals,
in the eerie green faery mist
of patupaiarehe, amid chants of atua;
then bring out the chart of Te Tiriti o Waitangi,
document stained with blood and squid-ink.
A flying canoe ghostly in the sky paddles
over the whole fished-up archipelago,
guided by Kupe, whose pointing finger
shines with shark oil as the stars rise.

Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui.

— David Eggleton

Pohutakawa, Barrier Island. Photo David Eggleton

Time of the Icebergs

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 21:30:00 +0000

Here is a link to a poem video, released in early December, which has been created by myself and Richard Wallis for my poem Time of the Icebergs. The poem is about the icebergs sailing past Dunedin in 2006, and climate change. It also features a lot of the old Dunedin townscape which is fast changing.

The poem Time of the Icebergs also features in a new poetry anthology forthcoming from Auckland University Press and launched in May 2022 entitled, No Other Place to Stand, a book of climate change poetry from Aotearoa and the Pacific.

Watch Time of Icebergs

Time of the Icebergs

In the time of the icebergs —
big black baby buggies pushed by women
in hoodies, denim and eff-off boots.
Crop circles on Google Earth say NO to Monsanto.
Boxy four-wheel-drives plane through the wet —
semi-amphibious barges, growling up and down,
piloted by yummy mummies, or tattooed property
developers in cargo shorts, their tee-shirts
emblazoned with Crowded House logos,
their capitalist warrior chariots splashing kerbs.
Buses pull out wheezing, and puffing exhaust,
loaded to the gunnels with glaze-eyed tourists —
destination, Bliss or Damnation.

Glossolalia of the Undie 500 clown cars;
smashed glass of the student quarter glimmery as jewels;
detritus of bonfires blown hither and yon,
the shouty mouthy denizens of bouncy Castle Street
wandering in fellowship of the sofa burns
to the great forcing apparatus university,
glowing with self-declared enlightenment;
and death by chocolate beckons,
from Cadbury’s vast lakes of cocoa butter,
to vulgarians who flog heritage buildings for parking.
Bringing frost, a flotilla of white blocks;
winter bloom of blue muffin-tops over low-slung jeans,
and gales in the face which smack like wet fish;
chill fingerbones that touch you from far away,
in the time of the icebergs.

The city at night one vast monastery
under holy hush of snow;
and bent beneath their hoods they go,
like capuchin monks praying in cloisters,
Ngati Cappuccino or Ngati Bogan,
eye-sockets deep pits in snoods:
glaze-eyed jaded ones,
monkish, cowling the head for respect,
or to recapture the rapture;
and a hooded phantom runs,
breathing out steam,
a warrior monk who travels light.
Closer, you see her face,
ethereal as that of a novice nun,
beneath her hoodie,
in the time of the icebergs.

— David Eggleton

Ode to the Cycleway

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 20:30:00 +0000

Too much smashed glass on asphalt,
swerving in and out of the bike lane,
you got skaters, scooters, vapers,
someone taking selfies with boozers.
Everyone is insane after dark,
by the locked park gates;
and where do you park so no-one
can pancake the car roof off a balcony?
Someone's playing housie with a trust fund,
someone's put the rent up on white fragility,
someone's hurled cookie dough on the pavement.
Fang it, prang it, walk away totalled,
who's got the price tag of that?
Shuffle to the muffler, raise the wheels,
or tow it away from the harbour,
after raising it out of the water.
Seepage, salvage, knock-down heritage;
raise up flower power in gardens.
Let the chips fall where they may,
on airwaves, sheathed in hagfish glue,
or stuck to the highway back
when yesterday was some place to be.
Asphalt shades of greyscale
unscroll a doomslayer's papyrus,
its dried-up syrups of blood, lead, nitrate.
Gaps are bridged by sighs, years by stars
that might scratch your eyes out.
The fevered rain is not enough to wreathe a sinkhole.
Cram cranberries in your gob by the handful,
and click through dross after dross on ways
to improve the biosphere from inside your silo.
The checkout counter, like your personal biomass,
counts somewhere, maybe.
And you were born and raised in a coffin,
and now you're an astronaut on a mission,
your ashes are launched from a circus cannon,
towards a trampoline you preordered,
from your parked-up car above Lover's Leap.
Peeps are posting pics of themselves planking,
or leaning away from the goalposts,
looking down on a mass grave called Planet Earth.
Ashes drilled into the skin with a needle are blue.

— David Eggleton

State of Emergency

noreply@blogger.com (National Library of New Zealand) — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 20:30:00 +0000

In None and Son of None we see
the dazzle of Him Who walked
upon the Lake of Galilee.
Israel has done much and little
of which to be proud.
Gaza, torn in two, bleeds trauma
beneath a bomb-raised cloud.
Praise or blame are much the same
on the battleground of Palestine,
and Israel answers raised hands
and bloody nails
with the iron flails
of Christ's Roman centurion.

— David Eggleton

The New Zealand Poet Laureate blog

Korekore Rawea: Karakia (Low energy)

Welcome to Robert Sullivan, our new Poet Laureate

Biography

Some final words

Celebrate New Zealand’s poetic talent: Nominate a New Zealand Poet Laureate

Brian Turner ONZM (1944–2025)

Place

Brian Turner — New Zealand Poet Laureate of Nature

Launching ‘Still Is’

Subtitles missing

A tribute to Vincent O’Sullivan (1937–2024)

Being Here

Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems 2023 selected by Chris Tse

Half-time

Number 13 — Inauguration weekend poem

Number 13

Opening of “Long Waves of our Ocean: New responses to Pacific poems” exhibition

~~~the longest wave~~~

Welcome to Chris Tse our new Poet Laureate

Why Hollywood won’t cast poets in films anymore

Whale Psalm

Mostly Black

Te-Ara-a-Parāoa, Path of the Sperm Whale

Matariki

Key to the Hermit Kingdom

Poet Laureate Award call for nominations

The End of History, and Warhead

The End of History

Warhead

For Tom

Words and aroha for Tom Mulligan

For Tom

Part I — Tom

Part II — Hairy process

Part III — Plate glass photos

Part IV — Last say to the home side

Part V — Little whare

Part VI — Green of Matahiwi

Part VII — So much aroha

Marty Smith biography

A Poem for Waitangi Day

Time of the Icebergs

Watch Time of Icebergs

Time of the Icebergs

Ode to the Cycleway

State of Emergency

~the longest wave~