NZ Poetry

Best New Zealand Poems is published annually by the International Institute of Modern Letters, and aims to introduce readers - especially internationally - to leading contemporary New Zealand poets. The poems are chosen to show the vitality and range of current writing. We have shamelessly modelled this online project on the successful US paperback anthology, The Best American Poetry. Each year we publish 25 poems from recent literary magazines and poetry collections, where possible including notes about and by the poet, as w... read more

POETRY Category Winner A collection of longish poems. In these talky poems, Bornholdt ranges over a wide variety of territory - love, death, children, illness, bread-making and the garden. All the big themes. First published October 2008.

The first Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls caused its author to be burnt at the stake for heresy in 1310. Kate Camp's fourth collection of poems demonstrates a darker turn in the work of this popular poet. Shortlisted for the Kathleen Grattan Poetry Award, it establishes her in the front rank of New Zealand poets.

First published March 2010

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

David Mitchell was one of NZ's great poetic characters from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s: poet, lover, political activist, cricketer, impresario, mysterium and, to some, an all-round pain in the arse. Steal Away Boy, re-introduces Mitchell to a new generation and collects widely scattered poems in book form for the first time. A great partisan of poetry in performance, Mitchell initiated readings in various Auckland hotels and was a participant in the famous readings at the Barry Lett Gallery. In 1972 Mitchell's only full-length ... read more

'A poem is a ripple of words on water wind-huffed'. Hone Tuwhare, one of this country's best-loved poets, died in 2008. He was New Zealand's second Te Mata Poet Laureate and in 2003 was among ten of New Zealand's greatest living artists named as Arts Foundation of NZ Icon Artists. His rhythmic voice ranged from playful, earthy, wry and cheeky to protesting and angry, to loving and elegiac. Delighting in the everyday, he had an acute eye for detail and a deep love of the land. He evoked Maori myth and waiata, but also embraced the ... read more

In this new collection Glenn uses hands-on language and humour to explain poetry to his builder father ('a man of few words') - and anyone else not yet captivated with the magic of words.

Winner, Montana New Zealand Book Awards, 2003 (Poetry Section & Reader's Choice). Glenn Colquhoun’s The Art of Walking Upright won the 2000 Montana NZ best first book award for poetry. He has also published a children’s book and An Explanation of Poetry to my Father, which sold over 1000 copies. This new collection of poems is based on GlennÃ... read more

An extraordinary collaboration between two of New Zealand's most stirring and popular artists - poet Glenn Colquhoun & painter Nigel Brown. Nigel Brown creates a unique vision of Aotearoa New Zealand while revisiting and reinterpreting our past. In North South he goes deep into the tribal roots of our country's imagination. Glenn Colquhoun imagines the northern gods of his Celtic heritage engaging with the atua Maori of the south, and creates a new mythology for this country. Nigel Brown has handwritten and illustrated Glenn's word... read more

Sam Hunt has always believed in the essential musicality of a good poem, a belief that has become more intense over the years.Part 1 of this book, ‘the Chords’ that give this collection its title, are a loosely connected group of poems that he feels are best described as a musical score. Stripped down, bare and lyrical,they all have their beginnings in the ‘chord’ heard before any words come.These, and the other poems that make up Part 2, are the work of a masterful, mature poet, whose themes of ageing and d... read more

Over the last year New Zealand has been changed by the devastating earthquakes in Canterbury, and because of this the issue opens with a number of pieces by Christchurch writers who “bear testament to the solidarity, bravery, and artistic spirit of the people of that city”. They include a poem by Fiona Farrell about trying to deal with one of the many issues caused by the quakes – a leaking roof. Tusiata Avia’s series of poems about the quake includes the arresting ‘Finding Sepela: 22 February,&... read more

There are mothers and fathers, Kevin, whom we barely know. They lift us. Eventually we all shall go into the dark furniture of the radio. The last lines of Bill Manhire’s astonishing poem ‘Kevin’ lie at the heart of this book. These poems want urge... read more

Following his very popular collection, Valparaiso, poet Bob Orr presents his new book Calypso. Orr's poems have a wistful yet forceful beauty, presenting images with depth, colour, light, and the narrative drive and cadences of a true storyteller. In the first of Calypso's four sections, 'Purple Octopus', the poet guides us on a voyage though space and time from Troy to Waiheke to San Francisco to Spain, through poems in which everything - clouds, ants, trains, winds, kites - and everyone are travelling, but only some are lost. In ... read more

Twelve months of a laureate: in 2008 Michele Leggott wrote a poem a week to record her term as the inaugural New Zealand Poet Laureate. In her new collection of poems Mirabile Dictu ('mi.rah.buh.lay dik.tu' - Wonderful to relate; amazing to say), she relates the wonders of those 12 months, which took her to Matahiwi Marae in Hawke's Bay to receive her brilliant sky-blue, specially carved tokotoko, Te Kikorangi; through a time of mourning for and celebration of former poet laureate Hone Tuwhare; to Florence, across a 'poetic bridge'... read more

This fourth in AUP's New Poets series includes three very different voices. Chris Tse's work draws fascinatingly on his family history and Chinese heritage. His selection, 'Sing Joe', includes narrative poems about his great-grandparents' emigration to New Zealand and about his own childhood and his research to uncover their story. Erin Scudder writes sophisticated, dark and flavoursome poetry with close attention to the sound and shape of words. In its treatment of motive and emotion her work feels at once personal and universal, ... read more

In Anna Jackson's fifth collection of poetry, a rich and leafy life is closing in on the poet. Anna Jackson constantly turns her attention to the brambled path, the track less followed, the subterranean presences in everyday life.

A clever, modern and sensitive collection of poetry - a collaborative venture between artist (Delicia Sampero) and poet (Karlo Mila). After reading the first draft of the poems, Delicia envisaged a ten metre painting - a continuous allegory of hte black butterfly. As Delicia's paintings emerged, Karlo wrote new pieces inspired by the images. The book explores issues of desire and longing, identity and belonging, all with Karlo's refreshing honesty and wit.

Presents diverse new poems alongside earlier unpublished work. It is a wild, unpredicatable expression of exuberance for words, love, and social justice. The poems are about the act of writing; about Hone's beloved Shirley Grace; about his hunger for the bounty of Tangaroa, music and sex. They reflect with humour and raw candour the challenges of ageing while having an unquenchable lust for life. Hone Tuwhare has won two Montana NZ Book Awards, has been Te Mata Poet Laureate, and held two honorary doctorates in literature. At 82, h... read more