these poems were made during five years of eating and living in glaschu, scotland. they should not be taken as reviews - nor should the quality of the poems necessarily be seen to reflect on the quality of any food or place which may bare a similar name, in either a positive or negative light.

Food, culture, history, race, food. No-one combines these subjects like Glasgow based, England born, of Hong Kong heritage Sean Wai Keung.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sean Wai Keung is a Glasgow-based poet and performer. His pamphlet you are mistaken won the Rialto Open Pamphlet Competition 2016 and he has also released how to cook and be happy, both with Speculative Books. He has developed solo performances with the National Theatre of Scotland, where he was a Starter Artist in 2017, Anatomy Arts, Magnetic North and the Fringe of Colour, and is also a poetry editor at EX/POST magazine. He holds degrees from Roehampton University, London, and the University of East Anglia, Norwich and has been published in 404Ink, Blood Bath, datableedzine and The Suburban Review, amongst others. Full credits can be found at seanwaikeung.carrd.co

It's getting colder as the flames
rise from the bonfires, real and virtual.
See how they flicker in the darkling air.

What is happiness in a suddenly unfamiliar world? What happens to us once the old connections spark and disappear? In this new poetry collection, with his characteristic humanity, intelligence and humour, Harry Ricketts writes of youth, hope, books and writers, and the friendships through which we come to know ourselves. Included in this book are poems about finding one's way through a world altered by loss, and the magical thinking that sustains us.

Harry Ricketts is a poet and literary scholar and has published around 30 books. He has lived in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, since 1981. Until his retirement in 2022, he was a professor in the English Programme at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. His books include the internationally acclaimed The Unforgiving Minute: A Life of Rudyard Kipling (1999) and Strange Meetings: The Lives of the Poets of the Great War (2010). Recent poetry collections include Winter Eyes (2018) and Selected Poems (2021). With historian David Kynaston, he is the co-author of Richie Benaud’s Blue Suede Shoes: The Story of an Ashes Classic (Bloomsbury, 2024). His two most recent books with Te Herenga Waka University Press are the memoir First Things (2024) and the poetry collection Bonfires on the Ice (2025).

Steve Braunias is a multiple award-winning author, columnist, journalist and editor. He writes for the New Zealand Listener, serves as the literary editor of Newsroom, and is the author of 14 books. Steve was part of The New Zealand Herald reporting team who won Best Coverage of a Major News Event at the 2025 Voyager Media Awards for their coverage of the Polkinghorne trial.

RSVP to books@timeout.co.nz
Koha entry

A first poetry collection full of telenoid daydreams and androids in the bureaucracy.

I was born this way.
I was made to be soft and pleasant to touch.
It’s the silicone. Father is considering
polyvinyl chloride for my future siblings
because it’s cheaper. I hope you understand
how special that makes me.

Were you born this way too?
Your body is not smooth but it is warm.

Exploring the ambiguities, paradoxes and kinships between human and machine in this first poetry collection, Jiaqiao Liu conjures passionate robots and open-source body hacking, password managers and fuzzy moon rovers, missed communications and learned sensations. Drawing on Chinese mythologies and experiments in form, Liu pulls us into a world that feels familiar to twenty-first-century cybercitizens, yet is new and strange to inhabit.

Is it natural to grow up?
Are you growing down?
Where will I grow up to?

Jiaqiao Liu (they/he) is a poet from Shandong, China, who grew up in Tāmaki Makaurau. Their writing has been included in journals including The Spinoff, badapple and OF ZOOS, as well as in anthologies such as Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems 2017 and A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand (Auckland University Press, 2021). Jiaqiao has an MA in creative writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. Dear Alter is their first book.

All Tomorrow's Poets is back for its 10th year with an electrifying line-up of poets!

Anuja Mitra
Arielle Walker
Dan Goodwin
Jiaqiao Liu
Weichu Huang
Zephyr Zhang

We warmly welcome you back to one of our most celebrated events of the year, featuring snacks, a dearth of talent from Tāmaki Makaurau and a zine to commemorate our special anniversary.

Koha will be distributed amongst the poets. BYO drinks.

Claire Lacey is an award-winning Canadian poet who currently resides in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Their poetry explores the embodied experience of living with brain injury, politics, the environment, and the absurdity of it all.

Claire is the author of Twin Tongues and Selkie. Their poetry has appeared in publications including Landfall, 1964 and takahē. Claire's work has also been included in the anthologies Impact! Women Writing After Concussion, and Cumulus: An Anthology of Skies.

Claire has performed across Canada, in England, and all over the South Island. Join them for their first Auckland appearance!

Free entry. Event is upstairs.
Books for sale at Time Out Bookstore.

Si'oto'ofa 

Come join us to celebrate the launch of Simone Kaho's poetry book HEAL!.
You'll be treated to readings from poets Tulia Thompson, Serie Barford, and of course, Simone Kaho.
Books will be for sale at the event and Simone will be signing them.

Light food and kai will be provided.

Wrap up your weekend with a poetry reading featuring an effervescent and refreshing six-pack of poets: Lily Holloway, Nathan Joe, Chris Tse, Angela Zhang, with more to be announced.

Two exciting new books were released during level 4 lockdown that never got a proper chance to breathe.

LOCALS ONLY (Compound Press) by Craig Foltz is a road trip with each poem taking you to a place in New Zealand, “filtered through the imagined lenses of the people who would be most familiar with it.”

The Lifers (Otago University Press) by Michael Steven moves through the undercurrents of neo- liberal New Zealand, echoing with voices of the dead, dejected, and forgotten.

Join us for a reading and a proper launch to destinations not found in the drivers atlas.

THIS EVENT IS SADLY CANCELLED.

A book launch in Auckland to celebrate the latest AUP New Poets release, featuring readings and refreshments!

Ben Kemp
Vanessa Crofskey
Chris Stewart
Anna Jackson

Plus others to be announced

In stores now:

Post-it notes and shopping lists, Japanese monks and children's lungs: AUP New Poets 6 is a deep dive into the rich diversity of New Zealand poetry today. Relaunched under the editorship of Anna Jackson in 2019, AUP New Poets 6 features substantial selections from the poetry of BenKemp, Vanessa Crofskey and Chris Stewart. We shift from Kemp's slow-paced attentive readings of place and people in a selection moving between Japan and New Zealand, to the velocity of Vanessa Crofskey's fierce, funny, intimate and political poetry, which takes the form of shopping lists, Post-it notes, graphs, erasures, a passenger arrival card and even "poetry", and finally to Chris Stewart's visceral take on the domestic, the nights cut to pieces by teething, the gravity of love and the churn of time. AUP New Poets 6 is an arresting introduction to the rich diversity of contemporary New Zealand poetry.

All Tomorrow’s Poets is an annual Time Out event showcasing new and diverse voices in New Zealand poetry.
This year’s event will be an exploration of the multitudinous human stories that weave the social fabric of Aotearoa.

Feat:
Vanessa Crofskey
Jeffrey Paparoa Holman
Simone Kaho
Cait Kneller
Courtney Sina Meredith

We welcome you to join us upstairs for an intimate evening of poetry with snacks and BYO wine and beer!
$5 donation (zine included!) is distributed amongst our poets.

All welcome; we advise children be accompanied by an adult or guardian.

No RSVP required, but please email any questions to Suri at books@timeout.co.nz.

Feat: Tayi Tibble, Sam Te Kani, Jamie de Jong, Makanaka Tuwe, Janna Tay and Selina Ershadi.

Join us for our 5th installment of All Tomorrow's Poets on NZ National Poetry Day! Embracing new and emerging voices, cutting-edge poetry and multi-disciplinary approaches, All Tomorrow's Poets brings together a community of writers, readers and makers to celebrate burgeoning New Zealand talent and new movements in poetry. 

BYO wine and beer
$5 entry (includes zine)
No RSVP required

Art Nahill is a poet, doctor, and teacher. Stu Bagby is an award-winning poet and editor who began writing poetry while working as a gravedigger on the North Shore.

They will be reading from their recently published collections. Nahill's Murmurations, which Glenn Colquhoun says “throbs with the music of human thought" and Bagby's Pockets of Warmth, Stu’s fourth collection, which deals with kin and place. 

RSVP here.