not everything turns away, Philomena Johnson, Sudden Valley Press, 2024

Coming Out of the Dark

off the beach a shadow empties
itself into detached clouds

wind-vanes oscillate
past magnetic north

ships are lost to view
behind toppling wave crests

salt and sand spindrifts
blind your way beside a heaping sea

scattered white-caps
helpless before the wind

rafts of pumice
islands

leaves of loose paper
razed to dust

has there never been a choice
but to step into the bright space

between clouds

Philomena Johnson

The readings

‘The Cast of a Net’

‘The House of Winds’

Philomena Johnson graduated from The Hagley Writers’ Institute in 2017 where her portfolio was short-listed for the Margaret Mahy Award. Her poetry has appeared in The Quick Brown Dog, The London Grip, takahē, Fuego & a fine line; in the anthologies broken lines / in charcoal, Voiceprints 4 and The New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology 2024. Philomena won The John O’Connor First Book Award in 2024 for her manuscript not everything turns away, published by Sudden Valley Press. She lives where the river meets the sea right beside Te Ihutai Avon-Heathcote Estuary where she gets to walk by water every day. Philomena tutors at the Write On School for Young Writers.

Sudden Valley Press page