Over the next two weeks Poetry Shelf will celebrate the ten books on the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry 2025 Longlist. The longlist underlines the vitality of poetry in Aotearoa, the incredible range of books published, from style to subject matter to voice. Coupled with that is the range of publishers dedicating resources to poetry publishing, from the University Presses to Boutique Houses. That a number of sublime poetry collections didn’t make the 2025 list, also marks poetry in New Zealand as fertile terrain, with its eclectic and electric communities.

Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry

• Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud by Lee Murray (The Cuba Press)
• Hibiscus Tart by Carin Smeaton (Titus Books)
• Hopurangi – Songcatcher: Poems from the Maramataka by Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi, Kāi Tahu) (Auckland University Press)
• In the Half Light of a Dying Day by C.K. Stead (Auckland University Press)
• Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit by Emma Neale (Otago University Press)
• Manuali ʻi by Rex Letoa Paget (Saufoʻi Press)*
• /Slanted by Alison Glenny (Compound Press)
• Slender Volumes by Richard von Sturmer (Spoor Books)
• Slim Volume by James Brown (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
• The Girls in the Red House are Singing by Tracey Slaughter (Te Herenga Waka University Press)