Opoutere Nest Song

Sky and water, quiet
sand. Little whistle
that gets up and goes.

Bill Manhire
from My Sunshine, VUP, 1996, and Collected Poems, VUP, 2001

Paula’s note: This poem resonates so acutely for me. I am transported to Te Henga Bethells Beach where the endangered dotterels also scutter and whistle.

Bill Manhire’s latest poetry collection is Lyrical Ballads, THWUP, 2026. He has won the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry five times, and was New Zealand’s inaugural poet laureate. He founded and directed the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. He has edited major anthologies of New Zealand literature, including, with Marion McLeod, the now classic Some Other Country: New Zealand’s Best Short Stories (1984). In 2018 Bill was awarded an Icon Award Whakamana Hiranga from the Arts Foundation.

The Poetry Shelf Breathing Room: A place to enter and pause and take a long slow breath and then another, as you absorb the beauty movement joy stillness wonder movement of a poem.