Mrs Winter’s Jump

We’re coming out
from under
dismal. The sun is up
and so are the children,
mucking about
with skateboards.
He’s out the back
playing ‘Mrs Winter’s
Jump’. And jump
she does. She
gathers up
her rusty skirts
and crosses all the
crooked space
between us.

Jenny Bornholdt
from Mrs Winter’s Jump, Godwit, 2007

Jenny Bornholdt has published over a dozen books of poems, including The Rocky Shore (winner of the Montana New Zealand Book Award for Poetry, 2009). Her latest collection is What to Wear (THWUP, 2026). She has edited a number of anthologies, including Short Poems of New Zealand (2018), and has worked on numerous book and art projects with artists including Annemarie Hope-Cross, Pip Culbert, Mary McFarlane, Noel McKenna, Mari Mahr, Brendan O’Brien and Gregory O’Brien. In 2018 she was the co-recipient, with Gregory O’Brien, of the Henderson Arts Trust Residency and spent 12 months in Alexandra, Central Otago. She was New Zealand’s poet laureate in 2005–2007, and in the 2014 New Year Honours she was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services as a poet.

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