Pot Luck: Poems about Food was published by Landing Press in 2025. Ninety-three food-related poems to get our taste buds salivating. Yes, the poems celebrate the sweet sour savoury delights of food that nourishes and uplifts, food that brings people together at a table for physical and heart nourishment. Food that crosses family trees, cultural choices, vital memories. Inventive, traditional, satisfying. Food as part of mourning or significant occasions. Every day food. Illness food. Composting food. Food chains. Holiday food. Wellness food. Recipes.

Yet importantly the anthology is also mindful of a world awry, of empty bellies, of the starvation and food queues in places such as Gaza, of eating disorders, of toxic food. This book makes me re-feel the world. And that matters.

The seven editors sought a range of voices that showcase the vital range of poets in Aotearoa, from the well known to the emerging, those living here and those overseas. Landing Press also held workshops to extend the range of voices as much as possible.

I am a big fan of food in poetry – I have always, for example, loved how food enhances the collections of Ian Wedde! My links with poetry and food reach right back to my very first collection, Cookhouse (AUP, 1998). I used food as titles for the poems, and food as a metaphor both for the caring experience of mothers (myself), and my concern for language and those who work with words.

And today, in 2026, as much as I love simmering poems and nourishing our poetry communities through the joy and reach and connecting power of words, I love cooking and baking every day, stretching how food nourishes and connects us.

Pot Luck is special! A culinary and poetry delight. A book to get us reading and writing poetry, and to get cooking and sharing food. To celebrate I invited a few of the poets to read their poems. I would have loved to have been at a banquet hearing them all read!

Thank you poets – it is a treat indeed.

Meanwhile submissions are open for the next Landing Press anthology on the theme of water. The submission guidelines are here  and if stuck for inspiration, check out  these water-related ideas. Note that the email for submissions is landingpresswater@gmail.com. You have until 30 June – lots of time to get thinking and writing. 

The readings

Etienne Wain 黃義天 

Etienne Wain 黃義天 (he/any) is Peranakan Malaysian-Chinese (客家人Hakka, 海南人 Hainanese, 福建儂 Hokkien) and Pākehā (Scottish, English). He is in his final year of PhD study with Te Kauhanganui Tātai Ture (the Law Faculty) at Te Herenga Waka (Victoria University of Wellington), researching what it means for tauiwi (settler/migrant) communities to understand ourselves as “Tangata Tiriti” (people whose belonging in Aotearoa New Zealand is based on Te Tiriti o Waitangi). Etienne writes poems on being Tangata Tiriti, his experiences as Malaysian-Chinese diaspora, and hope.

Hanadi Hammad Al Bakhas

Hanadi Hammad Al Bakhas is a Syrian-born writer now living in Aotearoa New Zealand, with a deep love for her hometown of Homs. Her poetry draws on memories of home, culture, and tradition, often using food as a way to explore identity, belonging, and connection across generations. Through her writing, she reflects on the stories carried in everyday moments and the ways they travel across borders.

Diane Brown

Diane Brown runs Creative Writing Dunedin and specialises in hybrid forms.  Her ninth book, a collection of poems, Growing Up Late, will be published in March 2027 and she is now writing a prose/poetic exploration of female ancestors, Straight as A Pound of Candles.

Githara Gunawardena

Githara Gunawardena is a fourth year English literature student at Victoria University. She moved from Sri Lanka to Wellington in 2020 and has since had her work featured in Starling magazine’s 20th issue, as well as in the 2nd issue of Nine Lives journal. 

Helen Lehndorf

Helen Lehndorf is a writer, editor and teacher from Taranaki who lives in the Manawatū. She is the author of The Comforter, Write to the Centre, A Forager’s Life and has a new volume of poetry, The Bruise Palette, coming out in late May 2026. Helen’s website

Tui Bevin

Tui Bevin is a former medical researcher from Ōtepoti  Dunedin who was born in Lower Hutt to Danish immigrant parents. She enjoys the freedom and challenge of writing poetry, memoir and essays as a way of processing her understanding of the world and preserving stories for her grandchildren. She has been placed in poetry and writing competitions and published in MINDFOOD, Tui Motu, Flash Frontier, The Otago Daily Times, and Landing Press, NZ Poetry Society and other anthologies. 

Janice Marriot

Janice Marriot has written many books, stories, plays and poems for children. She has co-authored four books examining the differences between women’s lives in urban and rural environments.  Her preoccupations now are poetry and storytelling, and helping other people to perfect their own writing. 
She lives in inner Auckland in a small garden and spends a lot of time learning from her grandchild.

Desna Wallace

Desna Wallace is a poet, flash fiction writer and children’s writer. Her work has been published in various anthologies and her micro fiction has been short-listed a few times. Desna enjoys the challenge of word limits and trying to find the best words. She works as a school librarian, teacher aid and tutors creative writing to students at Writeon the School for Young Writers.