An Inspector Calls

We tiptoed into the house.
The neighbourhood was quiet as a mouse.

I felt very on edge. The money
Was in the oven, not the fridge.

*

I glanced at the note on the piano.
Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh.

*

There’s always a point at which a routine enquiry
turns into something else entirely.

I had to shoulder my way in.
The bathtub was simply full of the victim.

Bill Manhire
from Lifted, VUP, 2005

I love it when a poem is readable and seems easy to follow like a catchy song, and yet its surprises and depths never end, and I want to read it again and again. ‘An Inspector Calls’, by Bill Manhire, is such a poem.

Over the years, I’ve convened quite a lot of workshops on the topic of narrative poetry. I make a course reader from a bunch of poems which change over time, but this poem always seems to be in my reader. As I’m writing this, I realise I’ve never once asked Bill Manhire if he minds me rolling out his brilliant poem to a class. Sorry, Bill! Do you mind?

Anyway, I usually rabbit on a bit at the beginning about something must happen and near and far (looking up close, narrative arc) and who’s looking at what and keep with the sound. I know already, because I’ve read it hundreds of times, that ‘An Inspector Calls’ does all these things to perfection, but that it also has that extra thing you can never quite explain. It’s original. This poem always engenders a lot of discussion. People are amazed that it can be so short and yet cover so much territory. They love the jazzy sound of it, the funny rhyme at the beginning, the noir feel, the angular look. After a while, they notice that ‘I’ is three different points-of-view, and they love that surprise. After a while longer, they talk about the way all the ingredients work together in a way that seems effortless yet asks us to – well, all sorts of things. And I totally agree.

‘An Inspector Calls’ is a poem that has been with me for a long time.

Years late: Thank you, Bill.

Anne Kennedy, May 2026 

 

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.

Anne Kennedy’s most recent books are The Sea Walks into a Wall, The Ice Shelf and, as editor, Remember Me: Poems to Learn by Heart from Aotearoa New Zealand. She is the current editor of AUP’s New Poets series. Awards include the Prime Minister’s Award for Poetry, the NZ Post Book Award for Poetry and the Montana Book Award for Poetry. Anne lives in Tāmaki Makaurau.