The Distant Road

Some days I try to stare past
the distant road
at all the roads beyond it

nothing there yet

then the noise of desperate engines
comes on the wind
the sound of waves too and

look!

a child runs into the safe small waves
pauses a moment then
sits down on his well padded

autobiography

Poetry Updates

Yes, there will be sadness.
There will be metaphors and music.
There will be music and the lovely names.

There will be the beating of hearts,
the happiness of trees beside water,
plus death with its aches and gratitude.

And more on this throughout the day
as fresh information comes to hand.

The World About Us

There was a weatherboard church
but no settlement to speak of

just a few houses
some bewildered passers-by

I remember wild bells ringing underwater
a line of torn macrocarpas

also the sound of children coughing
someone had made this whole thing happen

Bill Manhire
from Lyrical Ballads, Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2026

Inspired by The New York Times invitation to take time out and slowly absorb the artwork they post each Monday, I created an ongoing series, the Poetry Shelf Breathing Room. Here, I invite you to breathe in a poem slowly for ten minutes. I love choosing the poem, I love slowing down to a restorative snail’s pace, to see what is experienced when we unfold a poem slowly.

This morning, I wanted to choose a poem from a book I have loved so much, Bill Manhire’s Lyrical Ballads, and found myself absorbed for several hours. The whole book became my Breathing Room, not just one poem. Again I experienced surprise and delight and nourishment. Lyricism. Prismatic tracks and electric undercurrents. An infectious love of writing. New things sung in mind: ideas, images, feelings. And yes, for many of us, poetry is the perfect uplift destination when the road is spiky (along with a bowl of green goddess soup!). Bill gave me kind permission to share three poems – do track down a copy of the book! It is a Breathing Room gem.

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.