Newsroom published Airini Beautrais’s memorable poem, ‘Cancer Moon: Poet Life’ from Salt Quilt (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2026). The epic memoir poem has got so much love on social media I thought I would share the link plus a link to the conversation Airini and I had about her new book, about poetry and writing.

Here are the poem’s opening stanzas:

Cancer Moon: Poet Life

I had parents who were in some ways indulgent
and would write as I dictated.
This is how I got into poetry.
Here are some lines from four-year-old me:

We love the little flowers that grow in the springtime
Merrily merrily merrily ho!
I think my first influence was William Blake.
Mum had an English degree and was the kind

of mother who reads her infant the work of dead poets.

Airini Beautrais
from ‘Cancer Moon: Poet Life’

Read the full poem here

Along with our conversation, Airini read a few poems. Listen to the poems and read the conversation here.

“Airini Beautrais’s new poetry collection, Salt Quilt, is like a prism I hold to the light and dark of living, past present future, of what is experienced and what is imagined, what is felt and what is thought. The poetry ranges and embraces diverse subject matter, form, mood, connections. I have felt so utterly boosted by this book.” Paula Green

“I wrote the poems in this collection over fifteen years, so there was a lot of being and doing in that time. There are also a lot of different approaches, as some of these poems are very personal, whereas others were commissions and are removed from my personal experience by default. Some words that come to mind now are: Exploration, distillation, sense-making, acknowledgement, vulnerability, experimentation.

“Vulnerability is a big one. I think poets, or at least serious/ literary poets, tend to avoid it. I think this is because poetry allows for distance between the emotional self and the text via linguistic and stylistic features and there can be a temptation to increase that distance. When I started out my poetic career, I definitely wanted to be cool. My first book was called Secret Heart which I think was apt given there is a lot of hiding in those poems. Now I feel happier to just be who I am, and put uncomfortable things out there.” Airini Beautrais

Airini Beautrais was born in Auckland in 1982. Her debut work of fiction, Bug Week, won Aotearoa New Zealand’s top fiction award, the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize, at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. She is the author of five collections of poetry, including Salt Quilt (2026) and Secret Heart (2006), which won the Jessie Mackay Award for First Book of Poetry at the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards, and The Beautiful Afternoon (2024), a collection of essays. In 2016 she won the Landfall Essay Prize. Airini is also a science teacher and dance instructor. She lives in Whanganui.

Te Herenga Waka University Press page