This morning I had breakfast and conversation with five fabulous secondary-school English teachers (Bronwyn, Susan, Terri, Tom and Christine) in Mt Eden and it was such a treat (here for the NZATE conference). I say no to pretty much everything at the moment, because I am focusing on my own writing, and keeping my two blogs going. It’s a rare occasion I get to have a cafe breakfast and talk poetry, and I just loved it! And yes poetry was the main topic of conversation. I gave each teacher a one-off offer to invite one standout young poet to send me a few poems – and I would write back to them, and perhaps post a poem on the blog. I tried starting an ongoing spot for secondary-school students awhile ago but it fizzled. But I love the idea of finding a way of posting poems by secondary-school students. Hmm. I need to muse on this.

I was talking off the cuff this morning but one thing I kept returning to was how we can take our whole body into a poem, whether we read or write it. Ears might come into play first because so often we pay attention to the sound of the poem. The way it makes music. Eyes are a way of hunting for the detail that moves a poem from the general to the specific. The look of the poem on the page. Its form. Its page space. Heart might be the essential pulse of a poem, the way we feel the world. And lungs, because poetry is also breath. Mind, because ideas can matter. Poem can be a form of inquiry, curiosity, experimentation. How does this all work when you are exploring a poem as a set of language features? You might think of a poem as a set of rhymes. Yes various sound rhymes, but also visual rhymes, feeling rhymes. Near rhymes, off rhymes. Ideas that rhyme. Recognition rhymes. A rhyme between you as reader or writer and the poem itself. I say rhyme but I could say chord or I could say connection. I often picture a bridge between myself and the poem, and sometimes I just can’t cross it. So I ask, why not? That instantly fascinates me, and I hunt for new entry points, a backdoor, a portal, a keyhole. Poetry for me is a way of opening up not closing down. Poetry, even at my age, is all about play, no matter how serious I get.

Afterwards, on my drive back to the coast, I mused on the ways poetry can spark students into finding their voice, into exposing diverse engagements with themselves and the world, with people, things, feelings, places, experiences and ideas that matter to them. I got to wondering to what degree our students read New Zealand fiction and poetry? I know there is an exciting groundswell of young poets from teens through to 20s. The work appearing on Starling underlines that. It seems so very important and is no doubt one reason we have Ben Brown as our inaugural Te Awhi Rito Reading Ambassador.

I got to read a poem from my New York Pocket Book (Seraph Press) that is so dear to me, the poetry prompted by the time Michael and our then teenage girls had ten nights in New York. Such an experience seems like a foreign country to us at the moment. And here I was today, reading a New York poem in a Mt Eden cafe to five English teachers, and it felt so unbelievably special I felt like crying. But I held up my latest collection The Track and got talking about creating a whole book in my head in a storm. Which is kinda how I feel now – writing and blogging in a storm to keep going. To keep one foot going after the next. To keep holding out the warmth and sustenance that poetry can offer.

Thank you NZATE for the breakfast invite. I am so grateful.

from ‘Panoramic view of the Aratiatia Rapids’ by Jiaqiao Liu. The first in a series of nine responses to the Mīharo Wonder exhibition.

“While Mīharo Wonder is moored to the walls and arrested in its cases, its imaginative scope ranges freely – here is the best possible evidence of that.” — Peter Ireland, Mīharo Wonder co-curator

Writers encounter Mīharo Wonder

Wonder is a place where writing often begins — and each year, during the first six weeks of the MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters, we set exercises designed to unlock the kind of wondering unique to each writer. In April 2021 we brought the MA students to the Mīharo exhibition in the hope that some of the resonant objects, images and artefacts might prompt stories, poems or essays. We gave them no brief other than to choose an exhibit and pursue the lines of imagination it prompted.

For these writers, encounters with the past have become acts of invention as well as recovery and re-evaluation. The exhibition becomes an observatory in which old stories give birth to new, the past is encountered with fresh eyes and transformed through the lens of the present. The writing presented here is only a sample of the work produced, and we imagine work by other writers will come to fruition in future. We’re grateful to National Library staff Peter Ireland, Anthony Tedeschi and Fiona Oliver for providing additional insight and background to the exhibition and to Mary Hay and Jay Buzenberg for publishing the student’s work on the website. And we hope you enjoy the wondering Mīharo has produced.

Chris Price, Tina Makereti and Kate Duignan

First response by here. They will continue each week.

Visit Mīharo Wonder in the gallery and online

Visit Mīharo Wonder at the National Library in Wellington
Experience the Mīharo Wonder online exhibition
Read the Encountering Mīharo blog series
Read the Mīharo Wonder blogs

The iconic Meteor Literary Salon returns for a stellar Matariki at the Meteor!

A special Matariki focused salon will see four leading New Zealand poets dynamically performing their work!    

The poets in question? Literary legends…

Hinewirangi Kohu-Morgan,  artist, poet, and visionary, known as an important harbinger of Māori poetry written in English.

Te  Kahu  Rolleston, Ngaiterangi born writer, activist, battle rap artist, actor, scholar, educator, poet, and national spoken word champion!

Vaughan Rapatahana, poet, and author, known for often delivering his poems with a kōauau soundtrack backgrounding his words and having his works published in both his main tongues – te reo Māori and te reo Ingarihi.

David  Eggleton, Aotearoa’s Poet Laureate, and recipient of the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry!

Don’t miss your chance to see these four poets travel beyond standing still in an emphatic oral delivery of their work. Vaughan Rapatahana will be our MC and there will be some of our artists work available for sale at the event.

July 22, 7pm. Tickets $10 General Admission (including a glass and nibbles).

WELLINGTON

The NZSO is throwing open the doors and inviting you to join us for a variety of free events for all ages.

Sat, 10 July, 10.30am-5.30pm
Michael Fowler Centre

ALL EVENTS ARE FREE TO ATTEND

Open Doors is proudly supported by

Note some events require online registration due to limited spaces, see link below for details.

Storytime Live & Instrument Petting Zoo 10.30–11.30am
Join us for a short performance of NZSO Storytime live –a selection of kiwi children’s book favourites accompanied live by members of the National Youth Orchestra.

Children of all ages can the explore the Instrument Petting Zoo, getting up close with various instruments and musicians of the National Youth Orchestra. 

Words and Music 12.30pm – 1.30pm

With Stravinsky influenced by literature in much of his musical works, and Shostakovich’s Leningrad inspiring works of both non-fiction and fiction, NZSO with panelists Ariana Tikao, Tayi Tibble and Sam Duckor Jones partner with Verb Wellington to explore the connection between the two art forms through a discussion with New Zealand writers on how music has influenced their work. 

Full day’s programme here