Poetry Shelf noticeboard: Make poetry from history — 40 years of Homosexual Law Reform
Leave a reply
Kia ora e te whānau,
In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Homosexual Law Reform Bill, we’re partnering with Blackout Poetry Aotearoa to launch a blackout poetry competition inspired by original newspaper articles from the Homosexual Law Reform era. Get creative!
We would love you to please share this with your networks and fellow creatives.
Poster designed by Hebe Kearney of Blackout Poetry Aotearoa.
Make poetry from history — 40 years of Homosexual Law Reform
Create a blackout poem out of texts from Papers Past, the National Library’s online archive of historic newspapers. We’ve selected articles and advertisements from The Press that were published in the lead-up to Homosexual Law Reform. Together, they capture some of the many different perspectives that existed at the time, as well as the key issues being debated, and tactics used.
These texts aren’t presented as the final word on history. Instead, they’re an invitation to engage with the past, question it, respond to it and create something new from it.
Find out more about blackout poetry and the competition here: Make poetry from history — 40 years of homosexual law reform | National Library of New Zealand
Blackout poetry competition
Once you’ve created your blackout poem, submit it by following the instructions on our website.
Entries will be reviewed and shortlisted by Hebe Kearney from Blackout Poetry Aotearoa. Hebe will be joined by past Poet Laureate Chris Tse to select three winners from the shortlisted poems.
Winning poems will be announced on 28 August 2026, to coincide with National Poetry Day. Winners will receive a book voucher and the judges’ comments will be shared on the National Library blog.
Upcoming pop-up display
For one week only, explore original collection materials relating to Homosexual Law Reform in New Zealand. Come and see a fascinating selection of related materials including posters, t-shirts, flyers, badges and video footage in person.
The display includes materials from Kawe Mahara Queer Archives, the Alexander Turnbull Library at the National Library, Archives New Zealand and Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision.
When: Saturday 1 August to Saturday 8 August (opening hours: Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, Saturday 9am to 1pm).
Where: Main Gallery, National Library of New Zealand, 70 Molesworth Street, Thorndon, Wellington
Pop-up display: 40 Years of Homosexual Law Reform | National Library of New Zealand
Poetry Shelf pocket reviews: Michelle Elvy reviews Paula Green’s The Venetian Blind Poems
The Venetian Blind Poems, Paula Green
The Cuba Press, 2025
My poetry book pick is Paula Green’s The Venetian Blind Poems because it is about one individual and it is about our world. I love how this book flows, one long continuous reflection, no separate poem titles, only a page to turn and the mingling of thoughts, remembrances, notes for the day.
I love peering through the Venetian blinds, seeing the light and dark, striped and layered (and salty-sweet).
Liquorice strips of harbour
beyond grey to storm, beyond dark storm
to blinking cranes.
. . .
I think the whole world is made
of strips, strips of good and evil
strips of story and strips of song
I love how we skip through time, how we hear the story and song.
There’s the rustle bustle wind in the bush-clad valley
Buttered toast and clover honey
marmalade brain and mandarin heart
Ah, there were no fences around childhood summers
I love how the poet invites us in, the danger lurking and the idea of something better.
Hold onto your hats
there’s a wild ride ahead
I put a coloured pencil box
under the intense rainbow
for someone to find
The tigers are still howling
I love how this is a call to action, how poetry is beyond the individual, how this is protest poetry, written for our times.
Today there is the real world
and the imagined world
mixing up with
an Airini Beautrais short story
and missiles are dropping
and children are starving
and I can only do one day at a time
and The National is singing
and there’s a midnight moon
in the dead of the night
with the window wide open
I love how, in Paula’s hands, poetry holds damage and the search for recovery, how it’s (always, always) a shared act.
There’s a large grassy area
There’s room for dog play
and there’s the infinite blue
There’s time for dream
and there’s time for sleep
I will meet you at the top of the hill
We will be able to see for miles
Michelle Elvy
Adapted from a review in Landfall Review Online earlier this year.
Find the book here.
Michelle Elvy is a writer and editor in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Her books are the everrumble and the other side of better and the forthcoming Motion sickness. Her anthologies include Te Moana o Reo | Ocean of Languages, Poto: Iti te kupu, nui te kōrero | Short: The Big Book of Small Stories and the forthcoming MAYDAY.
Paula Green is a poet, children’s author and blogger. She lives on Tāmaki Makaurau’s west coast.
Poetry Shelf Speaking Out To For With: a conversation about death by Sue Fitchett
a conversation about death
we know we’re old when we sit & talk about death
as if it’s a friend we might meet round the next bend
what do we fear
not death itself
only the empty spaces if
we’re not the first to leave life
what will we do then
who will we talk to &
hold in our arms curve
we’ll fall in love with nostalgia
yet with luck what we see & hear today
will be there tomorrow
this morning’s sun-whisper picks out
a luminous white speck in the distance
Tiritiri Matangi’s lighthouse
old friend
we’re all
tossed about in that wind
sue fitchett
Sue Fitchett is a conservationist, volunteer fire fighter & Waiheke Islander. Authored Palaver lava queen (AUP: 2004), On the Wing (Steele Roberts: 2014) and Between (The Cuba Press 2025). Co-author or editor of several poetry books & anthologies. Work has appeared in various publications in Aotearoa/New Zealand & overseas & exhibited in art shows. Louis Johnson Bursar 2001-2002.
Poetry Shelf Breathing Room: White horses by Gail Zing
White horses
at the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra
The percussion rolls in / and
out / in and
out the swell / a perfect swell / an ocean growl
so deep / and she is fine
on the edge of her folding seat
next to her friend / and the girl in the story next
to her friend / the pilot who invited her
on this gig / the symphony thickening / with opening
courage / and PTSD in the hooves
of the ocean drums / and the flying girl / and the
ocean rising to the sky flute / when the girl /
returned from world war one / turns / between notes
to pick up her handbag / it seems / but
lifts the handle on the exit / door to the airstream
over Cook Strait / the rush of cellos
she leaps out / into the horn of the sky
the air is not the ocean / it is a piccolo
she is rushing / through blue air and tinkling
but the air is the air is the air
until it is
a long flatline so hard / a body can fall through
how long it lasts / how small a suspension
my friend’s arm against mine /
in the clang / the pilot must drop /
to look for his friend / in the ocean /
and there are only / white horses
the complexity of a galloping drum / he circles again
and again / and everything is lost
the heads of crowds / the marvellous conductor
until there’s only a stampede / the
swell / of all those beating hearts
on the edge of their folding seats.
Gail Zing
This one is FOR the CSO for telling this NZ story in music, about a nurse (Viva Farmar) who survived WWI and came home to jump out of her friend’s aeroplane over the Cook Strait a while later. The friend, the pilot, described that all he could see was the white horses or wave-tips in the sea, she was completely gone. I was so moved by the music that captured this tragic story I wrote this poem – art inspiring art, connections on connections across time.
Gail Zing is a Te Waipounamu author of three collections of poetry, including Some Bird, selected for Best Poetry Books 2024 by The NZ Listener. Winner of both Caselberg and NZPS International Poetry Competitions and placed in many others including the 2025 Fish Poetry Prize and Hungry Hill Political Poetry prize, her work appears in Poetry Aotearoa, Cordite Poetry Review, Poems for the Planet, Stone Circle Review, Catalyst, Landfall, The Spinoff and others. She is a freelance editor, including previously for a fine line, Flash Frontier and takahē, and she teaches at Write On School for Young Writers and Hagley Writers Institute. In 2025 received a residency at Robert Lord House in Dunedin. See more here
Poetry Shelf Monday Poem: YOUR DATA FOR THE YEAR by Murray Edmond
YOUR DATA FOR THE YEAR
Well done! You’ve made an impact this year!
Click here to see your total likes.
On a scale of 1 to 10 how would you rate our performance?
You still haven’t rated our performance.
Your discount has been cancelled.
Points will be deducted unless you reply soon.
Your memory is almost full, follow this link.
You’ve had no back-ups for 75 years.
You have contributed nothing to AI’s use
of the sonnet form. Do you want to update
your aspirations now? Your hard drive
will be removed overnight and a soft
drive installed in its place. You are no
longer connected to the universe. Please contact
your Provider.
Murray Edmond
Murray Edmond: born Kirikiriroa 1949; lives in Glen Eden, Tāmaki-makau-rau. Recent publications: Time to Make a Song and Dance: Cultural Revolt in Auckland in the 1960s (Atuanui Press, 2021) – cultural history; FARCE and Sandbank Sonnets: A Memoir, (Compound Press, 2022) – 2 books of poems; Aucklanders (Lasavia, 2023), a book of 15 short stories.
Poetry Shelf weekend reading, listening and invitations
photo credit: Kristine Zipfel
A new artwork has been added to Wellington Writers Walk – the Walk’s first sculpture in te reo Māori, and the first addition to the Walk since 2013.
Philippa Werry: Since the unveiling of the first eleven sculptures in 2002, the Wellington Writers Walk has become a much-loved part of the Wellington waterfront, with its series of sculptures that honour and celebrate the lives and works of New Zealand writers – poets, novelists, and playwrights, all with a connection to the city. The Walk’s first new sculpture since 2013, and the first in te reo Māori, was unveiled last month in time for Matariki. It features text by Ben Ngaia (Te Āti Awa) – gifted to the Walk by Te Wharewaka o Pōneke, with design by David Hakaraia (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Paoa) and landscape design by Tama Whiting (Te Whānau-ā-Apanui). It looks especially beautiful in the evening when its backlit letters glow against the backdrop of the harbour.
photo credit: Kristine Zipfel
the week on Poetry Shelf
Monday: Monday Poem: Crossing by Rhian Gallagher
Tuesday: Poetry Shelf Speaks Out: Practical Navigation by Lyndsey Knight
Wednesday: Poetry Shelf Playing Favourites: Damien Levi picks Liam Jacobson
Much to Liam Jacobson’s chagrin, I have lip-synced along to this poem (often incorrectly) at many places and spaces across Tāmaki Makaurau. One of my favourite contemporary New Zealand poems, ‘THE DAY MELTS AMONG ME’, paints a specific picture, though with a much more discerning hand than a landlord’s. Liam
Thursday: Poetry Shelf Pocket Reviews: Janet Newman on Lynn Jenner’s The Gum Trees of Kerikeri
‘Yet this is not a pessimistic book. It is a journey of enquiry in a life filled with everyday joy and confusion. Each poem feels satisfying yet curious: a small offering of humanity with a grounding effect at a time of crisis.’ Janet
Friday: audio and conversation with Airini Beautrais
“At my launch I said that poetry is my first love, and it is my favourite genre to write in because I feel that it is where words meet spirit. To me it matters in more of a psychological and spiritual way than an aesthetic or intellectual way. Poetry is very diverse and means lots of different things to different people, but I see a strong connection between poetry and prayer, chant, meditation and music.”
Invitations
I am very sorry but in order to manage my tiny energy jar I do not publish unsolicited poems.
An invitation: If you have a poem that fits my ongoing series Speaking Out To For With – do send – political gets personal, personal gets political, poetry speaks out and sideways, whether quietly or loudly. paulajoygreen@gmail.com
An invitation: Choose a poetry book published in Aotearoa in 2025 or 2026 and write a paragraph in response to why you are drawn to the book. With permission from the poet/publisher I could include a poem. paulajoygreen@gmail.com
My public postal address: PO Box 58, Waitākere, 0660
Poetry Shelf noticeboard: Submissions for the 2026 Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival are open
Submissions for the 2026 Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival are open!
In 2023, I was invited by festival director Alfio Leotta (with me in the first slide) together with Lilian Pallares Campo, Chris Price and Paul Wolffram Paul Wolffram, to be part of the festival jury. It was a wonderful experience and great to see all the entries from across New Zealand.
I had begun researching poetry film in New Zealand and prepared an article ‘How to Film a Poem’, which you can read in Newsroom.
The deadline for submitting poetry films is 25 September 2026 and the festival will form part of the 2026 Film Adjacent Experimental Film Symposium on 21 and 22 November, 2026.
This two-day event will feature six programmes, multiple roundtable discussions, and a filmmaking workshop. It will take place at Massey Cinema, Block 10 Tokomaru.
Submissions via: https://filmfreeway.com/AotearoaPoetryFilmFestival-1 (or go to FilmFreeway and search Aotearoa)
Video has been an important part of Given Words, with ‘word films’ being made by children in Honduras, Spain and New Zealand, and last year’s five words from international poetry film makers. I’m also really excited that two of the winning poems from Given Words have been made into poetry films and I will be screening them as part of my curated presentation at the REELpoetry Int’l Film Festival in September. I will be sharing more info closer to the event.
So, if you have made, or would like to make, a poetry film, give it a go and send it on FilmFreeway to the ‘Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival’ by 25 September!
Poetry Shelf noticeboard: Leanne Comer book launch
The new book from Leanne Comer, a debut novel with a twist, based on real historical events, is launching Wednesday July 29 at Time Out Bookstore in Auckland.
Leanne Comer’s We Know Not When is based on the real story of Emily Keeling’s life and death — imaginative, moving and carrying the ‘spectral presence of those who refuse to be forgotten’ (Tina Shaw). Whether you are in Auckland or not, you can pre-order the book here and receive it hot off the press.
NZ Poetry Shelf 