Born in a time of war, I rose at dawn to watch troop ships gather in Wellington Harbour.
I come from pressed uniforms, boarding schools, the smell of pipe tobacco.
I come from Hail Marys and Paternosters, fragrance of incense, the smack of a strap.
I come from the pungency of green needles, sitting quiet in the crown of a pine tree.
I come from moonlight, appassionata and a passion for the music of Beethoven.
I come from a chatter-box kid and the cut and thrust of argument
I return by the chatter, the music, the tree and the discipline, to the quiet harbour.
Peter Rawnsley from Paper Cups (forthcoming Marmac Media)
Adrienne Jansen:
I’ve been reading the third collection of poems by Peter Rawnsley. Peter’s second collection was published by Cuba Press, who describe him on their website as ‘one of Aotearoa’s best-kept secrets.’ I agree, he’s a much under-recognised poet. He combines a sharp intellect, a wide reading base – particularly in science – a love of the natural world, a love of music, and a thoughtful Catholic faith. That’s a big spread.
And that’s why I chose his poem ‘Origins’, which opens his forthcoming collection. It’s a down-to-earth poem, that doesn’t have some of the imaginative leaps and mystery of some of his other work, but it draws together each aspect of his life in that succinct way that poetry can. Form is very important to Peter, and his choice of three 4-line stanzas, three 3-line stanzas, then one last 4-line stanza, will be careful and deliberate. I often don’t pay much attention to form, so it’s always interesting to see this unobtrusive but careful use of form. And of course the poem returns to where it began.
I’ve also been reading Pakiaka, which is the first volume of poetry from Gabrielle Huria (Ngāi Tūāhuriri/Ngāi Tahu). It’s one of those small beautifully produced books of poetry which feels like a gift. There’s a long poem in it called ‘How to Be a Good Ngāi Tahu.’ Rather than describe it, I’m going to include a couple of excerpts here. But go and find the whole thing. Read the whole book.
“Know your kai, how to get it, where to get it, how to work it, how to store it, and how to cook it.
Have a freezer packed with kai.
Have much more kai than you need just in case a relation calls, in which case over-feed them with everything you’ve gather.
Be ready to make a big feed 24/7 – there’s no such thing as a snack.”
“Have rights to a tītī island.
If you don’t have rights, marry someone who has.
If you can’t do that, have a standing annual order with a birder for a few buckets.
On the island if you have rights, you have a say.
If you married into the rights, keep your mouth shut – just do the work.
Don’t be a slacker every anywhere, especially not on the island.
Ngāi Tahu know how to work.
Lazy Ngāi Tahu must be half something else, probably from the north.”
Gabrielle Huria from Pakiaka, Canterbury University Press, 2025
Adrienne Jansen writes poetry, fiction and non-fiction for both adults and children. She’s published several collections of poetry, and is the co-founder of Landing Press, a small Wellington publisher of poetry that many people can enjoy. In 2026 they are working on an anthology of poems about water. She lives at Tītahi Bay, north of Wellington.
Peter Rawnsley is a retired public servant living in Porirua, New Zealand. Paper Cups, his third collection, will be published by Marmac Media, July 2026. He has also published Light Cones (Mākaro Press 2018) and Stones & Kisses (Cuba Press 2024.)
Gabrielle Huria is Ngāi Tūāhuriri/Ngāi Tahu. She lives with her extended whānau at Tuahiwi in North Canterbury. Gabrielle is a keen practitioner of Ngāi Tahu mahinga kai (traditional food gathering). Her collection of poems Pakiaka is part family chronicle and part a settling of accounts – a depiction of being Ngāi Tahu in a modern world.
So many poets have written walking poems. So many poets have commented on the relationship between walking and a poem gathering momentum in the pedestrian’s head. Just for a start, I am thinking of Jenny Bornholdt’s magnificent poem ‘Confessional’, Michele Leggott’s walking blind, a vital thread, with different insight and senses on alert in her poems, and of course Blanche Baughan’s love of hill walking. A poem itself is a form of walking with its various rhythms and absorptions. The poet becomes walker, bricoleur, observer, mind-drifter.
My most recent collection The Track (Seraph Press) was written as I walked the third day of the Queen Charlotte Track with a broken foot in a wild storm. To keep walking I used the alphabet to compose poems and returned home with a book-length sequence. Whenever I have read from it, I am right back in the storm diverting pain with words. A strange feeling indeed. But I also have the early mornings at Te Henga Bethells. Walking on the near empty beach in the early morning light is an opening for poetry. Glorious.
I am currently reading Foxtrot and Other Collisons, Shari Kocher’s sublime second collection. In her endnote she says the poems were written over a five-year period. She wrote:
No poem in this collection was written before it was walked: arbitrary or otherwise, the rule I applied to the book’s organic growth was that each poem was to be ‘discovered’ on foot, and many continued to be composed peripatetically across many drafts while out walking in ways dedicated to that terrain.
The poems I have selected are not so much about walking but have a walking presence that leads in multiple directions. Many of the poems are longer rather shorter and take you on glorious excursions. Once again I am grateful to publishers and poets who are supporting my season of themes.
The Poems
Travelling light
She is walking at the edge of the sea
on the wet shining sand.
The bright sky is behind her.
She is travelling
on a sheet of grey light.
We pass, and I wave.
She laughs. Of course.
A woman who walks at the edge,
on light, would laugh.
Adrienne Jansen
Madeline McGovern’s ‘Enchanted forest’, source of Rose People’s poem
A path of stars
There are many things
I would like to tell you,
my darling
My darling,
I would like to tell you
in this life
everything will be okay
I would like to tell you
that you will walk upon a path of stars
that you will travel through the forest
and never lose your way
I would like to tell you
to look only at the stars
and not the gaps between them
to look at the sun
and not the clouds.
My darling, I would like to tell you all these things
for the same reason we read fairy stories to children
and weave their years with mythologies
because there is comfort is such lies
because I want the world you live in
to carry more magic
and less sharp edges.
But, on this dark night
I have run out of comforting lies.
My darling,
I cannot promise you a path of stars.
some days you will walk upon
unforgiving concrete or sharp-edged gravel
some days you will wade through quicksand.
Tonight, I cannot conjure stars
without the black between them.
My darling, I can only wish
when you walk through the dark and tangled forest
and lose your way a thousand times
that one day
you come across a clearing
where you can sit
and where the sun will find you
and warm your face
and where you can rest.
My darling
you can rest.
Rose Peoples
My Maunga
we’re monitoring pests at the Maungatautari reserve
gluing bait to ink slick cardboard with peanut butter
extracted from a single hole in the finger of a latex
glove bulging with the breakfast spread
our hands were all sticky fingers and dirt
made it to the first true slope
gorse brushing our knees the angle necessitating
a fuck-this what-are we doing crawl upwards
the trees move back and forth
poles caught in a tide
swinging long ways
between sickly white clouds
and glare-blue sky
a miromiro sitting plump on a ponga
squeaking like a mouse
then fluttering caught blurry on a camera
there are no edgerleyi in sight
Māhinaarangi’s perfume a ghost in the clouds
replaced by sweat-stink
the trip back down is a chorus of snaps
and low groans from wood and soil
giving way under our weight grown careless
with exhaustion
then we’re back through the mechanical gate
one shuts and locks for the other to unlock and open
pull it back on its squealing hinge
to leave the reserve behind
it’s a short trek down the hill back to the car
the air made pungent by cowpats
essa may ranapiri
from Ngā Kupu Waikato: an anthology of Waikato poetry, ed Vaughan Rapatahana, Waikato Press, 2019, selected by Aimee-Jane Anderson-O’Connor
A Walk with Your Father
Before you do anything else, check your lungs.
Are they the right size for you, are you the right size for them?
Are they nice and snug against your ribs and spine?
Don’t worry if they’re a bit big for you, you’ll grow into them.
They must be full, however; you don’t want them empty.
You have a long way to go.
Put your hand inside your mouth and make sure
everything’s in it’s place, check that all the pipes and hoses
leading from your lungs into your mouth are in position and in good nick.
You don’t want any leaks or sudden explosions
this is your air we’re talking about.
Close your mouth securely around this apparatus.
Next check your weight. If you are too heavy
or too light you won’t get anywhere. By the way
there’s no need to take a whole lot of extras with you.
Some people strap expensive knives to their legs and wear protective gloves.
There’s no real need for any of this – an ordinary old sharp knife
from the kitchen drawer will do. And just your bare hands.
You may need to signal to each other.
Now pay some attention to your skin.
It should feel secure and warm
but also allow plenty of room to move freely.
There are any number of colours available nowadays –
they all do pretty much the same job.
Your feet, are they the right size?
If they’re too large you will tire quickly,
too small and you’ll be left behind.
You’re probably looking at feet
about the same size as his.
Your eyes – spit in them.
It keeps everything clear.
That step you’re about to take
will have to be wider than you’re used to.
Don’t forget to move forwards, not backwards.
Keep your hand on your mouth so everything stays in place
when you break the surface.
Mihi to Tangaroa. Mihi to Hinemoana.
Now get yourself in under there,
immerse yourself.
Do it now, go.
He’ll be right behind you.
Hinemoana Baker
from mātuhi / needle, Victoria University Press, 2004
When I Head Home I Like To Be On The Left Side Of The Road SoAs To Be Closer ToWhere I Am Heading
I walk home with a bouquet of flowers held up
like an explorer holding up a torch,
in the early days of these days.
The flowers do not emanate
light, but they do catch the eyes of the people
I might like. The flowers will sit by my bed
waiting for when I open my nose from sleep.
Maeve Hughes
from horse power, printed by Fernbank Studio, 2019
The verb ‘to be’
It is foggy.
There is a mountain.
I am climbing the mountain.
She is climbing the mountain.
The path is slippery.
She says, ‘It is all right.
It will all be all right.’
She is right.
There are people behind us.
They are climbing the mountain.
They are in the fog.
Their voices are broken.
There is a shout.
There is laughter.
We are all climbing the mountain.
She is climbing ahead of me.
There is fog in her hair.
Her hair is glittering.
The wind is cold.
There is a man with a walking stick.
There are names scratched on the stick.
He carries the names as if they were eggs.
They could fall and smash.
We are carrying names too.
They are carved on bone.
They are scratched on skin.
We are all carrying names up the mountain.
There is a chapel at the top.
It is locked.
Its walls are damp.
There is broken timber.
There are fallen stones.
It is cold here.
Now we are turning.
We are going down.
She is running.
She is sliding down the mountain.
I am following her.
She is running ahead in the fog.
That is how it is now.
That is how it will be.
That is how it will be
till she is and I am not.
She will be.
I will not be.
The verbs slip under our boots,
like small changeable stones.
Fiona Farrell
from The Pop-Up Book of Invasions, Auckland University Press, 2007
A note about ‘The verb ‘to be’’
This poem was written when I had a writing fellowship in Ireland. My younger daughter took leave from her job working with kakapo recovery on Codfish Island and came to stay for a month. We climbed the high hills.
We climbed Croagh Patrick, up the slippery path from the enormous carpark and visitor centre to the crest where the fog was thick and the chapel was closed and a chill wind tore at the flimsy remnants of shelters built to give some protection to the thousands who come here each year. Toward the top we met a man who was climbing using a camán (the stick used in hurling or the women’s version of the game, camogie) as a support on the stony ground. He showed us some names written on the flat head of the camán. ‘You’ll recognise these’ he said. We didn’t, and felt awkward for not knowing. It was an All-Irish champion camogie team he had coached, his daughter’s name among them. Some time after their victory she had become ill and was now in hospital, and he had made a vow to climb Croagh Patrick 30 times, if only she could be made well. He carried the camán each time. This was his 29th pilgrimage.
We climbed Errigal, a steep-sided hill in Donegal. Irish is still spoken around here and the man who ran the hostel was passionate for the language. It is subtle, he said. There are, for instance, two verbs meaning ‘to be’: one suggests permanence (‘this is the floor’). The other suggests transience and is used, for example, when speaking of the weather (‘it is sunny’).
I walked up the tracks behind my daughter with her strong legs, her dreadlocked hair. Not that long ago, I led her. I can still feel the weight of her in my arms, carrying her when she didn’t want to walk any more between banks of tussocks and flowering hebes on the track at Tongariro, or through the bearded bush at Dawson Falls, or on some sunny Sunday walk near Pohangina. The feel of her little duffel coat and her red tights and her feathery hair, usually chopped into a jagged fringe by herself using the toenail scissors. Now she takes the lead and I’m following, and behind us, there’s that long queue of people, living and dead, stretching back down into the fog.
Fiona Farrell
Pacing Poem
Past the green flowers
past the red stool
past the drying towels
past the letter from school
past the newspapers
past the glass fruit bowl
past the decanter
past the ‘Hoptimist’ doll
and into the kitchen.
Past the oven
past the breadbin
past the broken dishwasher
past the empty tomato tin
and towards the table.
Around the red chair
over the floorboards
past the stairs
and onto the rug.
Past the lamp
past the outside world
past the radio
past the Argentinian print
and around the bassinet.
Past the novels
past the poetry
past the proteas
past the pottery
and into the sun.
Past the breeze
past the ottoman
past the unwrapped cheese
past the pestle
past the wine rack
and nestled
under my armpit:
two deep eyes
still shining wide,
so we keep circling
until sleep arrives.
Amy Brown
from neon daze, Victoria University Press, 2019
Travelling
How normal it feels to get around new places— how basely, physically normal it is for our feet to touch the ground and propel us forward, step after step exactly as they do anywhere.
And if these roads home one day become the rivers they once were— though we might have to pedal the currents or steady our soles on pebbles— we’ll soon get used to it.
A flavour’s only new at first taste; and common sights become invisible; and love dulls into something necessary; and in grief we think this new lack is impossible to live with but we do.
Jane Arthur
from Craven, Victoria University Press, 2019
By the Bosphorous Strait I sat down and wept
Breathe in
when Istanbulites woke to find the water a bright turquois they thought
the worst, a curse had taken over the city or toxins seeped from textile
factories but scientists agreed it was just an explosion of plankton migrating
from the Black Sea, a milky blessing heralding the summer calm, I am told
it’s serene.
breathe out
I did not find out I was colour blind until they tested our class at the library
in Form 2, it explained so much, why I always coloured grass in brown and
tree bark green, why I’d clash my outfits and no one is impolite enough
to tell me, my parents must have thought I was stupid or acting out, the
scientists agreed it was neither
breathe in
my manager told me that things can be difficult here, but when you walk
along the Bosphorous it makes it all worth it, sometimes I think this
city is magical, other times I’m sure it is cursed, a dark pact signed in its
catacombs centuries ago threatening to explode, most of the time it is sad,
mourning a lover lost or a friend it couldn’t save
breathe out
everyday at 12.30pm I walk out of the office and stand at its mouth waiting
for a sign, for the air to return, the explosions in my lungs to subside, the
panic attacks are a daily occurrence, a striking in the middle of a meeting, a
hungry mall, a dolmus packed with strangers and I tense my abdomen and
squeeze my shirt with my hands and try not to remember
for the life of me all I can see is blue, even the scientists are at a loss on this
one, they tell me to relax my shoulders and focus on my breathing, not
worry about time I can’t unwind
it’s amazing how something can be right in front of you and you just can’t see it
Mohamed Hassan
from National Anthem, Dead Bird Books, 2020, selected by Alison Wong
Locus
as you walk you become the vanishing
as you walk you lose the point
as you walk you snow
though autumn
the ranges hold the storm
the ranges bite the neck
and night and day unfix
and night and day turn stone
snow monkeys sit with ice on lashes
coast monkeys pick snails from pools
shop monkeys flip fish in milk and flour
as you walk through autumn, the ranges
unfix snow, and pool you lose
ice-pick, milk-lash, snail-bite—
turn your neck to the day—
Nicola Easthope
from Working the tang (The Cuba Press, 2018).
Duet
I became an old woman
age eleven
Doctor and physio
circling my fingers
around a stick
bone on wood
Swinging my legs
to a new rhythm
wood on bone
bone on wood
Instructing me
in the art
of walking a duet
heel toe
bone wood
stick stick
Trish Harris
published NZ Listener, 1999
Crunch
(i)
She collected broken things: fragments of a delicate speckled eggshell she found on the gravel driveway, a starfish arm from the beach. She kept them in a leadlight box, along with her imaginings.
(ii)
He was the one who knew the way back: just to the left of the forked piece of driftwood standing upright on the shore. Over the bed of African daisies and ice plants. Past the clump of marram and close to the flat patch of sand where they’d lain together that time. That time he hardly thought about any more.
(iii)
She walked briskly, in a way that made you think the act of walking was the purpose of the walk. Not the view of the island, nor the chirrup of pipits camouflaged in the dunes. Not the way a shoe sinks into the sand, nor the sight of a collie hurtling after a stick. No, her walk was for the sake of walking and she’d dressed accordingly: the sneakers, the sun visor, the sensible orange windbreaker.
(iv)
The sheets were so bright against the dull sky, he almost couldn’t bear it. He wanted to take a pot of red paint and throw it against them. He wanted to tell her, you bring out the red in me.
(v)
She lay on top of the duvet being a starfish, each of her hands touching an edge of the bed. She thought how nice it would be, not to have to share.
(vi)
He found himself walking up and down the gravel driveway, just to hear it crunch underfoot as the stones scraped against each other. When he noticed her watching him from the bedroom window, he just kept crunching.
(vii)
She lifted the speckled egg from its cotton wool cradle in the leadlight box and fitted the pieces together to make it whole again. There was one piece missing. She turned the shell so she couldn’t see the gap.
(viii)
Pounding the driveway. Grinding the stones. He supposed he could do it all day. His heavy tread. His trample. He didn’t see her leave the house.
(ix)
The beach was a beacon, making her way clear. She could feel the island’s solid presence, even when she couldn’t quite see it.
(x)
He recognised her footsteps, getting louder. There she was at his shoulder, joining her crunching pace to his. His foot, her foot. Stamping together on a firm earth. Her foot, his foot. Two in step. A two-step. She smelt like biscuits. He reached for her hand.
Janis Freegard
from Kingdom Animalia: the Escapades of Linnaeus Auckland University Press, 2011
Hill walk
We often wonder what moves us in a day – was it words in a sequence that surprised us
or notes played by someone who kept their mouth closed & let the sound leave their broken body
or maybe after years it was the sight of your brother nursing his leg down the hill catching up with you
so you could walk on together to discuss what bird that was in the bush making the sound
neither of you were certain of.
Richard Langston
from Five O’Clock Shadows The Cuba Press, 2020
walking with Dorothy
a dog bothers the scraps
of food around the compost bin
it howls at the murmur of the village stream
ignoring the voice calling from the hill
the trees gleam with overnight rain
each tree, taken singly, was beautiful
the bees emerging
from their wooden house
mistake me for
a flower and for
a moment I am one
hopelessly lacking in pollen
swaying in the breeze
and taking up space
standing still in the mud
unmaking myself amid
leaves I’ve seen a thousand times
and never wondered the names of
some trees putting out red shoots
query: what trees are they?
a fantail flits from branch to branch
something bigger than language
in its movements
which lose
their sheen when captured
and later the sky between
apartments and streetlamps
empties but for the full moon
and Venus striving to be seen
as brightly
all the heavens seemed in one perpetual motion
grit on the footpath like glitter
the roads very dirty
a morepork somewhere in the dark
oblivious to me and better for it
Ash Davida Jane
from How to Live with Mammals, Victoria University Press, 2021
The Poets
Jane Arthur lives in Wellington, where she is the co-owner and manager of a small independent bookshop. Her debut poetry collection, Craven, won the Jessie Mackay Award (Best First Book) at the 2020 Ockham NZ Book Awards.
Hinemoana Baker is a poet, musician and creative writing teacher. She traces her ancestry from Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Āti Awa and Ngāi Tahu, as well as from England and Germany (Oberammergau in Bayern). Hinemoana’s latest poetry collection Funkhaus (VUP, 2020), was shortlisted for The Ockham NZ Book Awards 2021. She has edited several online and print anthologies and released several albums of original music and more experimental sound art. She works in English, Māori and more recently German, the latter in collaboration with German poet and sound performer Ulrike Almut Sandig. She is currently living in Berlin, where she was 2016 Creative New Zealand Berlin Writer in Residence, and is completing a PhD at Potsdam University. Hinemoana’s website
Amy Brown is a writer and teacher from Hawkes Bay. She has taught Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne (where she gained her PhD), and Literature and Philosophy at the Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School. She has also published a series of four children’s novels, and three poetry collections. Her latest book, Neon Daze, a verse journal of early motherhood, was included in The Saturday Paper‘s Best Books of 2019. She is currently taking leave from teaching to write a novel.
Nicola Easthope (Pākehā, with roots in Orkney, Scotland, England and Wales) is a high school English and psychology teacher, and mentor of young activists and writers. Her two books of poetry are: leaving my arms free to fly around you (Steele Roberts, 2011) and Working the tang (The Cuba Press, 2018). She has appeared at the Queensland, Tasmanian and Manawatū poetry festivals, as well as LitCrawl in Pōneke. Nicola’s very occasional blog is gannet ink.
Fiona Farrell publishes poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction. In 2007 she received the Prime Minister’s Award for Fiction, and in 2012 she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for Services to Literature. Her most recent publication, Nouns, verbs, etc.Selected Poems (OUP 2020) has been warmly reviewed as ‘a Poetry Treasure House…a glorious book’ (Paula Green, Poetry Shelf), and ‘an excellent retrospective… remarkable for drawing small personal realities together with the broad sweep of history.” (Nicholas Reid, The Listener). After many years in remote Otanerito bay on Banks Peninsula, she now lives in Dunedin.
Wellington-based Janis Freegard is the author of several poetry collections, most recently Reading the Signs (The Cuba Press), as well a novel, The Year of Falling (Mākaro Press). She was the inaugural Ema Saikō Poetry Fellow at New Zealand Pacific Studio and has previously won the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Prize and the Geometry/Open Book Poetry Prize. She grew up in the UK, South Africa and Australia before her family settled in Aotearoa when she was twelve. ‘Crunch’ was placed third in the Manawatu Festival of New Arts Poetry for Performance competition and performed in Palmerston North.
Trish Harris has written two books – a poetry collection (My wide white bed) and a memoir (The Walking Stick Tree). She teaches non-fiction on the Whitireia Creative Writing Programme, is co-founder of Crip the Lit and edited their 2019 pocketbook, ‘Here we are, read us: Women, disability and writing’. She says she’s a part-time crane operator…but maybe she’s dreaming?
Mohamed Hassan is an award-winning journalist and writer who has lived in Egypt, Aotearoa and Turkey. He was the winner of the 2015 NZ National Poetry Slam, a TEDx fellow and recipient of the Gold Trophy at the 2017 New York Radio Awards. His poetry has been watched and shared widely online and taught in schools internationally. His collection, National Anthem, was shortlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, poetry category.
Maeve Hughes is a recent graduate of English literature with a minor in creative writing. She lives in Wellington where she loves to walk home.
Ash Davida Jane’s poetry has appeared in Mimicry, Sweet Mammalian, Starling, The Spinoff and elsewhere. Her second book, How to Live with Mammals, was published by Victoria University Press in April 2021. She lives and works in Wellington.
Adrienne Jansen writes fiction and non-fiction for both adults and children, but for her, poetry is where the magic is. Her fourth collection of poetry, All of Us, published in 2018, is a series of poems, with carina gallegos, around the themes of migration and refugees. She is the co-founder of Landing Press, a small Wellington poetry publisher. She lives at Titahi Bay, north of Wellington. Website
Richard Langston is a poet, television director, and writer. Five O’Clock Shadows is his sixth book of poems. His previous books are Things Lay in Pieces (2012), The Trouble Lamp (2009), The Newspaper Poems (2007), Henry, Come See the Blue (2005), and Boy (2003). He also writes about NZ music and posts interviews with musicians on the Phantom Billstickers website.
Rose Peoples is from Te Awakairangi/Lower Hutt. She is a student at Victoria University and, having finished her law degree last year, decided that the logical next step was to embark upon a Masters in Literature. She is a bookseller at Good Books. Her work has previously appeared in Cordite, Mimicry and Starling.
essa may ranapiri (Na Guinnich, Ngaati Wehi Wehi, Highgate, Ngaati Raukawa) is a Tainui poet from Kirikiriroa living on Ngaati Wairere land / they want everyone to know that the Echidna they write about isn’t a spikey mammal but a lady with two long snake tails instead of legs / go figure / tino takatāpuitanga 4eva
Adrienne Jansen reads ‘Bread’ from All of Us, poems which tell small stories of migration, co-written with carina gallegos. Published by Landing Press, 2018, and longlisted for the Okham NZ Book Awards 2019. Adrienne is a Wellington writer who writes poetry as well as fiction and non-fiction. She’s also involved with Landing Press, which publishes poetry that many people can enjoy.
More of Us, edited by Adrienne Jansen with Clare Arnot, Danushka Devinda and Wesley Hollis, Landing Press 2019
In New Zealand, it’s the weekend.
The streets are very quiet.
Anni Pinedo Bone from ‘The weekend and the carnival’
More of Us was launched shortly after the Christchurch mosque attacks. When many of us were unable to speak – as we sought ways to come together, to listen, to show kindness, unity, solidarity, empathy – the book became even more important. The editors have assembled a terrific range of poetry that navigates loss, dislocation, home, families, food, place. It includes 46 writers from 29 countries, from award-winning poets to high school students, all now living in New Zealand. I am moved by this book. I cry at the unspeakable wounds, I rejoice at the moments of joy. I would love to see this book in every secondary school. I would love to see this book in every lounge because it is an aid to appreciating difference as much it is an aid to forging connections. It is a gift. Thank you.
I sent a list of questions to a group of the contributors and let them choose what they wanted to answer – grateful thanks to Adrienne Jansen for helping me do this.
Why do you write poetry?
Nicky Subono: I write poetry as a way to express what is in my mind and heart. It helps me process and accept things in life and also hope that my writing can inspire or help others in tough times.
Yazan El Fares: I write because writing is often the best way to express things that a person may feel or want to tell. So I chose poetry to express what I feel and share it with other people.
Sevgi Ikinci: I love all the strands of poetry, it focuses on what wanted to be said, it’s sharp and concise. It has sound which can be delivered by writing. It can be romantic or rebellious. Also, I find poetry so delightful due to its ability to deliver different meanings for different people. When my emotions came out in a form of poetry the first time, I was thrilled. It became the way how I express my deep emotions and thoughts.
Reza Zareianjahromi: For a long while now I’ve wanted to find the perfect combination of words to describe some visceral sensation deep inside – I’ve so far failed. But the closest I’ve ever gotten to it is through poetry.
My uncle switches to a music channel.
The music is fire!
My uncles stand up, and my aunties –
they’re all ready to start that dabke,
Syria’s best dance, where people stand,
shoulder to shoulder, holding hands.
Yazan El Fares from ‘My dance story’
Like music, the poems in this anthology sound good, they make me feel the world, they make me think the world, they make my senses spark, they take me into scenes outside my knowing and I am grateful. What do you like your poems to do?
Nicky Subono:I would like my poem to communicate to individuals / be relatable to those who are struggling to find their identity/ coming to terms with living in different worlds and also help them realize and appreciate the place where they can call home.
I would like my poem to highlight diversity and embrace inclusivity.
Tofig Dankalay: Change others’ views and perception of the world and prejudice of people and places that they have never met or seen.
Yazan El Fares: I like my poems to make others feel what we feel and try to think of other people and how do they live. I also want to send a message to people through my poems that each one of us has their own culture and beliefs but we all are human being.
Sevgi Ikinci: Additionally, poetry is a peacemaker. It tells people from different parts of the world, you feel so similar, you are so similar.
Also, I love that the poetry can be read so many times and it gets even tastier.
Reza Zareianjahromi: I like my poems to make you think of dreaming. I want the dimly lit visuals of a dream to come through, the half-lucid state of your mind that produces not necessarily very fantastic and wild imagery, but instead images that are strange enough to be believable and at the same time completely alien. I want readers to get a sense of that familiarity we have with the things we see in our dreams – and I want them to realise that even though they sense this familiarity, the experience is a wholly new one each time.
Was I like this?
No, I wasn’t, but I was
just a bit quieter, reserved and afraid.
I couldn’t tell anyone who I really was!
Sevgi Ikinci from ‘Was I like this back in my home country?’
Are you drawn to certain subjects or feelings when you write?
Nicky Subono: yes, personally, I tend to write more when I feel like there is a message I wanted to express and in hope to reach out to people. It is my own way of communicating my feelings and thoughts.
Tofig Dankalay: My own constantly and forever changing views of the world as part of the universe: Where New Zealand we’re at the end of the world at sometime and at the centre of it right now…
Yazan El Fares: Yes, most of my writing revolves around my mother country and the memories always drawn me.
Sevgi Ikinci: Not objects so much, I think my drive is intense emotions.
Reza Zareianjahromi: I write quite a lot about people’s suffering. I feel a lot of people are dangerously indifferent to it. I also draw quite a lot of inspiration from my dreams, as evident from my previous answer. A good amount of the poetry I write is connected to my Iranian roots.
I remember how my first experience of lettuce
prepared me to compile a recipe book for salads
Sudha Rao from ‘Making a salad’
Do you find certain motifs or symbols keep appearing in your poems?
Tofig Dankalay: The nature, the universe, the different species, objects, that abide by the same physical and universal forces and laws.The engineering species poet within me.
Sevgi Ikinci: I am not sure. Maybe not.
Reza Zareianjahromi: A lot of my poetry is quite personal. I write quite a lot of things for myself, and never intend to share it with others. So, I guess most of my poetry has a very personal motif and intention behind. I’d like to think of them as fragments of how I felt about a certain thing the exact moment I sat down to write, and that feeling can change rather quickly or take on an almost absurd form in my writing.
I became a stranger to my own identity,
an Indonesian who never felt
she belonged in her own land.
I was a blooming flower
surrounded by poison ivy.
Now I am a bird
flying towards the clouds.
Nicky Subono from ‘Overboard’
This anthology reflects diverse migrant and refugee experience. Has your migrant or refugee experience affected the way you write? Did you write poetry in your first home country in your first language?
Nicky Subono: Yes, my life experiences has played many parts of what I write, and because English has become my first language, I tend to think and write in English.
Tofig Dankalay: Of course, it’s a huge part of it. I was born in a war zone. I have no birth certificate, I was a UN refugee at age of 5 in Sudan. Then, I moved with my family to Middle East. I got my Bachelor degree in Engineering in Jordan. Moved to New Zealand in a Skilled Migrant Category Visa (SMC). I am a refugee, expat, migrant, and a resident. I am all of that.
Yazan El Fares: Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to write in my country. All my writings are coming from my migrant background and they all talking about a child who was 10 years old when he left his own country, relatives and friends. This is because of the war which doesn’t have mercy on anyone.
Sevgi Ikinci: My migrant experience affected my writing but I don’t think it affected the way. And yes, I’ve been writing poetry for a long time. I started writing in my language and after a few years living in New Zealand, first my poetry started appearing in English.
Reza Zareianjahromi: My parents are both scientists. Because of their careers, I’ve moved around the globe a fair amount. Therefore, my migration experience is not only an experience but also a fundamental part of who I am as a person. Without it, I wouldn’t be me. So yes, the fact of my moving to new places constantly has shaped a great deal of my writing. I never wrote poetry in Persian, but I have always enjoyed reading Persian poetry.
We be pack of crow. Black bird perched upon scorched
branch. Perched upon broken building. Perched upon
snapped wire. Perched upon this doomscape.
Reza Zareianjahromi from ‘What we be?’
Was there a poet or poets that affected you in your first home country? Has a poet from Aotearoa caught your attention?
Sevgi Ikinci: Yes, possibly a few of them affected my writing from my home country.
Reza Zareianjahromi: Saadi, Hafez, Rumi, and Ferdowsi are all great Iranian poets. I can’t say any poets from Aotearoa have caught my eye (other than the really great ones is the collection!), but then that’s my own fault since I have not yet read much New Zealand Poetry. Other influences on my work are Charles Bukowski and Leonard Cohen.
I am an alien.
Call me names.
You called me all names.
Why not human?
Call me human.
Tofig Dankalay from ‘Call me human’
Which poem in the anthology really got under your skin, or moved your heart, or challenged your ideas, or gave you goosebumps? I would find it impossible to pick one so do mention others.
Nicky Subono: I loved reading ‘Call me Human’ by Tofig Dankalay because it is very raw and amazingly heartfelt… I can feel the pain within the words and it is very moving to me because I always believe that we are all belong to one race, which is humanity.
Reza Zareianjahromi: ‘The Imprisonment of Ap-Kain’ by Laurens Ikinia. Can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is something tremendous about that poem. I don’t know why. (Note from Paula: I agree!)
1.Stone
I would stand by you,
if there was no stone.
There is no sound,
that would awaken me.
I would have tasted how you felt,
if I were there.
There is only one chance
to be away from the stone.
Laurens Ikinia from ‘The Imprisonment of Ap Kain’
The interviewees
Tofig Dankalay: I was born in Eritrea in 1974, but I grew up in the Middle East. I speak Arabic and love Arabic poetry, which has influenced me. I have lived in Auckland, New Zealand since 2016. I have an engineering degree and am currently studying towards a Masters in artificial intelligence (AI) at Unitec University while working full time.
Yazan El Fares: I am Mana College in Porirua. I have been a part of the student council in 2018, and I enjoy playing football. I am interested in going to university in the future to do dentistry. I am from Syria and have been in New Zealand for two years.
My name is Sevgi Ikinci. I’m originally from Turkey and have been living in New Zealand nearly eight years now. I work as a finance professional, though writing is my passion. I’ve been writing mainly poetry and short stories. I took creative writing courses from AUT in 2018.
Nicky Subono: I am a writer and a beauty entrepreneur. I am a New Zealand permanent resident, originally from Indonesia. I first moved to New Zealand and became a kiwi at the age of ten. After being abroad for eight years, I have returned to live in Wellington. I obtained my Diploma in Creative Writing from Whitireia Polytechnic in 2009.
Reza Zareianjahromi: I was born in Iran, a country torn to shreds by a botched Islamic revolution. I am angry. I am sad. Confused. I miss my home and want it to be free from the bickering crows ripping it to pieces. I look forward to the day when I have children of my own, and they do not have to witness their country in ruins. My love for poetry stems from classical Persian poetry – especially the work of Rumi, Hafez and Saadi.
Adrienne and carina gave me kind permission to post their conversation which forms the introduction to the collection.
Where did these poems come from?
Adrienne: I wanted to write a series of poems from two perspectives: what does someone from Syria, for example, experience when they go to a railway station, compared to what I experience going to a railway station? What would happen if we each wrote about our experience of the railway station?
So I started to write a series of poems that were about ‘there’ and ‘here’. One of the reasons it appealed to me was because I didn’t want to take on the voice of the migrant or refugee. I might be recording the stories and experiences they’ve told me, but I’m not taking on their voice.
Now you can talk about where your poems came from.
carina: my poems aren’t imagined either, they’re just sharing the experiences that people have shared with me. they’re the observations of ‘here’ and ‘there’, when you work with people or communities from refugee backgrounds, you hear these stories over and over again. the stories go on for days and people experience them in their heads every day, and to tell them in a poetic context brings them alive in a more succinct way. but we don’t get to experience the ‘there’, we only experience the ‘here’.
coming from a migrant background it was easy for me to relate to some of their stories too.
Adrienne: Both of us are retelling the stories that we’ve heard and heard and which we think are very important to pass on, and in this case, we’re recording them in poetry.
carina: exactly. it’s storytelling poetry.
that was the other part of the vision – that we were going to write poetry that was accessible to a wide range of people. it wasn’t conceptual poetry, it wasn’t difficult, it was poetry that a lot of people could read and understand, even if there were other layers of meaning, even if there were stories between the lines. there was something there, regardless of whether you could read between the lines or not.
Adrienne: Tell me why you don’t use capital letters.
carina: because i don’t like capital letters.
Adrienne: Because … ?
carina: ever since i was a little girl i’ve had an issue with authority (that’s a longer conversation). i don’t mean for the lack of capital letters to be an obstacle for people. it’s quite common for poets to play with capital letters and punctuation and with the aesthetics of letters and words. i love full stops and commas and use them in a very traditional way. i just don’t like capital letters. i don’t even use them to spell my name.
Adrienne: So that was a challenge for us, how to combine two quite different styles. I use capitals and punctuation because I see them as a kind of small signpost to the reader and a kind of fine-tuning for the writer. That would be my approach.
But there are other differences in style too. Like yours – would you describe your style as Latin American style? It’s more discursive.
carina: we talk a lot. latin americans, i mean.
Adrienne: You talk a lot. Right. And of course, New Zealanders don’t talk so much. This could be very interesting!
carina: we’re long-winded people.
Adrienne: That’s why you’ve got longer poems than mine. We’re both being true to type.
carina: and there’s also the weather factor. we’ve been told that in the poems it rains a lot. the weather here is not tropical. if we lived in central america or south america, we’d be writing about mugginess or bad hair days. but in new zealand the challenge is the weather, even for people who were born here. it’s the cold weather that challenges people.
Adrienne: So that’s why it rains a lot.
carina: that’s why it rains a lot.
Adrienne: In the poems.
carina: because in new zealand it rains a lot.
From All of Us, published by Landing Press November 2018
Carina Gallegos has a background in journalism and development studies. She grew up in Costa Rica, moved to New Zealand thirteen years ago, and has worked with refugee-background communities since 2011. She lives in Wellington with her family.
Adrienne Jansen has published numerous books (poetry, novels, nonfiction). She teaches on the Creative Writing Programme at Whitireia Polytechnic. For ten years she was part of the writing team at Te Papa, New Zealand’s national museum. She lives in Wellington.
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