I want to take your picture. The silver blue mist moving over the pine trees, the Edwardian houses running backwards up the hillside, the road running slower than myself. The sky a kind of silver screen, the moon is out tonight. A neon TV. A noticeboard. The buttery light melting out of the chip shop into the indigo air. The weeds tripping up the fences, the flowers tripping up the weeds. The night about to settle in for the night. But pausing before it closes the door. relax. I think you look just wonderful. I imagine you can tell I want to take your picture.
This summer
What you notice most about this summer are the dandelions.
There are dandelions everywhere outside the dental clinic, lining the hills of the Aro Valley with tiny yellow bricks.
Millions of stars in the emerald sky.
Jo McNeice from Blue Hour, Otago University Press, 2024
Jo McNeice is a poet based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. She completed a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, in 2013, and her poems have been published in Turbine | Kapohau, Sport, JAAM and Mayhem. In 2023, she won the prestigious Kathleen Grattan Poetry Award for her manuscript Blue Hour, which was published by Otago University Press.
The Poetry Shelf Breathing Room: A place to enter and pause and take a long slow breath and then another, as you absorb the beauty movement joy stillness wonder movement of a poem.
Inside the city a house Inside the house a room Inside the room a cupboard Inside the cupboard a drawer Inside the drawer a box Inside the box a necklace Inside the necklace a story Inside the story a city hope
Some years I invite you to share your favourite reads of the year, especially poetry, especially when poetry doesn’t get much attention in the end-of-year lists and book stacks that we are seeing across all forms of media. This year has sizzled and simmered and shone with local poetry: new collections along with live performances. So many collections document and explore tough stuff: illness, heartbreak, despair, suicidal thoughts, global wars and inhumanity, our government inflicting more and more damage on planet and people. And so many collections deliver love, a multi-stranded love and a deep love of what words can do, whether exuberant or sweetly nuanced.
Every poetry book I have picked up, lingered over and reviewed (see photos below in the side bar and you will discover my reviews), I have utterly loved. Sadly for me, there is still a stack of books on my desk I’m itching to get to (see photos below), books by poets I love, books by poets new to me. This week I made the hard decision to return to reviewing these books after Poetry Shelf and I have rebooted, after we all get through the busy season where it is hard to read more than shopping lists.
I want to share a couple of highlights with you, but first a wee update. I am standing at a fairytale door, a threshold onto my new road. What specialists call my new normal, not the normal I enjoyed when I was travelling all over the country, visiting schools, doing events and author tours, reading and writing all day long. I have had a bone marrow transplant that has gifted me the miracle of life, thanks to an anonymous donor and an incredible medical team, but it comes with scars. Looks like I will always have to use my energy jar carefully, to manage my daily physical challenges with various aids. But I sure in heck find enjoyment and delight in every day.
Poetry Shelf has made such a difference in year that I have tagged both my worst and best. So many poets contributing, so many poetry fans reading and sharing. So many thoughtful caring emails, especially those responding to The Venetian Blind Poems, especially those responding to features and audio that have resonated with you. Poetry Shelf is nothing without you, without readers and writers connecting across generations, cultures, the length and the breadth of the country.
Creating three new series this year has been a special highlight for me. I have included links to one of them, Poetry Cafe Readings, because hearing these poets read has been such a gift. This will be back next year, along with the Speaking Out ( check out the Gaza poems) and Playing Favourites series, plus some new ideas. I have included a link to the fabulous Te Whāriki anthology where some of the contributors selected a favourite poetry book of 2025. And to a handful of special moments on the bogs.
Thank you so much everyone for your incredible support.
Some Special Poetry Shelf Moments
Celebrating the poetry of Brian Turner (1944- 2025)
Celebrating Dinah Hawken, winner of Prime Minister’s Award for Poetry
Feature on Te Whāriki: Reading Ten New Poets from Aoteatoa, edited by Anna Jackson, Dougal McNeill and Robert Sullivan (Auckland University Press, 2025)
Poetry Shelf Cafe and Summer readings Poets read and talk poetry for around twenty minutes
Write name in side bar and check out my review Many of the books I reviewed included readings
Books on my must-read pile
I often ask poets in interviews what words matter to them as they write – but today I am asking you what words matter as you live each day. I am thinking: kindness, self-care, connections, hope and joy. Over the next month or so I am going to read novels, watch movies, listen to music, tend the vegetable garden, and bake and cook.
Sending aroha to you all along with a huge bouquet of sweet and salty Te Henga ocean air.
Junction Box
sitting here at the junction box of war and peace and flowing waters hearing the soundtrack of bush haven hearing the dawn bugle the flyover the kōrero the silence searching in the manukā for remedy cables mourning every raised weapon every sacrifice every empty stomach displaced refugee every cruel act the weasel words from weasel politicians jamming our children in square learning boxes slamming our hospitals in low voltage budgets cramming our planet in polluted circuits extinction coils feeling in this breaking dawn the connecting calls for peace picturing protest placards holding voices of resistance past and present picturing aid workers risking life to nurse and feed and shelter picturing a global jigsaw puzzle of greed and smash and grab for how long have we imagined peace have we called for peace for how long have we imagined blue sky transformation today we are standing here holding our currents of hope and yes today we are joining in calls for peace calling calling calling
25 April 2025 Paula Green
widening the gap
in the wild night of storm the wind is widening the gap or is it the roar of a government hellbent on building
a ravine between the rich and the poor Māori and Pakeha in every choice they make. A school curriculum has lost
sight of the prismatic stories that shape us, sums that include x-factor joy, and I am stuck on this freight train
in the widening gap because I see no end to damage and despair and I’m filling an ocean with tears crying over lessons that slam the door
in the face of poverty or another language or the tangata whenua and this rumble gap is the distance between sick earth and well earth
between building roads and restoring our hospitals and schools and here I am holding my fragile torch to the widening gap
in my sodden socks no idea where to shine the light next yet except maybe on all those protestors from the 1960s who are stomping
in the streets even louder now with their dreams our dreams where women are heard where Māori are heard my bones breaking and I am blowing
all around to resist persist hope dream begging to fill this gap with precious care to build glorious people-friendly bridges out of knowledge and foresight.
NZ Poetry Shelf 