Tag Archives: sheila hailstone

Poetry Shelf weekend reading and listening and an invitation

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We Are Closed

Closed for the night
Closed by fog and mist
Closed by strong winds
Closed by gates
Closed for the weekend
Closed for the duration
Closed by seismic activity
Closed by Rūamoko
Closed by bushfires
Closed by the fiery fingers of Mahuika
Closed till Christmas
Closed until next year
Closed until the sale of conservation land goes through
Closed until the Coalition Government decides otherwise

David Eggleton

David Eggleton lives in Ōtepoti Dunedin and is a former New Zealand Poet Laureate. His Respirator: A Laureate Collection 2019 -2022 was published by Otago University Press in 2023. He has contributed to Koe: An Aotearoa ecopoetry anthology, edited by Janet Newman and Robert Sullivan (Otago University Press, 2024), and No Other Place to Stand: an anthology of climate change poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand, edited by Jordan Hamel, Rebecca Hawkes, Erik Kennedy and Essa May Ranapiri, (Auckland University Press, 2022).

“The alarm bells should be be ringing loudly in your ears, as our Public conservation is under serious threat by the current government. The Conservation Amendment Bill 2026 represents a direct assault on New Zealand’s back country heritage, threatening to strip away long standing safeguards and clear the way for a massive sell off or commercial development of up to 60% of our public land.” Hiking NZ

Another sizzling simmering wonderful week of poetry delight and connections.

I spotted David Eggleton’s poem online and got musing and caring even more about all the things a Government could and must do to care for people and planet.

Meanwwhile I’ve been musing on how to get Poetry Box sizzling and simmering – a place where children taste the rewards of playing with words, a place to share my love of picture books for children, along with fiction and nonfiction, and especially poetry for and by children. I am still musing!

And thank you for responding to my poem invitation last weekend – I will be reading and replying this week.

An invitation: This week an invitation to choose a poetry book published in Aotearoa in 2026 that you have loved. Write a paragraph sharing why. Send to me by Jun 27th. I will post some on Poetry Shelf. paulajoygreen@gmail.com

Monday: Poetry Shelf Monday Poem: ‘All we have is the urupa’ by Hana Pera Aoake

Tuesday: Poetry Shelf Playing Favourites: Erik Kennedy picks Jane Arthur

Wednesday: Poetry Shelf Speaking Out To For With: Food as a Weapon by Sheila Hadstone

Thursday: Poetry Shelf Playing Favourites: Morrin Rout chooses Dinah Hawken

Friday: Poetry Shelf celebrates Landfall Tauraka 251 with nine readings

Poetry Shelf Speaking Out For to With: Food as a weapon by Sheila Hailstone

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Food as a weapon

My friend writes from Gaza 2025
….We have never begged for this help. It’s our shame.
Number one exporting strawberries and citrus.
They turned us into this …..

I watch
the sick, the disabled, the malnourished,
and children, walk forty-one kilometres
from the sea to the south.
A calculated death-march
to the distribution centre in Rafeh.
Famine is a weapon of mass destruction.

I hear
the sick, the disabled, the malnourished
and children, return
with nothing

I see
a family home turned
to rubble where eight
of nine children died,
a bombed hospital where their paediatrician
mother worked, without anaesthetic,
to remove bullets lodged in skulls and bodies.

I cry
as a six-year-old girl walks through fire
from a school, and tells the camera her mother
was martyred, as if she is telling the world
her mum’s gone to the shops
for flour again.

I say
nothing of this to my friend.
She is dreaming of olive oil and za’atar,
risking her life to send a message
while living with the grey stink of trinitrotoluene
and aluminium powder in the air
with little left to eat.

I pray

Sheila Hailstone
from potluck, Landing Press, 2025

From Aotearoa New Zealand, Sheila Hailstone sends poetry out into the world. Founder of Christchurch Women’s Toastmasters, winner of District 72 International & Humorous Speech Contests, she’s empowering women to find their voice one punchline at a time. She once scooped up first prize in a Flash Frontier international micro-fiction competition, because a few words can say enough. The author of many children’s stories, and a memoir, Dancing Around Cancer that’s funny and inspiring, and details her journey on the El Camino de Santiago. She was a CEO of a Not-For-Profit, a European Training Manager and recently a student at Hagley Writers Institute Ōtautahi. Because she believes learning never retires – even if she has.