The Anatomy of Sand, Mikaela Nyman
Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2025

I often ask poets how what is going on in the world affects their writing, if not their ability to write. Their answers occupy myriad points on a spectrum, from writing as solace to writing as protest. Mikaela Nyman’s new collection, The Anatomy of Sand, draws our environmental relationships into view. It’s a version of holding up protest placards (and we are doing much of this on the streets) by using poetic forms to revisit human impacts upon nature, both good and bad. Mikaela draws upon many sources to furnish and advance her poetic spotlight: scientific research, Finnish myths, the work of other poets, artists, inventors, engineers.

The cover image is as haunting as the collection’s title. The enigmatic glass sculpture by Ellie Field, photographed on a beach setting, is open to multiple readings. I jot down words: fragility, sur-real, melancholy, intense mind and heart concentration. The image sets the title vibrating as the word and idea of “sand” explodes in multiple directions. Hmm. I am standing barefoot on the beauty of beach sand. I’m holding a sand timer wondering if time is running out, recalling the way sand slips through fingers, is dredged and transported elsewhere, is conserved by locals as a vital home for native birds under threat.

I read the first poem, ‘Lonely sailors’, and am again caught in a matrix of melancholy, enigma, physical and historical debris on a fragile shoreline. The final line sticks to me as I read the whole collection: ‘knowing // that we’re sailing too close / to the wind’. We are simply sailing too close to the wind and it hurts.

I shuffle back to the preface quotation by Rachel Carson from Silent Spring and it feels like a lifeline for us all: ‘In nature, nothing exists alone.’ And herein lies a reason to keep writing, to keep connecting, whether for solace or protest and everything in between. I add to that Margaret Mead’s declaration: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” And I want to say, clearly and insistently, Mikaela’s precious book promotes the idea that poetry does not exist alone.

Poetry has the ability to be the glass sculpture on the beach, a prismatic form that might be personal, political, philosophical, elliptic, searching, intertextual, rich in narrative, surreal. Pick up the book. Move from the seed collectors to the tree planters, from the separation of metals to the disposal of milk on the land, from the ownership of sand to feeding on Hope Cafe’s sandwiches and leeching on hope. Circle around notions of balance, the sight of shoreline debris, prophesies in a gallery soundscape. Flick back to ‘Cilia’, and revisit the weight of the world, not just today, but across generations (Mormor means ‘mother’s mother’ in Swedish). How this glorious poem catches me:

Unable to heed the warning I carry the world’s worries
on my hips. Too late

to tell Mormor I now understand
what she was on about, why her hips
were so wide you could spread
one of her fine embroidered tablecloths
over them and invite the whole neighbourhood
for a feast.

Mikaela writes with a multi-toned pen, her lines delivering technical information alongside moments of awe, wonder, contemplation. Listen to her read below, listening to the shifting tones of ache and gentleness, jagged edge and lilt, the sonic flurry dancing in the ear, urgently. Oh so urgently. Perhaps we are all standing on the shoreline as we read, as we reconsider our actions and choices, yes absorbing beauty and life, but re-examining how to heal rather than damage the environment. Our environment. In reading this collection, we inhabit the poem, and then, with Mikaela’s visible signposts, we move beyond the poem, mindful of past present future, to the collective power to do and to hope. Thank you.

a reading

‘pear lizard plumage’

‘Mudlarking’

‘Of orfes and alder’

an interview

Were there any highlights, epiphanies, discoveries, challenges as you wrote this collection? This is your first book written in English – how was that?

Someone wise said “every poem is in search of a collection,” which may or may not be true. What is true, is that every poem that elicits a response from someone along the way gives me a boost and strengthens my resolve to stick with the more expansive project. I do become obsessed with certain issues, themes and observations, and tend to follow that enquiry to the end. Sometimes there’s a happy ending. At other times there is no end in sight, so I have to draw a line and say enough. What this means, is that some poems end up being closely linked – in theme, tone, place, imagery, format – as they emerged around the same time. Over time, however, when the focus shifts to new territory, older poems may feel obsolete, or they don’t quite fit in. Just because poems have been individually published or placed in competitions doesn’t mean they should automatically be included in a collection.

And then we have the whole problem of translation. Since I write in both English and Swedish, I play around with words a lot. I don’t always know if a poem sparked to life in English or Swedish. I waste a lot of time translating myself into the other language and back again, continuously polishing it. In the process something alters, it becomes a different beast. With The Anatomy of Sand, I was never sure how much of my own Nordic ancestry, history and mythology to include. Would it even be remotely interesting to anyone else? At one point, all the Nordic elements were taken out. Self-doubt is a constant companion.

I find moving between other languages can create such different music! Along with everything else. What matters when you are writing a poem? Or to rephrase, what do you want your poetry to do?

Each poem is its own contained world, it has to carry its own emotional truth. The aural quality of hearing a poem read out aloud, how the words roll off the tongue, the rhythm and sounds, and how it impacts the listener matter to me.

Are there particular poets that have sustained you, as you navigate poetry as both reader and writer?

I read widely, in several languages. Some of the poets that have sustained me over the past few years include Tua Forsström, Finland’s most celebrated contemporary poet. Like me, she also belongs to the linguistic Swedish minority. Her poetry can be dream-like and moody. Reading her makes me want to row out on a lake at night, light candles in the snow, and watch Andrei Tarkovsky films.

Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer’s poems tracks the changes of seasons, using surprising word choices and imagery. His poems ooze with nature’s atmospheric beauty and a sense of mystery that fills me with wonder and awe when I read him.

Padraig O’Tuama’s podcast ‘Poetry Unbound’ has steadied my ship and kept me company when I wake up at dawn and wonder if the world is still intact. I’m grateful to Hinemoana Baker for putting me onto Padraig. Hinemoana’s Funkhaus is one of my favourite New Zealand poetry collections.

Ada Limón was the first Latina to be named Poet Laureate of the United States. I wonder how she is faring now… I love how she can pick up some mundane detail and turn it into something astonishing. The way she depicts human relationships with nature evokes an Oliverian sense of gratitude for being alive. I think we need that, more than ever.

We are living in hazardous and ruinous times. Can you name three things that give you joy and hope?

My family, nature, collaboration with generous creative human beings across all art disciplines.

And for me your book! And picking up on poets and filmmakers to return to (Tarkovsky and Limón) in interviews and the poetry books I am reading.

Mikaela Nyman is from the autonomous, demilitarised Åland Islands in Finland and lives in Taranaki. Her climate fiction novel SADO was published by Te Herenga Waka University Press in 2020. Her two poetry collections in Swedish were nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2020 and 2024 respectively. Her second poetry collection, To get out of a riptide you must move sideways (Ellips), connects Taranaki and Finland and was awarded a literary prize in 2024 by the Swedish Literary Society (SLS) in Finland. In 2024, she was the Robert Burns Fellow.

Te Herenga Waka University Press page