The 2015 edition of Best New Zealand Poems is launched today, introducing both
established writers and new voices to the wider public.
The anthology has been
published annually since 2001 by the International Institute of Modern Letters
(IIML) at Victoria University of Wellington.
Poet and academic John
Newton had the task of sifting through the thousands of poems published in
books and journals last year in search of 25 that delivered what he wanted.
“I was looking for an
active jolt of pleasure,” he says. “That moment of finding something that
really does it for you, when you can’t wait to get on the phone or on Facebook,
or better still in person, hearing it echoed in the pleasure of the person
you’re sharing it with.”
Best New Zealand Poems
series editor Chris Price, a senior lecturer at the International Institute of
Modern Letters (IIML), says one of the contributions is from Selina Tusitala
Marsh, who just last month performed for the Queen at Westminster Abbey. “Her
poem describes watching The Vampire Diaries after a day spent teaching
post-colonial theory,” Ms Price says.
Diverse cultures and
forms of communication feature strongly in this year’s selection, demonstrating
that our poetry is both rooted in the local and connected to the world. Sarah
Jane Barnett’s beautiful and timely poem looks at the life of a refugee from
Ethiopia. Gregory O’Brien’s poem attempts to gain the ear of the King of
Tonga, and Alison Wong tries to decipher the language of match-making in
Shanghai. Kani Te Manukura remembers Te Kooti’s last stand and thinks about
Aotearoa’s race-time continuum. Ashleigh Young encounters a man in Reno with
the voice of ‘Death’s personal computer’.
Readers of John Newton's
top 25 poems are also able to hear recordings of several of the poets reading
their work.
Ms Price says there is a
playful, wry tone to much of this year's work.
“Hera Lindsay Bird
announces that ‘It’s a bad crime to say poetry in poetry’ but she does it
anyway. Alexandra Hollis reminds us that Rihanna is as profound as the stars,
and Bryan Walpert’s title, ‘This poem is conversational’, might be a comment on
the very nature of contemporary New Zealand poetry.”
Best New Zealand
Poems is published by
the IIML with support from Creative New Zealand, and is hosted by the New
Zealand Electronic Text Collection.
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