Article: What to read in 2023: Poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand
Asked about ‘another bumper edition’ of Poetry New Zealand Yearbook (out in March), editor Tracey Slaughter told publisher Massey University Press that more than 1000 poems had been submitted for her to consider for inclusion.
Slaughter, who teaches creative writing at the University of Waikato, where she edits the journal Mayhem along with Poetry New Zealand Yearbook, acknowledged that 2022 was, indeed, a very busy year for poetry publishers. When asked what’s going on, she said: ‘Wonderfully, poetry continues to leap into life in an array of small indie houses whose offerings more than match the exciting content stemming from established fronts, so we get to celebrate work from both big names and new ones. Long may that mix bloom!’
And blooming it is for 2023.
February sees the release of James Norcliffe’s 11th poetry collection, Letter to ‘Oumuamua and follows his recent Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry announced late last year. Publishers Otago University Press are promoting Letter to ‘Oumuamua as ‘a wry and witty collection’ which is addressed to the first interstellar object detected in our solar system in October 2017.
Declared a comet – then an asteroid, then a comet again – Oumuamua (Hawaiian for ‘a messenger from afar arriving first’) came from another star to our solar system which gives Norcliffe the perfect foil to lay bare our foibles and absurdities along with the human capacity for love, desire, sorrow and regret.
More poetry flies into the world in March. There’s the release of the aforementioned Poetry New Zealand Yearbook – after burn as well as the AUP New Poets 9 featuring the ‘fresh, vivid voices’ of Sarah Lawrence, harold coutts (who doesn’t use capital letters in their name) and Arielle Walker. It’s the last under Anna Jackson’s editorship; Anne Kennedy (who releases the anthology Remember Me: Poems to Learn by Heart in October) has this to say about AUP New Poets 9:
‘These new poets write with brilliant urgency and originality on the issues facing contemporary society. Arielle Walker’s poignant voice explores history, land and belonging, while harold coutts both disrupts and claims gender identity with grit and playfulness, and Sarah Lawrence weaves a startling amalgam of the everyday and the existential.’
Two former poet laureates also bring out collections in March. C. K. Stead’s Say I Do This: Poems from 2018 – 2022 is out first. Here’s a sample:
Swimming in the dark I call on memory –
Rangitoto ahead, and those lights
of Kohi behind making
a cosy half-circle. Overhead the moon’s
a waka sailing west to escape
first light that will put it out.
I’m reaching blind fingers for the yellow buoy
and touch it only as the sun does
dimly through a bank of cloud
Late March, David Eggleton’s Respirator: A Poet Laureate Collection 2019 – 2022 appears, described as a ‘sumptuous celebration’ of his tenure as the nation’s poet-at-large.
Australia’s heat map in January
glowed every which way, red, purple, black,
and our skies were made yellow by trans-Tasman smoke,
while scarcely less fraught were dog days of February,
as arrivals drifted through airport duty-free,
in a haze of competing perfume spritzes,
and reports came of a strange virus out of Wuhan,
pale horse and pale rider.
— ‘Rāhui: Lockdown Journal’
The Cuba Press also brings out something special, a new collection by Robin Hyde (1906 – 36). The story goes that in 1934, Hyde’s son, Derek Challis, found a homemade book in his Christmas stocking: ‘On the typed pages bound with pink ribbon were poems written for him by his mother, the writer Robin Hyde. Derek - known as Derry - treasured the gift and could recite the poems until his death in 2021. Hyde hoped the collection would be published 'one fine day' and that fine day has come.’
That day has come thanks to Derek’s friend, Wairarapa film-maker Juanita Deely who received his blessing to publish these poems in The Uppish Hen and Other Poems. While some individual poems have previously appeared in collections of Hyde’s poems, others have not been published before and it is the first time these particular poems have been published as a collection.
Staying with Robin Hyde, through Cuba Press’s Ahoy! imprint for children and young adults, Philippa Werry brings out Iris and Me. It’s a fictionalised biography for YA readers designed to introduce them to one of our ‘most significant writers of fiction, poetry and journalism’ (real name Iris Wilkinson) and includes extensive notes and resources.
And the year continues with new releases from Michele Leggott whose Face to the Sky ‘speaks to the art and writings of nineteenth-century New Zealand painter Emily Cumming Harris’ to tell stories of love and loss from two women, more than a century apart but in the shadow of the same mountain. AUP also brings out Biter by AUP New Poet alum Claudia Jardine and, in June, the intriguing sounding Marakihau/Mermaid by Jessica Hinerangi aka Māori mermaid.
Wellington-based Diana Bridge also releases new work in April with OUP bringing out her eighth collection, Deep Colour: ‘A fiercely sensory and meticulously crafted collection. These poems respond with graceful precision to the immediate physical world, and meditate on time, beauty and the nature of being.’ In June, Ōtepoti Dunedin poet Megan Kitching releases her first published collection At the Point of Seeing through OUP.
In the first few months of 2023 alone, Te Herenga Waka University Press brings out five poetry books: Jake Arthur’s debut collection A Lack of Good Sons; Leah Dodd’s Past Lives; Andrew Johnston Collected Poems; This is a story about your mother by Starling journal founder Louise Wallace. The fifth book is Jane Arthur’s Calamities which is described by current poet laureate Chris Tse as ‘a compelling book of the unsettled and unsettling, set in a world where comfort is an endangered animal and the apocalypse lurks outside our front doors.’
A number of indie presses are yet to confirm what they’re publishing this year but given the success of outfits like Tender Press (formerly We Are Babies) it’s well worth keeping an eye on what they’re doing.