'Aotearoa poetics is going through a genuine renaissance': Josiah Morgan

For this 75th anniversary edition of Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook, editor Tracey Slaughter rounds up essential new poetry, reviews and essays from both established and emerging New Zealand poets. Another packed issue, #60 showcases the raw and vital in 138 new poems — including from this year’s featured poet, Josiah Morgan — and 29 reviews.

Its publication marks 75 years since poet Louis Johnson established New Zealand Poetry Yearbook in 1951, and it’s still as important and relevant now as it was then. It’s the ideal way to catch up with the latest poems and reviews by some of this country’s best-known poets and literary critics.

Kete was lucky enough to catch up with busy poet Josiah Morgan to talk about his featured collection in the Yearbook, 'Black Window'.

Wow, the 75 th anniversary of the Yearbook. It’s an exciting year and edition to be guest poet in, would that be fair to say?

It’s a total honour. Poetry in Aotearoa has been through so many forms, shapes and histories, but it feels to me like Aotearoa poetics is going through a genuine renaissance. There is a massive amount of poetry being read and written across the country at the moment, which speaks not just to our current moment but to the strength of the last 75 years of Aotearoa poetics. When Tracey Slaughter asked me to be the guest poet for the 2026 yearbook, I was stoked - Tracey’s work has been a crucial voice in establishing my poetic taste, and the yearbook has reliably been on my reading list every year.

The original 1951 editor, Louis Johnson, said that New Zealand poetry is ‘being shaped by many different hands in different ways’. How do you think that applies to this year’s Yearbook?

This yearbook accumulates a wealth of different knowledge and poetic expertises in one place. There’s simultaneously a lot of internet-era poetry by writers like Jordan Irvine and Devon Webb, at the same time as we have gorgeous contemporary updates on traditional forms by writers like Catherine Fitchett. The yearbook this year speaks to a wide range of poetic modes and movements.

Tell us about Black Window, and your inspirations for it?

Black Window is a poem-sequence that could be viewed as one long-form poem or a chapbook of sorts. The title is drawn from Ralph Hotere’s Black window - towards Aramoana, which for me stands alongside some Pollock pieces and Brett Graham’s work as one of the most influential works of visual art I’ve ever seen in person.

Hotere’s painting is a kind of political statement, as is my poetry collection. But Hotere’s painting is also a work of rigid form and structure, a thing of beauty and composition. I wanted to craft a chapbook that operated on the political level without being didactic - ideally one that maintained a sense of openness to form, structure and play. It’s a chapbook about secrets and hidden things, both at the personal level and the national level.

In the guest poet interview in the Yearbook, you said that ‘reading is the most important part of writing’. What are some poems in this year’s Yearbook that thrill you?

This year, lots of the poems that thrill me the most are by writers that have inspired me on the ground here in Christchurch. Ockham winner Joanna Preston has taught me so much about poetry and her 'Portrait of my father as a white-bellied sea eagle' is the stand-out of the collection for me. Gail Ingram’s extraordinary poem 'Bad Space Comic' evokes a haphazard, panicked speaker - a very new poetic turn for Ingram, I loved seeing this new feeling emerge in her poetics. Jordan Irvine is one of the most talented emerging writers in the country, I’ve been privileged to see them read multiple times in the last year, and I love their poem 'I Often Write Poems When I Go to Therapy Because that Is When I’m Most Emotionally Vulnerable Which Helps Me Write and Process How I Feel'.

I also love Graham Bates’ 'The Boat Builder', Willow Noir’s 'Faux Religion', Mark Prisco’s 'the dead are at it again', and James Norcliffe’s wonderful, characteristically impressive and transcendent 'No Gloves'.

How are you celebrating National Poetry Day 2026?

I’ll be reading and listening to poetry live at Unity Books in Wellington! I can’t wait. Unity is one of my favourite bookstores in the country for good reason. The last time I read there was when launching my book i’m still growing in 2024 with Dead Bird Books. I’m looking forward to returning alongside a wider line-up of poets, many of whom I love, and experiencing a bit more of the North Island poetry scene.

Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2026 is available in all good bookstores now.