Now and Then: Four Questions with Adrienne Jansen of Landing Press

Hi Adrienne! How lovely to be publishing NOW AND THEN, with so many writers in it, looking at a theme that speaks to so many. Can you tell us more about the aims and rationale behind the theme of generations?

We want to publish accessible poems that can be enjoyed by everyone, and particularly include voices rarely-heard. We chose the generations theme partly because we loved the scope and the richness of it. But we also chose it because our previous collections with a more specific social focus (about housing, cleaners etc) required a huge amount of time – working with organisations and individuals to generate the diverse work we wanted. We thought that with a broader theme we might be able to  rely more on submissions. We were wrong – of course. 

But you must have had wonderful submissions?

We did have many wonderful submissions (we read about 550 poems for this collection). We’re a bit disreputable (I mean, we’ve even published a limerick!) so we really value the support we get from the writing community, and particularly from well-established poets who give each anthology a strong anchored base. 

But the submission process is limited, as it only works for a small group of people, so to get the diversity we wanted we once again worked with a wide range of writers, particularly new writers, through workshops, mentoring etc.

Will you be running launch events for the book too?

We really like to celebrate the book and the writers! So we’re big on launches. Following on from earlier launches at Parliament, and in the National Library, we launched this book in the grand and historic Public Trust Hall in Wellington, with about 200 people, 37 of the 92 writers in the book (who come from all over Aotearoa New Zealand), and with scones – an excellent generational afternoon tea! We’ll be having further events in 2025.

37 of the 92 writers in Now and Then at the launch in Wellington

What are you most proud of with this particular collection?

I’m very proud of the way it shines a light on the generations theme from so many different angles – thematically, ethnically, through language, through social issues. I love that there are four-year-olds in it, and 84-year-olds. And I love the cover (thanks Emily Fletcher). Here’s a tiny poem from the book, contributed by seven-year-old Asher Carey:

Billions

My mum and dad are two. Granny, Grandad and the other two are four. It keeps on multiplying by two. That’s how generations start. They can go up to billions. Now and Then, published by Landing Press, is available now.