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November 28, 2023November 28, 2023

Caselberg International Poetry Prize 2023

I was surprised and stoked to have my poem, “Still life in an op shop” highly commended by judge Rhian Gallagher this year. Here’s a link to the pamphlet with the fantastic winning and runner up poems, plus mine – the line breaks aren’t quite right (sometimes I like writing quite long lines) – here’s how it really looks.

this year’s judge is rhian gallagher (copied from the Caselberg website)

Rhian Gallagher’s first poetry collection Salt Water Creek (Enitharmon Press, 2003) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for First Collection. In 2008 she received the Janet Frame Literary Trust Award. Her second poetry collection Shift, (Auckland University Press 2011, Enitharmon Press, UK, 2012) won the 2012 New Zealand Post Book Award for Poetry. A collaborative work, Freda: Freda Du Faur, Southern Alps, 1909-1913, was produced with printer Sarah M. Smith and printmaker Lynn Taylor in 2016 (Otakou Press). Rhian was the Robert Burns Fellow in 2018. In 2022 she was co-recipient of the Mike Riddell Writing Residency in Oturehua. Rhian’s most recent poetry collection Far-Flung was published by Auckland University Press in 2020.

June 14, 2023

“Free-range men”

Thanks to Paula Green for publishing this old poem on her NZ Poetry Shelf this morning.

“Free-range men”

July 28, 2022

2022 NZPS International Poetry Competition results are in!

I felt so honoured to judge the Open Adult section of the NZPS International Poetry competition this year. Hours and hours of reading, reflecting and deliberating on 660 poems, then writing my report. Here are the results and reports from each of the judges of different sections. Ngā mihi mahana to the NZPS and *all* the fantastic poets!

2022 International Poetry Competition Results

April 18, 2022

Poetry Shelf review: Nicole Titihuia Hawkins – Whai

Ka rawe, Nicole Titihuia Hawkins. So proud of you and your pukapuka!

NZ Poetry Shelf

Whai, Nicole Titihuia Hawkins, We Are Babies, 2021

One of my hopes for Whai is that it shares a message that we aren’t ever just one thing. We are as expansive as Te Moana Nui a Kiwa and beyond.

Nicole Titihuia Hawkins, VERB Wellington Q & A

I never used to read endorsements on the back of books but now I do. Once I have finished reading my own paths, bridges and delights. I read them because in the past year or so, they have been astonishingly good. Little kegs of poetry community boost. If I put them together in a book it would underline why I read, write and comment upon poetry in Aoteraroa New Zealand. Eye-catching reminders on what poetry can do. Above all: short, tangy, sweet windows that send you back to read the collection again (in my case), with gusts of refreshing new air.

Emma…

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February 28, 2022

The NZPS International Poetry Competition 2022 – OPEN

I am really excited to be judging the Adult Open section of the New Zealand Poetry Society’s International Poetry Competition! Enter now, and share this link with anyone who might be interested in entering any of the sections. Noho ora mai xo

New Zealand Poetry Society

The New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competition is now open! Our competition has been running since 1987 and is open to members and non-members worldwide, with members receiving an entry fee discount.

For each of the four categories listed below, there are cash prizes and all entries are eligible to be published in our anthology (which includes all placed and commended poems, as well as a selection of favourite poems from the competition).

What are the four categories?

Open Verse Adults (18 years and over)
Open Verse Juniors (17 years or younger)
Haiku Adults (18 years and over)
Haiku Juniors (17 years or younger)

Class teachers can enter multiple poems from their students, using the school group form. There is a discount for entering multiple entries as a school group. Check out this fantastic teacher’s guide for writing haiku (https://poetrysocietynz.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/learning-to-write-haiku-a-teachers-guide-k-raine.pdf)

How to Enter:

Our competition…

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December 16, 2021December 16, 2021

Ditch the socials and sink into this hot spring of summer reading!

Writers’ top picks, on Paula Green’s ‘Poetry Shelf‘

Two more highly recommended from me:

Buy ‘Shelter’ from The Cuba Press and ‘Whai’ from We Are Babies Books, or any great bookstore

June 12, 2021

Poetry Shelf Theme Season: Fourteen poems about walking

I’m very thankful to Paula Green for publishing my poem “Locus” among these other beauties. #Poetryshelfthemeseason #NZpoems

NZ Poetry Shelf

So many poets have written walking poems. So many poets have commented on the relationship between walking and a poem gathering momentum in the pedestrian’s head. Just for a start, I am thinking of Jenny Bornholdt’s magnificent poem ‘Confessional’, Michele Leggott’s walking blind, a vital thread, with different insight and senses on alert in her poems, and of course Blanche Baughan’s love of hill walking. A poem itself is a form of walking with its various rhythms and absorptions. The poet becomes walker, bricoleur, observer, mind-drifter.

My most recent collection The Track (Seraph Press) was written as I walked the third day of the Queen Charlotte Track with a broken foot in a wild storm. To keep walking I used the alphabet to compose poems and returned home with a book-length sequence. Whenever I have read from it, I am right back in the storm diverting pain with words. A…

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April 22, 2021April 25, 2021

Earth Day 2020

I


We walk the dark beach at Raumati.
There’s Orion, belt-loose low-rider—
hanging nonchalance in the western sky.

Rather than raising a club 
(Betelgeuse in one bicep
and a faint string of suns in the other

that could be the skin of a lion
or a shield) he’s a glistening child
about to pop a manu off Tuteremoana

into Te-Rau-o-te-Rangi channel.
Imagine Gaia’s rage when Orion dared
to say he would kill every animal

on Earth. My child talks about 
the deep universe more than our planet— 
how his belt might’ve exploded already

‘cos light is so slow to arrive from the past
and we’re always running late into the future,
eh Mum. We were always going to be too late.



II

For some iwi, the three stars 
are Tautoro, bird perch with a berry star—
bird snare for a chiefly kai—

bright Rigel—Puanga leading in 
the new year with glimmering Matariki. 
In Samoa, the stars form Amonga:

a balance-pole, a carrying-pole.



III

The Monday in May last year
when the United Nations declared
unprecedented—accelerating—one million

plants and animals 
threatened with extinction, 
Morning Report played the imagined scream 

of Pouakai Haast’s Eagle—Aiiiii was here!
Tuesday to Friday, they aired Moa
Finsch’s duck, New Zealand Goose, Huia—

growling, booming, karking, wailing
I was here I was here I was here I was here
Where are you where are you huia uia uia!



IV

Today, the independent economist 
before the canned bird call
before the trill of the 7am news 

is wondering if the money graphs 
will form a V, U or L.
I dream of O, our lifebelt, 

Kate’s Doughnut. The Earth is howling 
for safe, just circles, and how about
Teina’s Ohanga Iho Nui?



V

We walk home, pushing the air
aside like it’s the super organza
of the galaxy shushing us.

My glistening child.
How shall we make the world whole in time
when a vested few crave the whole Earth?

Kate Rowarth’s Doughnut Economics

Teina Boasa-Dean’s Ohanga Iho Nui

February 24, 2021

I wrote a review last winter

My review of Sue Wootton’s The Yield has just been published on the NZ Poetry Society’s website. It’s a luscious book!

June 13, 2020May 20, 2021

“Nicola is an excellent facilitator. I was lucky enough to attend a workshop with her at the Tasmanian Poetry Festival in 2018. She provided awesome prompts and was a great space holder, inviting her participants to explore personal themes deeply. I even produced poems that have landed in my debut full length collection and one of these pieces was included in Hunter Writers Centre ‘Grieve’ anthology. Nicola is relatable, approachable, personable and generous.” – Ela Fornalska, teacher, poet and performer, Melbourne.