the red room

Last night I went to the launch of the American and New Zealand poetry duets which was held in a cosy room at the Southern Cross Bar. It was launched by Bill Manhire who read snippets of poetry by Walt Whitman and R. A. K. Mason and in both poems the poets offered advice to [...]

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Book launches are really a good way of discovering new writing and also hearing writers read their work. There is one coming up that I am quite excited to attend. Later this month Bill Manhire will launch three books of ‘duets’ between American and New Zealand poets that have been edited by New Zealand poet and [...]

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Winter has settled into Wellington. I am still walking into town most mornings but I often resemble an eskimo and I’m sometimes stiff and cold by the time I arrive. I’ve been working from the central library with its high ceilings and glass walls (and easy access to oh-s0-trashy magazines). It is an open and [...]

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I don’t know how long I’ve had this website but it must be nearly ten years. For most of that time it’s been a place for me to put my writing and links to poetry I have published in online journals  (or, when I was younger, vent). Last year I started to really get into [...]

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This piece of street art was photographed in Newtown on 27 March, 2010.
I most enjoy writing when I can write about a topic I am mildly obsessed about from lots of different angles, even if it seems a little strange or nonsensical at the time. As a tutor of mine used to say, “if you [...]

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Each morning I walk about three kilometers to and from university which gives my brain enough time to wake up or wind down. Last night while walking the dusty paths over Mt Vic I thought about how my experience of writing has changed. Reading another poet’s collected works can give insight into the way a voice [...]

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What I found really interesting about this graffiti is the image of the gun, in a different circumstance, can be quite threatening. I found it on the side of a garage near Vic University. It looks tiny and floating: almost like someone was standing there waiting for a bus and thinking about guns and their [...]

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