NZ Poetry Shelf

AUP New Poets 12Zephyr Zhang, Loretta Riach, Anuja Mitraeditor Anne KennedyAuckland University Press 2026 AUP New Poets 12 page roots | 漂叶无根 my mum lays out succulentcuttings like severed limbsshe is always restlessfor the low thrumb of the planethat will take her elsewherewe will drift, as leavesin the wind, never settling Zephyr Zhang It is […]

Tackling the Hens, Mary McCallumThe Cuba Press, 2026 Mary McCallum’s latest poetry collection, Tackling the Hens (2025), is a poetic engagement, both intimate and intricate, with the world close at hand, the world remembered and the world experienced. I am carried along multiple currents of poetic fluency, stalling on scenes that move and delight, savouring […]

let us hold Riemke to our hearts, as we stand, hand in hand breathing in the sweet salty air at Muriwai Beach, wherever we might be Waitakere River Valleyfor Derek March Lost, you say, the songs of the forestwhere light never shone and listento wind remembering adventuresthrough trees smothered in liana. See how the water […]

Love Affair(a given poem from Katherine Mansfieldwith thanks to Helen McNeish) You wrote the tablewas laid for twobut nobody cameso you dined oppositea white napkin. It’s called giving yourselfto life.Through the windowa quiet branchhas the eveningto itself also. Riemke Ensing (24 May 1939 -10 August 2026)from The K. M. File and Other Poems with Katherine […]

Tesseract, Jack Ross, illustrated by Scarlet Robinson-Kean paper table, 2026 “We’re only conscious for a small / part of the time allotted to us: there’ll never be any more of it, / so let’s dance.” Jack Ross, from ‘No time but the present’ I love the title of Jack Ross’s new collection Tesseract. I love […]