Te Whriki: Reading Ten New Poets from Aotearoa

(Paperback)

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In journals and pubs, on TikTok and the bestseller lists, the current generation of New Zealand poets is finding new voices, new platforms and new readers. It is a poetry of now: of emojis and hashtags, of bodies and flesh, of identity and aspiration.

How to take the measure of this new rush of poetic energy, invention and disruption What new aesthetics emerge alongside these new voices How might old forms and old questions take the pulse of the new Te Whriki provides a first reading of this exciting moment by weaving together the work of ten contemporary poets from Aotearoa with new critical writing that makes sense of these poets and their poems.

Pulling these strands together in one volume, Te Whriki is as dynamic, various and engaging as New Zealand poetry is today.

Featuring poets Sam Duckor-Jones, Tayi Tibble, Claudia Jardine, essa may ranapiri, Rebecca Hawkes, Chris Tse, Oscar Upperton, Joanna Cho, Ruby Solly and Nafanua Purcell Kersel, with new critical writing by Amy Marguerite, Tru Paraha, Anna Jackson, Robert Sullivan, Mark Masterson, Stephanie Burt, Dani Yourukova, Dougal McNeill, Sophie van Waardenberg, Brigid Quirke, Robin Peters and David Eggleton.

Reviews

Te Whriki is an inspired and inspiring set of weavings that lead us through the poetry terrain and poetic pulse of now. By opening up the writing of ten poets, vital connections are forged, communities nourished, intimate threads are woven . . . from the personal to the intellectual to the experimental. This invigorating book makes my poetry heart sing. Paula Green

I have read this book with genuine pleasure. Theres a sense of freshness to the material and its written in an attractively accessible way. It will be enjoyed by a wide range of readers. Erin Mercer, Te Kunenga ki Prehuroa Massey University

The names listed in this books contents page are themselves arguments for why this book should be published. Taken together these poets represent a fair snapshot of the poetry being written presently in Aotearoa. The books design a whriki is ideal: it acknowledges a diverse spectrum of (mostly) young writers whose voices constellate a range of traditions and influences, present and past, and it invites readers to make connections between poems and poets for themselves. Nicholas Wright, Te Whare Wnanga o Waitaha University of Canterbury

Author Bio

Anna Jackson is the author of seven collections of poetry as well as Diary Poetics: Form and Style in Writers Diaries 19151962 (Routledge, 2010) and Actions & Travels: How Poetry Works (Auckland University Press, 2022). She lives in Island Bay, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, and is associate professor in English literature at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.

Dougal McNeillteaches in the Literary and Creative Communication programme atTe Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, and is active in the Tertiary Education Union. He is co-author, with Charles Ferrall, ofWriting the 1926 General Strike: Literature, Culture, Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2015), editor of Harry HollandsRobert Burns: Poet and Revolutionist (Steele Roberts, 2016) and, most recently, author of Forms of Freedom: Marxist Essays in New Zealand and Australian Fiction (Otago University Press, 2024).

Robert Sullivan (Ngpuhi, Ki Tahu) is the author of nine books of poetry, most recently HopurangiSongcatcher: Poems from the Maramataka (Auckland University Press, 2024), as well as a graphic novel and an award-winning book of Mori legends for children. He has also co-edited anthologies of Mori and Polynesian poetry. He is associate professor of creative writing at Te Kunenga ki Prehuroa Massey University and has taught previously at Manukau Institute of Technology and the University of Hawaii at Mnoa.