{"title":"Poetry of Aotearoa","description":"\u003cp\u003eCheck out some of the amazing local talent we are spoilt with right here in Aotearoa.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"rapture-9781869409807","title":"Rapture","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the South Auckland Poets Collective to regional writers festivals, at poetry slams and open mic nights, in theatre works like \u003cem\u003eShow Ponies\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eWild Dogs Under My Skirt\u003c\/em\u003e, performance poetry has taken off in Aotearoa. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this anthology, ninety performance poets, rappers, spoken-word artists, slam poets, theatre makers, genre blenders and storytellers come together to celebrate the diverse voices and communities within Aotearoa - including Ben Brown and Mohamed Hassan, Grace Iwashita-Taylor and Tusiata Avia, Nathan Joe and Dominic Hoey, Freya Daly Sadgrove, David Eggleton and Selina Tusitala Marsh. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRapture\u003c\/em\u003e is a parallel narrative about contemporary poetry in Aotearoa - one that doesn't just sit on the page, but leaps from it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Upstart Distribution","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46079186174188,"sku":"9781869409807","price":49.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781869409807.jpg?v=1736298031"},{"product_id":"poetry-aotearoa-yearbook-2025-9781991016973","title":"Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2025","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor the 2025 edition of the \u003ci\u003ePoetry Aotearoa Yearbook\u003c\/i\u003e, editor Tracey Slaughter has once again hit the zeitgeist in her selection of 141 new poems from an exhaustive submission process.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAnother packed issue, #59 showcases the raw and the vital — including from this year’s featured poet, Mark Prisco — and features a blistering introduction from Slaughter herself. In addition, there are excellent reviews of a crop of recent poetry books.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith work by both established and emerging New Zealand poets, the \u003ci\u003eYearbook\u003c\/i\u003e is essential reading for all poetry fans.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Upstart Distribution","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46767968780524,"sku":"9781991016973","price":37.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/24521893482896.jpg?v=1756351014"},{"product_id":"black-sugarcane-by-nafanua-purcell-kersel-9781776922222","title":"Black Sugarcane","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBlack Sugarcane\u003c\/em\u003e is a landmark debut collection by Nafanua Purcell Kersel. Restless in form and address, these engaging and generous poems ricochet from light to dark, quiet to loud, calm to violence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe meet a loved twin sister as she dives towards the Sacred Centre, a grandmother who knows everything by heart, a shrugging office clerk, and Nafanua herself, an enigmatic shapeshifter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAt the heart of \u003cem\u003eBlack Sugarcane\u003c\/em\u003e is a sequence of erasure poems arising from the seminal essay 'In Search of Tagaloa' by Tui Atua Tamasese Ta'isi Efi. From the worlds contained in the text, these poems rise as if inevitable. Another sequence responds to the devastating tsunami that struck between the Samoan islands of Upolu and Tutuila in September 2009.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWithin the line, within the word and even the letter, these poems speak to creation and translation, destruction and regeneration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e‘The poems in Black Sugarcane are laced with panthers and cobras. Nafanua Purcell Kersel yields her machete-pen with ease, humour and aroha, clearing paths, riding waves, carving memory and bending time. Her poetic vision is both minuscule-microscopic and drone-distant, opening space for the va to take shape. She is writing on a branch from the same rakau as Selina Tusitala Marsh and Tusiata Avia.’\u003c\/em\u003e - Anne-Marie Te Whiu\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e‘I was blown away by this book. The poems are playful and powerful, fresh and original.’\u003c\/em\u003e - Airini Beautrais\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Upstart Distribution","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46786601287916,"sku":"9781776922222","price":24.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/3bdc6551be37cd621811e51b9e3783a7.jpg?v=1756939540"},{"product_id":"te-whariki-9781776711314","title":"Te Whāriki","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHow 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? \u003ci\u003eTe Whāriki\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePulling these strands together in one volume, \u003ci\u003eTe Whāriki\u003c\/i\u003e is as dynamic, various, and engaging as New Zealand poetry is today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFeaturing 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Upstart Press Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46853823758572,"sku":"9781776711314","price":37.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/15985343482820.jpg?v=1759220239"},{"product_id":"no-good-by-sophie-van-waardenberg-9781776711789","title":"No Good","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIn summer when I picked dandelions\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003efor the geriatric guinea pig I changed the world.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eI killed a weed. I filled a mouth with gold.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this debut poetry collection, Sophie van Waardenberg considers girlhood and grief, love and its loss, distance and the return home, including at its heart a sequence of emotionally raw ‘Cremation Sonnets’. In its essence, this collection is the poet exploring ‘goodness’: ‘I am unbegrudging. I am the openest pair of arms’, she tells us. ‘I am a large dirty lake, a tepid naughty heart.’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eI cannot accept this ending. I have fallen\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003efrom the highest ledge. I will never land.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eSo what if I am safe? 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It's about Channing Tatum and Edward Furlong and Chilli the Pomeranian and the teacher who beat us half to death and killing your landlord and sleeping with zombies and falling in love so hard you wake up concussed.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Expensive Hobby Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47013611765996,"sku":"9780473489588","price":25.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/d476b072dae8832b6a04d2a6c7f042e4.jpg?v=1763607173"},{"product_id":"spellbound-9780473759421","title":"Spellbound","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrancis Aschoff’s debut poetry collection is a time machine trip from the heights of first love to the yellow days of infancy, from crying in club bathrooms to a future not yet known. These poems are a magnifying glass, a tender eye and a flame thrower. They are love poems to the difficulties of love – love that is absent or which can’t be felt even when it’s there. Spellbound zings with surprising images that will make you see, and feel, differently.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e***\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\"Spellbound is a feast of raw-hearted morsels, bursting with tenderness for everything from the Courtenay Place Chicken Palace, to the ugliest pigeon in Midland park. It’s dreamy paper collages and sticker charts. It’s hot pink nostalgia with attachment issues. It’s packed with feeling, sharp as teeth. It opens its mouth and consumes you.” - Dani Yourukova\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“It’s a cliche to say poems grapple with things, but these poems grapple like a twelfth dan judo practitioner. They grapple like a f--ing grappling hook. It doesn’t even matter what they’re grappling with. It’s a joy just to watch them grapple, grab, twist, throw. The motion of them. The rippling surfaces. These poems are beautiful like muscles moving under skin. They are afraid but not afraid of being afraid. Yearning and yearning not to be yearning. Read them when you need to feel something. 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