Welcome
Best New Zealand Poems is an annual online publication by the International Institute of Modern Letters, which aims to introduce readers—especially internationally—to leading contemporary New Zealand poets. Browse the current issue to find out more.
The Best of Best New Zealand Poems (Victoria University Press, 2011), celebrates the first decade of this online collection in book form. Edited by founding publisher Bill Manhire and writer Damien Wilkins, the anthology showcases more than sixty poems from previous issues and features some of the best-known figures in New Zealand poetry alongside compelling new writers.
Contributing poets were also invited to record their poem and you can listen to the recordings below, as well as link to the poem itself. Where a recording is currently unavailable we have included a link to the poem page and will add more audio files as they become available.
Click on ‘listen to’ to hear the poet read their work, or ‘read’ to link to the poem itself. A link to the audio recording will also be added at the bottom of each poem.
- Fleur Adcock - Listen to or read Having Sex with the Dead
- Johanna Aitchison - read Miss Red in Japan
- Michele Amas - listen to or read Daughter
- Angela Andrews - listen to or read White Saris
- Tusiata Avia - listen to or read Shower
- Stu Bagby – read The Boys
- Hinemoana Baker - listen to or read Methods of assessing the likely presence of a terrorist threat in a remote indigenous community
- Serie Barford - listen to or read The Flying Fox and Che Guevara
- Peter Bland - listen to or read X-Ray
- Rachel Bush - listen to or read The Strong Mothers
- David Beach - listen to or read Parachute
- Jenny Bornholdt - listen to or read Fitter Turner
- Amy Brown - listen to or read The Propaganda Poster Girl
- James Brown - listen to or read University Open Day
- Alan Brunton - listen to or read Movie
- Kate Camp - listen to or read Mute Song
- Gordon Challis - listen to or read Walking an imaginary dog
- Geoff Cochrane - listen to or read Seven Unposted Postcards to My Brother
- Glenn Colquhoun - listen to or read To a woman who fainted recently at a poetry reading
- Jennifer Compton - listen to or read The Threepenny Kowhai Stamp Brooch
- Kay McKenzie Cooke - listen to or read ‘sacred days’
- Mary Cresswell - listen to or read Golden Weather (Cook Strait)
- Lynn Davidson - listen to or read Before we all hung out in cafes
- Stephanie de Montalk - listen to or read Hawkeye V4
- John Dennison - listen to or read Lone Kauri (reprise)
- Fiona Farrell - listen to or read Our Trip to Takaka
- Cliff Fell - listen to or read Ophelia
- Sia Figiel – read Songs of the fat brown woman
- Joan Fleming - listen to or read Theory of Light
- Rhian Gallagher - listen to or read Burial
- John Gallas - listen to or read The Mongolian Women's Orchestra
- Paula Green - listen to or read Waitakere Rain
- Bernadette Hall - listen to or read The History of Europe
- Dinah Hawken - listen to or read 365 x 30
- Sam Hunt - listen to or read Lines for a New Year
- Kevin Ireland - listen to or read Big bounce theory
- Anna Jackson - listen to or read Spring
- Lynn Jenner - listen to or read Women's Business
- Andrew Johnston - read The Sunflower
- Anne Kennedy - listen to or read Die die, live live
- Michele Leggott - listen to or read Nice Feijoas
- Graham Lindsay – listen to or read big bed
- Anna Livesey - listen to or read Shoeman in Love
- Selina Tusitala Marsh - listen to1 or read Not Another Nafanua Poem
- Karlo Mila - listen to or read Sacred Pulu
- Cilla McQueen - listen to or read Ripples
- Emma Neale - read Brooch
- James Norcliffe - listen to or read Yet Another Poem About a Giraffe
- Gregory O' Brien - listen to or read Where I Went
- Peter Olds - listen to or read Disjointed on Wellington Railway Station
- Peter Olds - listen to or read The Shell
- Claire Orchard - listen to or read Early morning on the Sand-walk, Down House, March 1857
- Bob Orr - listen to or read Eternity
- Chris Orsman - listen to or read Making Waves
- Vincent O'Sullivan - listen to2 or read The Child in the Gardens: Winter
- Vivienne Plumb - listen to or read Goldfish
- Chris Price - listen to or read Rose and fell
- Helen Rickerby - listen to or read Coming of age in New Zealand film
- Frances Samuel - listen to or read Life-drawing class
- Kerrin P. Sharpe - listen to or read Like Rain the Thunder
- Marty Smith - listen to or read Hat
- Marty Smith - listen to or read Agnus Dei
- Elizabeth Smither - listen to or read Two Security Guards Talking About Jupiter
- C.K. Stead - listen to or read Without
- Robert Sullivan - listen to or read After the UN Rapporteur Supported Maori Customary Rights
- Steven Toussaint - listen to or read The Pond
- Brian Turner - listen to or read Fear
- Tim Upperton - listen to or read The Starlings
- Richard von Sturmer - listen to or read After Arp
- Louise Wallace - listen to or read The Poi Girls
- Ian Wedde - listen to or read To Death
- Sonja Yelich - listen to or read and-yellow
- Ashleigh Young - listen to or read Certain Trees
1: Audio available courtesy of the nzepc website. Scroll to ‘Tapa in the Park 8 May 2007 [video wmv]’ under Links.
2: Audio available courtesy of the Poetry Archive website.