Sneak peak at a new collection...

Oh man, I’m useless! I promised to keep this yarn up to date and then did the opposite!! I promise I’m trying but ... well, clearly not very hard ... ... buuuut ... it’s a new year! So I thought I’d fess up and see how things go. And to get the ball rolling again I wanted to post a poem from a new collection coming out soon. Over the last couple of years I’ve decided to take over publishing my own poetry. I like the control it gives me and tbh I kinda like making a book-in-the-hand. I didn’t think I would ... but it reminds me of being out in the shed with a hammer and nails ... I like the banging around and standing back and closing an eye.

I’ve stockpiled a few collections over the last 10 years too. There’s a couple of collections of oral poems, Three Women and Myths and Legends of the Ancient Pākehā, they have taken forever ... and kind of have heaps of moving parts to them ... and there’s also a children’s picture book and a more traditional book of written poetry. It is a collection of letter type poems I’ve written to the young people I work with at the Horowhenua Youth Health Service.

Letters to Young People and the Children’s book should be out this year ... and I’m hoping Three Women and Myths and Legends of the Ancient Pākehā will follow in 2021 and 2022 respectively … … I’m just running around trying to record a sound track to them atm ...

I’ve put up a poem from Letters to Young People today. Hope you enjoy it and best wishes to everyone for 2020.

Heart murmurs

(for Zoe)

I can hear your heart murmur.

It is laughing.

It is red-faced.

Its shoulders

heave like

a schoolgirl.

I can hear your heart murmur.

Rain is bouncing

off the red tin shed.

I can hear your heart murmur.

It is singing.

It is telling you

there is no one else

exactly like you.

Your heart is a red bird.

Your heart is a song.