Twenty Contemporary New Zealand Poets is a valuable addition to the growing number of local poetry anthologies that grace our shelves. The New Zealand editors are both based overseas, Andrew Johnston in Paris and Robyn Marsack in Edinburgh, where she is director of the Scottish Poetry Library.  Johnston would have been a worthy contender for a spot in the line-up, particularly in view of the terrific poems in his latest collection, Sol, but his own poetry remains in the shadows as he resists self-promotion. The anthology comprises a handful of poems by each poet along with their individual musings on the subject of writing poetry.


Every fan of New Zealand poetry will lament the absence of certain poets (several immediately sprang to my mind) but pursuing such a train of thought is of secondary interest to me. Instead I see this as a celebration of the styles, locations, publishers and cultures that help shape local writing. The editors propose that this anthology "overflows with talk" and while a number of poems are indeed "talky," what makes this an essential volume is the way the poems talk amongst themselves. Old favourites still make the arm hairs stand on end: Bill Manhire's Kevin, Tusiata Avia's Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, Ian Wedde's odes and Dinah Hawken's harbour poems. Others bring a wry smile: James Brown's I Come from Palmerston North, Greg O'Brien's Ode to the Waihi Beach dump and Anne Kennedy's rugby triumph. A highlight of this treat box is the vein of gold in the poets' musings: Manhire's claim that poems "do the knight's move better than the rook's or the bishop's".


C.K. Stead's assertion that 10 words "will be more charged, resonant, radio-active" than 20. While the anthology does not include the more experimental reaches of New Zealand poetry, this fine anthology leads us to an eclectic and electric poetry community: the poetry is graceful, muscular, lyrical, arresting, biting. Within this context, they acquire new and refreshing life.



-Paula Green, NZ Herald, 17 March 2009