AUP New Poets 10 (Auckland University Press)
Another brilliant release from AUP, New Poets 10 bring three squeekly clean, fresh as-a- daisy poets who write up-to-the-moment verse that extends in multiple directions. From the maunga of Taranaki to the beaches and flat lands of Sri Lanka to the uncharted chaos of teenagehood, this collection is the compilation of three unique voices - distinct, yet cohesive as they all, individually wrestle with the very confusion of just becoming someone and recognising that they also belong to someone or some other community. There is some beauty is belonging, and this unites them, which, in turn gives something harmonious for the reader to latch on to. First up is Tessa Keenan. Her work is set against the infinite landscapes of Taranaki and the damp claustophobia of Wellington city. But there are, if looking deeply. these resonant connections to her whenua and tupuna which are made manifest in poems like ‘Mātou’. In this poem her father, she says, ‘p...