Mad Skillz for the Demon Operators

This collection of poems ranges from satirical attacks on the political and social institutions of a globalised island of amnesiacs bouncing around the South Pacific, to reflections on journeys and returning, the ghosts of the past and the ghosts of a digital future. Published by Limetone Singularity Media, 2014.

“Refreshing and full of muscle” (Otago Daily Times, 6 April 2015)

Machine Language

This second collection features new material as well as some older unpublished work, ranging from personal reflections on time and geography through to futuristic satires on life in New Keyland circa now.

Part two in a three part, linked series, featuring original cover artwork by the author.

Published by Limetone Singularity Media, 2015.

Ambient Terror

Released 10 May 2017 at the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival, Ambient Terror is the third volume of poetry from Dunedin writer Victor Billot.

Ambient Terror is an excellent collection from the talented Victor Billot. He has his finger right on the zeitgeist, and accurately portrays the spirit of our times for New Zealanders … a very gifted poet who deserves to be widely read …
– Laura Solomon, Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2018

[A] rolling, blustering word-river of nanobytes, phrase chunks, alliterations and acrobatic satirical loops, held together by number-eight wire rhyme – great fun …
– Piet Nieuwland, Landfall Review Online, November 2017

Billot can be compelling and punchy. He is an exciting, wild noise, yet one supported by genuine imagination and ingenuity.
– Hamesh Wyatt, Otago Daily Times review 6 May 2017

… brilliantly wry and trenchant observations of our contemporary political culture and its mediation by pop culture and social media.
– NB Dunedin Libraries magazine, July 2017

Published by Limetone Singularity Media, 2017

The Sets

Published by Otago University Press
Paperback, 198 x 130mm, 118pp
ISBN 9781988592602,$27.50
IN-STORE: FEB 2021

This is a tough and challenging collection with a firm grasp of style. A must.
– Nicholas Reid, New Zealand Listener, 6 February 2021

The poems of The Sets are hard won. They are the testament of a man navigating the light and dark of his epoch. Victor Billot has much to say. His is a voice worth listening to.
– Michael Steven, Kete Books, February 2021

An excellent compilation.
– Vaughan Rapatahana, Takahē 101, April 2021

… the heights Billot can hit are high indeed. When they come, his triumphs roll in majestically like surfable swells.
– Erik Kennedy, Landfall Review Online, May 2021

The Sets returns again and again to the ever-present sea – as a metaphor, a mirror, a companion and an otherworld that contains our dreams and nightmares. Dunedin poet Victor Billot finds in the South Pacific Ocean an oracle of the future and a keeper of our histories.

The Sets begins with reflections on the domestic world and the fragility of the family and personal relationships that sustain us, the necessity and refuge of love, and the sometimes catastrophic effects of failure in these relationships.

The collection then shifts towards political and social satire, punching out mashups of fake news and rogue algorithms that mix mordant wit with compressed rage at the banality of humanity’s descent towards oblivion.

From the poet’s coastal childhood to the turbulent post-1980s experiences of his gener-ation, we end with a series of meditations on the ocean as a site of the brutality of globalised capitalism, and a representation of the complex and difficult worlds we carry within us.

In love with language, entangled in the world, Victor Billot’s poetry draws on post-punk music and spoken word performance to create a panoramic extravaganza firing on all cylinders.