If art is a window into society, it’s clear Aotearoa New Zealand’s obsession with birds is as strong as ever, judging by the prevalence of birds in this year’s Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems selection, now available to view online.
“I am not an ornithologist or bird-nut! It has fallen this way and I have no reason nor made any attempt at a theme,” says editor Nick Ascroft. The previous year’s editor Chris Tse also noted in his introduction that “there were birds everywhere in the poems”.
Chris Price, the annual anthology’s series editor and senior lecturer at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington’s International Institute of Modern letters (IIML) says “Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems seems to be running its own unofficial Bird of the Year competition.”
Ascroft’s selection of 25 poems includes work from Lloyd Jones, Rebecca Hawkes, Jake Arthur, Ash Davida Jane and Philomena Johnson on dotterels, woodpeckers, robins, geese and ducks, respectively. Of course, poems about birds are never just about birds. Many of the selection display what Ascroft says first drew him to poetry, “novel expression and the delight of language, “as well as “real pain and the drudgery of suffering”.
Works by established poets such as Selina Tusitala Marsh, Anne Kennedy, James Brown, Cilla McQueen and Robert Sullivan sit alongside those from more recently emerged poets like Zephyr Zhang and Isla Huia. The 2024 issue features a number of poets who passed away before publication of the anthology, with work by Vincent O’Sullivan, Fleur Adcock and Paula Harris celebrated. “We’re lucky to have some of their last poems here,” Ascroft says.
In his introduction, Ascroft urges us all to undertake our own journey of reading the complete poetic output of Aotearoa New Zealand in a particular calendar year.
Commenting on the personal nature of what people like, he notes, “This is all I will say on subjectivity: it is unpleasant to crash up against the fussy lens of your own tastes.”
In such a thriving poetry scene, there is a rich variety of voices to be found. Across Ascroft’s selection, you will also find Talia Marshall on Ans Westra, Richard Reeve on rain, Erik Kennedy on those in power playing the victim, a nostalgic glance back at teenhood from Simon Sweetman, and much more.
The IIML has published the anthology annually since 2001, with support from Creative New Zealand. Each issue has a different editor.
Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems 2024 can be viewed online at www.bestnewzealandpoems.org.nz.
