When writer, teacher and editor Tracey Slaughter took over the job of editing the annual Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook three years ago, she walked into a job with a storied history. The yearbook was founded in 1951 by journalist and teacher Louis Johnson who wrote of suburban life and ordinary relationships rather than rural idylls.
Slaughter told publisher Massey University Press that she recalls inheriting boxes “brimming over with copies of every past issue, Poetry Aotearoa’s history.
“The immensity of what this journal has accomplished really hit home as I sifted through — an incredible legacy of voices that have shaped our poetry landscape was included in those volumes. To go on creating a space that celebrates our diverse poets and sustains our poetic community is crucial — this issue is another testament to how much power our voices have when shared.”
The 2024 yearbook includes 123 new poems by 102 poets culled from more than 1000 submissions. Here Slaughter shares three things she hopes readers take from reading Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024.
Words count, voices matter in poetry
When I was reading submissions for the latest volume of Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook there was an election going on in the background – the drone of empty slogans felt like the opposite of poetry to me. I watched politicians smile through their reel of pre-loaded power-broking soundbites, I listened to their box-ticking bullet-points of campaign promise, then I returned to poetry. And up against all that election static, the poems were using a wholly different language – one where words were still wired to the human, the felt, the lived, the real.
Not that the poems were apolitical – they were anything but. They poured in angry, unapologetic and eyes-wide-open to the systems at fault – they were earthed and embodied and they called out the scars left on both. There was a level of ferocity and fight that was simply unmistakable, a risk-taking driven by emergency. They insisted on exposing the climate of hurt, the meshes of damage done by capitalism.
They lit up the point where personal pain meets collective oppression again and again. In startling contrast to the free-market buzzwords and sell-out rhetoric that flared from election screens, they forced the focus back on to a colonised planet that did not have time to calculate tax-breaks, on to the weather that was already smashing through interest rates and into our homes. They stood head-on against the dead values driving the flood.
Words count, voices matter in poetry. Open this book and stand with them.
The titles alone should excite and entice
‘Michelangeloed / how to be art in an automobile incident’ – ‘Pistol Lullabies’ – ‘when you dumped me, why did you quote the hot priest from Fleabag?’ – ‘Hey, XXXX, You Piece of Shit, Are You Emotionally Available Yet?’ – ‘Mahuika Takes the Underground’ – ‘Deep down the air is rarely sweet’ – ‘Angel Parking’ – ‘a musical is only 10% of the revolution’ – ‘I love you 16cms deep.’ With such fire leaping from just the titles, imagine what awaits within! It’s a living gallery of diverse voices, lush and original and brave and charged and raised, from more than 100 poets across the country. It showcases everything that’s radical and lyrical and active and tender and knife-edged about contemporary poetry – from secondary school voices through emerging stars into old hands, all writing from the ‘red house’ of now.
It won’t disappoint. And the glory of it is – you can (probably) get this poetry book at your local bookshop. Which is in itself no minor miracle – poetry written in Aotearoa actually stocked on our national shelves! Whoever heard of such a thing?! And I don’t just mean indie stores (although all hail the indie frontlines) – I mean bigger industrial chains putting poetry on display among the blockbusters. So get into those aisles, pick it up, wave it loudly round and celebrate. And call for more! When the cost of living is redlining, you can bet the cost of creating is near unspeakable. Imagine a world where our writers were supported by their works actually being given shelf space.
You’ll be knocked out by Carin Smeaton
One thing I know you’ll take away from this issue is the power of our featured poet Carin Smeaton. I first encountered Carin’s poems when she submitted work to Mayhem Literary Journal – I was instantly struck by the force of her writing and super keen to track down her first book Tales of the Waihorotiu when it came out from Titus Press. I’m thrilled that she agreed to share a dazzling spread of her fresh work with Poetry Aotearoa – and to hear that she’s got another book of poems, Hibiscus Tart, ready to launch.
If you don’t already know her Carin is a Tāmaki Makaurau poet with stunning vocal spark and urban edge – her speakers always hit hard and deal stinging truths. She takes us ‘straight down the sternum’ of her characters, plunging us gut-level into their lives and stories, and breaks her lines with razor-sharp skill. The political kick to her work is palpable – she takes oppression apart with ‘a fierce hook.’ She delivers cutting critique of ‘the bankrs in the gold seats,’ throwing a world of trickle-down privation into stark relief. In brutal conversation with ‘trauma from da present,’ with an unflinching take on its colonial roots, her poetry lights up the ecosystems of the city – strung between powerlines and wheelie bins, hellscape Westfields and emergency wards – zooming in on those who scratch a living amid its concrete shine, its dead-end jobs and motorway stars. You need to read her. You’ll know you’re in contact with a core New Zealand voice when you do.
One thing I learned from editing it:
When I was putting together Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook, we lost Paula Harris. In just the last few days, Freya Norris was taken from us too. When we lose poets like this – poets in the full bloom of voice, poets with drive and love, grit and laughter, grace and colour – we are hushed. We are stilled in our loss.
Then the lines come back to carry them with us into our next poem.
We have to do this because as American writer Sandra Cisneros says, “the world we live in is a house on fire and the people we love are burning”. Collectivity and connection are the answers, to keep bonds tight among poets, to forge safe creative spaces that sustain and foster one another, that share strains and resources, lows and joys. I hope Poetry Aotearoa goes on helping to build that community.
