Every August, something vibrant stirs across Aotearoa. Chalked verses bloom on pavements, poems appear on billboards, teenagers take the mic in crowded school halls, and stacks of poetry books are freshly displayed in libraries and bookstores, inviting readers to step inside their pages.
This is Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day – nearly three decades old and, this year, louder than ever. Today, Friday, August 22, poetry will spill from galleries and cocktail bars in suburbs and town squares from Kerikeri to Invercargill. The official calendar of events is packed with youth writing workshops, high-energy school slams, blackout and pavement poetry, literary dress-ups, and open-mics. No corner of the country will be untouched by the buzz of living poetry.
Why the surge of excitement? Because poetry matters – perhaps now more than ever. In a world crowded with noise, it offers clarity. It distils the complex down to a few unforgettable lines, and gives an opportunity for expression not just to celebrated writers but to anyone moved by the world around them.
A new wave is rising. The 2025 National Reading Survey for Read NZ Te Pou Muramura shows 32% of New Zealanders now read poetry – up from 25% in 2021 – with under-35s leading the way. Queer, indigenous, Pacific and Asian voices are increasingly visible. They write with striking truth, courage and urgency. Outgoing Poet Laureate Chris Tse is emblematic of the moment.
The surge isn’t happening in silence. Tayi Tibble’s appearance in The New Yorker signals how bold local voices are reaching global audiences just as local poetry publishing experiences an unprecedented boom.
Phantom Billstickers became naming sponsor for National Poetry Day in 2016 but was helping to bring poetry into the mainstream long before that.Its distinctive posters, featuring everyone from Hone Tuwhare to Hera Lindsay Bird, are pasted to bollards and walls up and down the country. The company’s chief executive, Robin McDonnell, says the idea is to catch people off guard. “When you see a poem out on the streets, it can spark a thought or feeling for the rest of your day.”
Each year, the firm’s seed funding supports grassroots events, and the creativity that flows back is astonishing. National Poetry Day gives poetry a spotlight and makes it local. For one day each year it brings words out into the open, connecting both seasoned readers and curious first-timers.
In a world crowded with noise, poetry distils the complex down to a few unforgettable lines.
The first National Poetry Day was launched by Booksellers NZ in 1997. Montana Wines was the sponsor and the tagline, quoting Robert Louis Stevenson, was, “Wine is bottled poetry”. It’s a delicious concept, and maybe poetry still bottles something essential: human spirit, compressed and then uncorked.
The NZ Book Awards Trust has governed the event since 2014. “Poetry is the most portable artform,” says trust spokesperson and poet Richard Pamatatau. “It doesn’t require a lot of gear, or gatekeeping. In times like these, when people are overwhelmed, disillusioned, or disconnected, poetry provides an anchor. It’s the artform of feeling.”
Poetry belongs to all of us. You don’t need to call yourself a poet – just have the courage to say what matters. For one lively day this month, pick up a pen and add your voice to the nationwide chorus.
“National Poetry Day helps us share the full spectrum of what poetry can do, mean, and be,” says Emma Neale, winner of the 2025 Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
“It ignites fresh excitement, connects poets to each other and to readers and brings even the shyest novices out of their hideaways, reminding us that poetry exists beyond one day, as celebration, consolation and liberation.”
Gill Hughes is the publicist and national co-ordinator of National Poetry Day, poetryday.co.nz
