Poetry Portland LibraryBy Gill Ward and Elizabeth Coleman

National poetry day and Kate Camp

National poetry day has been and gone and it will seem no time at all until next year and we are doing it all again. I hope you were able to pick up a poem somewhere during the week. Also the poetry tree (Poetree) outside Robert Harris had poems on for people to take so we did our best to publicise the fact that it was a week of poems.  

Kate CampKate Camp was our guest poet that Sunday so it was excellent to have last year’s Katherine Mansfield Award Menton resident winner as our guest. We enjoyed her straightforward style and the things she shared with us about the poems she read. Thank you, Kate. Hopefully the people who won the spot prizes on the day were pleased with the books they chose.

Christchurch’s Erik Kennedy in town

  • On Sunday 29 September
  • at Robert Harris Café, Coastlands, 4 – 6 pm

We are delighted our guest poet Erik Kennedy agreed to visit us all the way from Christchurch. 

Erik-Kennedy“Erik Kennedy has followed his poetry chapbook, Twenty-Six Factions (Cold Hub Press, 2017) with his debut collection, There’s No Place Like the Internet in Springtime (Victoria University Press, 2018). He edits the online journal Queen Mob’s Teahouse. His first-full length collection sparks with multiple fascinations, experience, thought, wit, politics, optical delights and aural treats. It is a book of harmonics and elastic thinking, and is a pleasure to read.” (Paula Green, Poetry Shelf).

Erik was born in America and lives in Christchurch and is now about to share poems in Kapiti. He says, “I was an only child with addictive tendencies. I started writing my own poems, and I liked it so much that I thought I should write hundreds of them”.  A poet to look forward to! 

Please! Remember one page at the open mic so we don’t squeeze our guest poet for time. 

Next month, October, the last Sunday falls on Labour weekend. Traditionally we don’t have a poetry reading on that day owing to holiday traffic and holiday activities so will be bringing you the news about our November session in early November.