Best New Zealand Poems 2013 now online
The new collection is edited and introduced by Professors Jane Stafford and Mark Williams of Victoria University.
Media release
Best New Zealand Poems 2013 has been published online, showcasing work from award-winning poets, including the Poet Laureate, to new and emerging talents.
The 2013 edition includes work from award-winning poets such as Fleur Adcock, current Poet Laureate Vincent O'Sullivan, and Anne Kennedy to emerging talents such as Chris Tse and the Irish-New Zealand poet Caoilinn Hughes. It has been edited by Professor Mark Williams and Professor Jane Stafford from Victoria University of Wellington.
In deciding what to include in Best New Zealand Poems, both editors have drawn on their experience of wading through 200 years of New Zealand literature when putting together the landmark Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature (2012). They chose 25 poems to include in the anthology, put them in a historical context and described the current state of New Zealand's 'best' poetry. After the 'torrid but not wholly unenjoyable' task of editing the Anthology of New Zealand Literature, the editors say it was liberating to be confined to one year's slim bulk of poetry with Best New Zealand Poems.
'What we looked for, and found,' write Professors Stafford and Williams, 'were poems of clarity and suggestiveness, poems that act as a dynamic conversation with the reader — rule poems, riddle poems, mix-of register poems, social pattern poems with something withheld, poems which are dramatic, lyrical and coherent, without tired lines or dull phrases.'
Series editor and poet Chris Price, who is also Senior Lecturer at Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters, says: 'While many previous editors of Best New Zealand Poems have themselves been poets, this year it's been stimulating and revealing to have the 2013 edition selected by professional critics of New Zealand literature. I'm sure their introduction will provoke further conversations and debates.'
Best New Zealand Poems 2013 includes excerpts from a number of impressive long poems by both leading writers such as Ian Wedde, Michele Leggott and Dinah Hawken, and relative newcomers such as Amy Brown.
A number of the poems are also available as audio recordings. Auckland poet Selina Tusitala Marsh and Dunedin-based Professor Emeritus Vincent O'Sullivan are among a number of poets who can be heard reading their work on the site.
Best New Zealand Poems is published by the International Institute of Modern Letters. It was first published online in 2001, and features a different editor each year. In 2011 Victoria University Press published The Best of the Best New Zealand Poems , a selection from the first 10 years of the collection in book form.
Best New Zealand Poems 2013, and all previous editions, can be viewed at bestnzpoems.It is published with the support of Creative New Zealand, and hosted by the New Zealand Electronic Text Collection at Victoria University.
For more information please contact Chris Price on (04) 463 5815 or email chris.price@vuw.ac.nz.
Issued by Victoria University of Wellington Communications and Marketing.
Download this media release (105 KB PDF).