Welcome from Chris Price

Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems is published annually by Te Herenga Waka | Victoria University of Wellington's International Institute of Modern Letters. It aims to introduce readers—especially internationally—to leading contemporary New Zealand poets. The poems are chosen to show the vitality and range of current writing. We have shamelessly modelled this online project on the successful US paperback anthology, The Best American Poetry. Each year we publish 25 poems from recent literary magazines and poetry collections, where possible including notes about and by the poet, as well as links to related publishing and literary websites. In this way we hope that readers will be able to follow up fresh discoveries. There are plenty to be made. In this edition we've also added links to our 'Best' friends overseas, so local readers can easily locate  the best of elsewhere.

Our thanks to Dr Mike Ross from the University’s Te Kawa a Māui for gifting us a te reo Māori name for the journal. As Dr Ross explains: 'Ōrongohau is a "new" word combination that attempts to convey a Māori perspective. It can be translated in different ways: your news/views/thoughts/feelings/ are heard; your fame [is carried] on the wind. It doesn’t make subjective judgements about quality, the wind can blow in from anywhere.'

Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems continues to cross linguistic borders. A number of recent editions have also been translated and re-published by Wai-te-ata Press in bilingual print editions for local and international circulation, with languages including Chinese, Italian, Samoan, Persian and French. The Press aims to continue this work.

Our Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems 2023 editor is current Poet Laureate Chris Tse, whose most recent poetry collection Supermodel Minority was published by Auckland University Press in 2022.

Earlier editors were Louise Wallace (2023), Kate Camp (2021), David Eggleton (2020), Hera Lindsay Bird (2019), Fiona Farrell (2018), Selina Tusitala Marsh (2017), Jenny Bornholdt (2016), John Newton (2015), Vincent O'Sullivan (2014), Mark Williams and Jane Stafford (2013), Ian Wedde (2012), Bernadette Hall (2011), Chris Price (2010), Robyn Marsack (2009), James Brown (2008), Paula Green (2007), Anne Kennedy and Robert Sullivan (2006), Andrew Johnston (2005), Emma Neale (2004), Robin Dudding (2003), Elizabeth Smither (2002) and Iain Sharp (2001).

The 2024 editor will be Nick Ascroft.

Bill Manhire is the founding editor, and was Series Editor from 2001-2010. With Damien Wilkins, he co-edited a print anthology, The Best of Best New Zealand Poems (Victoria University Press, 2011), which offers a condensed view of the first decade.

Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems is published by the International Institute of Modern Letters and, supported by a grant from Creative New Zealand, whose assistance we greatly appreciate. We remain grateful to the late Ralph Hotere (1931-2013) for permission to use his drawing for the first edition of James K Baxter's Jerusalem Sonnets (Bibliography Room, University of Otago, 1970) on our opening page.

Chris Price
Series Editor
Te Whanganui-a-Tara | Wellington
March 2024