the day / conjures a / forest / carves trees / from body’s absence / body of the mountains, body at the mercy of animal / the day / asks for feathering / asks for / a homing of pulse / begs palms / to gloam against the gully’s wanting / the day / dreams…
Patient Notes / All My Therapists Keep Trying To Rent Me 1 Bdrm Apartments Sitting in the office of the new therapist who used to be a landlord, she has the voice of my actual landlord, who won’t stop breaking into my apartment, and the mannerisms of my future mother-in-law, and I start to worry…
When I ask her about the fire, her lipspurse like a newspaper’s crimpled edge,and my pencil poised, my notepad ready,she opens her lady’s purse buying time. And she’s got my attention that’s for sure:inside’s a grey smudge about to be written,the newsprint mystery-ink of brushed leatherleft open, by design, like a gap, like a silence.…
after hardship after hardshipthe yellow guava’s five equal trunks only sprout leaf clustersthe size of a hand— each bough a furred tailemerged from earth— no branches wander offno delicacy extends— all cards held close for hundreds of losable little betsand no guavas to speak of(maybe ten at the extremitiesand small) having determined(though surely not in these words)to transition from productive to ornamentallike the tin flour sifteror the…
Kua taka te pōTū tonu ana ngā rākauHe ara atarau E hora ake mai nei Te Ara MamakuE huna ai i ngā tini whetūAnō nei Te MangōroaAnō nei he ikarangi kēNgunungunu ai I ngā pakiaka huhua Rikoriko maiWhakahīnātore maiTitia maiKātahi te whakaohomauriPai nei! E ngā whetū rikiriki waiwaiāE ngā Titiwai, tēnā koutou! Paekākā i te Pō |…
three days post-opthere are five lefton Alone UK the one who dances in the forestgets lost in treeswho curses at birds the one who boils underwear in a potso bears won’t comefor the smell of blood the one who weeps for a squirrelwho takes its toothto carve a coal tattoo the one without fishwho starves laughingfrom…
It’s early November and the warmingdawn air carries the certainty ofchange. Inside, the tap finally pourswarm ready for my post-run lemonwater. For fear of waking anyone (and this fearruns deep) I choose the woodenchopping board over the formicabench-top on which to place my glass as Iundertake the ritual of slicingyellow flesh— I figure wood is…
After Marama Salsano’s ‘Bloodwork’ Every few months I fill an inkwell with my blood and watch other people start writing with it.They dip the pointed heads of their pens into the jar and draw up just enoughto write a quarterly entry in their notes about me.I assume they record how my blood works. One lifts the bottle…
We’re so excited the incredible Renee Liang is judging the Monica Taylor Poetry Prize 2024! Dr Renee Liang 梁文蔚 MNZM is a poet, paediatrician, playwright and essayist. After exploring open mics in Broken Hill, Australia, Renee joined the MC team at Poetry Live, becoming known for running slams. Since then Renee has become a jack…
Anne Kennedy’s recent books are The Sea Walks into a Wall, The Ice Shelf, and, as editor, Remember Me: Poems to Learn by Heart from Aotearoa New Zealand. Awards and fellowships include the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry, the NZ Post Book Award for Poetry, and the IIML Writers Residency. Anne is the…