Best New Zealand Poems 2021 sheds new light on the ‘ordinary’ world

THE latest edition of the online anthology Orongohau, Best New Zealand Poems (BNZP) is now live, says an alumna of the Victoria University of Wellington.
Alumna Kate Camp said the latest edition Features 25 poems chosen by acclaimed poet at the Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington.
She also said the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) at Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington has been publishing the anthology annually since 2001, with support from Creative New Zealand.
“What I learned from editing BNZP this year is how much I need to slow down, to re-read and re-visit the poems I enjoy, to read them aloud, get into the workings, try to figure out how they are doing what they’re doing,” she said. “The chosen poems reward this time and effort and they work on me, and make me feel things like I want to cry, and applaud.”
Camp also added that the 2021 edition showcased established figures such as Fleur Adcock, Tim Upperton, and Dinah Hawken alongside 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Award poetry finalists Anne Kennedy, Serie Barford, and fiction finalist Bryan Walpert, and introduces a group of newer poets such as Tim Saunders, Gus Goldsack, and Pippi Jean, who are making their first appearance in BNZP.
International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) senior lecturer Chris Price, who is also the series editor, says: “Kate’s own book – How to be Happy though Human: Selected and New Poems – was published in North America in 2020.
“Now she has assembled this tasting platter of her compatriots’ poems to tease the world’s palate for New Zealand poetry.
“These poems may take us to the park, the classroom, or the farm, or invite us to sit quietly with a sister’s ashes; but they also rant about current affairs, confront global disasters in our own back yard, and celebrate instances of humanity in times of need.
“They insist that we pay attention.”
As Kate herself puts it, these are poems that show us “the so-called ordinary world seen in a new, clarifying way”.
These poems can be viewed online on www.bestnewzealandpoems.org.nz