Bill Manhire

Short corporate poem.

Stephen Gallagher and Dave Long just won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction and Composition for Secrets at Red Rocks! 🙌

For sale | 6 Harris Street, Karitane, Dunedin, Otago - homes.co.nz Free property records for 6 Harris Street, Karitane, Dunedin, Otago. Free Sales History. Contact agent James Columb, Nearby sales, Mortgage loans, Council records, School zones, and more. homes.co.nz,...

Real estate marketing with Sylvia Plath

homes.co.nz/address/waik...

You’ve Done It Again, Michael | Jynne Dilling Even as the pace of work life quickened exponentially across the next two decades, email inboxes overflowing, media outlets proliferating and then contracting, websites and newsletters dominating and ...

An appreciation of Michael Silverblatt, one of the best literary podcasters before @davidnaimon.bsky.social, at n+1. Silverblatt died in February, but you can still listen to his back catalogue at the Bookworm (KCRW) podcast
www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

Send me your poems! ✨️

I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to

Wow! Thank you, Heidi.

I love 'Anecdote for Fathers'.

I have a copy of the old Panther Books edition stashed away somewhere. treloars.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/122...

The UK and NZ editions of Bill Manhire’s Lyrical Ballads

Night and day

Fitzcarraldo Editions acquires three books by Mary Ruefle for a landmark UK publication | Fitzcarraldo Editions Fitzcarraldo Editions will publish Mary Ruefle’s Golden Crumbs in October 2026, collecting her first three books of prose. This landmark publication will be Mary Ruefle’s first in the UK.   Golden Cru...

love this. and WHAT an author photo fitzcarraldoeditions.com/2026/02/fitz...

😊

Here's the Trade Me listing for the room my son has available in his small but perfectly formed Aro Valley house, very reasonable rent in great location. Please share with anyone you think would be interested

In today’s post

Cartoon. Title: “All Business” Three frames. Police Minister Mark Mitchell, wearing a headset, and sitting at a computer, answering calls to an Emergency Services phone line. In the first frame he’s looking slightly bored, saying. “Emergency, which service do you require? Police, fire or ambulance?” Then he says, “Police?” 2nd frame he’s looking up ands saying, “Someone who has mental health problems? No, sorry, the police no longer respond to mental health call-outs” 3rd frame, looking considerably more lively, he’s saying, “Cluttering up a business’ doorway??!! Well, that puts a different complexion on it!”

All Business. The government’s new focus on a the homeless, beggars, and street people. “Move on” orders, fines and prison sentences. My Stuff #cartoon today #NZpol #Homes #Homeless #Poverty #prison #MentalHealth #Police

The latest sonnet chain has begun: it’s a) our 4th and b) an #ArtSonnetChain, edited by @sophieherx.bsky.social & Nancy Campbell.

And the first line to be carried, last line of sonnet 1 to 1st line of sonnet 2, is by Sophie:

‘The trouble with beauty is its ugliness…’

#NewBootsAndPantisocracies

Coming up in Akaroa, brilliant destination for a summer writers festival. The road is open again after the flooding, so this is a great chance to support the town and see some great writers.
www.rawafestival.com/2026-programme

The Sunday Poem, by Cliff Fell Lines on kissing in the dawn and river mist

The Sunday Poem, by Cliff Fell newsroom.co.nz/2026/02/22/t...
A beautiful poem...

If you want to protect your home from being burgled by poets

I like this tiny poem by Bill Manhire @pacificraft.bsky.social from his forthcoming Carcanet collection Lyrical Ballads.

The neighbourhood

six drawings of a child's swing: 1. What the committee discussed (swing with an unworkable 3-layer seat) 2. What the project team designed (swing with unworkable 3 ropes, one through the middle of the seat) 3. what the mayor approved (swing stretched across the trunk of the tree) 4. what the contractors installed (swing with ropes attached to the trunk instead of a branch, seat sits useless on the ground) 5. what the engineers modified it to (the top of the tree is cut off so the swing can go through the middle of the tree) 6. what the public really wanted (an old tyre hanging invitingly from a branch)

Scan of a photocopy of one of the most right-on political cartoons ever. Clipped from a NZ peace magazine in the 1980s. #kikorangi

Poetry Shelf celebrates Iain Sharp (24 April 1953 – 24 January 2026) Poetry. Dear old poetry. Your rusty relics groan on forgotten shelves of secondhand bookshops – Wordsworth and Shelley bearded with cobwebs,Spenser dispensed with, the pages of both Brownings…

And now Greg O'Brien has chosen a poem and shared a terrific anecdote to two nzpoetryshelf.com/2026/02/18/p...

A bland villanelle is called a vanillanelle

Our absurd, yearning lives: launching Lyrical Ballads and What to Wear On 11 February 2026, we gathered with a huge crowd at Unity Books Wellington to celebrate new books from two beloved poets. We were very lucky to have Robyn Marsack visiting from Scotland to launch Ly...

'Our absurd, yearning lives' – here's Robyn Marsack's speech from the launch of Lyrical Ballads and What to Wear, if you missed the event, or want to revisit her words.

teherengawakapress.co.nz/blogs/news/o...

Poetry Shelf reviews: Lyrical Ballads by Bill Manhire Lyrical Ballads, Bill ManhireTe Herenga Waka University Press, 2026 Lyrical Ballad I bought a bend in the river. It was a good,quiet bend.You couldn’t see around the corner and after a fewste…

Absolutely love this new collection nzpoetryshelf.com/2026/02/20/p...

For everyone who has marvelled at Ted Hughes’ poem for Andrew and Fergie today, I give you: the author’s own explanatory note

Happy birthday to us: on Gone By Lunchtime at 10 years old Did we invent podcasting, political commentary, and the 2016 nostalgia trend? Read on to find out....

Happy birthday to us: on Gone By Lunchtime at 10 years old

Poetry Shelf celebrates Iain Sharp (24 April 1953 – 24 January 2026) Poetry. Dear old poetry. Your rusty relics groan on forgotten shelves of secondhand bookshops – Wordsworth and Shelley bearded with cobwebs,Spenser dispensed with, the pages of both Brownings…

You can imagine how special this was for me to assemble - with thanks to the contributors: nzpoetryshelf.com/2026/02/18/p...

70 minutes and counting!