The third in the ‘Poets in Performance’ series, New New Zealand Poets in Performance collects the work of a new generation of poets – from Anne Kennedy to Glenn Colquhoun, Jenny Bornholdt to Robert Sullivan – who came to prominence in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. These poets are notable for their variety, their distinctive voices and their fresh approaches to poetic form and subject.

With their work New New Zealand Poets in Performance celebrates a rich jangle of clashing ideas, voices and genders that combine to make contemporaryy culture. As in Classic and contemporaryy New Zealand Poets in Performance, Ross and Kemp have selected and presented on two CDs material from the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive, completed in 2004. There are more than two hours of poets reading their own work and the accompanying book prints the texts of the poems as they have been read. Selected bibliographies and short biographies for each poet and an appendix of variant readings are also included.

New New Zealand Poets in Performance collects the work of ‘poets determined to go their own way, wherever that may lead them’, Jack Ross writes in the preface. We’re sure you’ll enjoy the opportunity to savour their words and voices here.

Author

More about Jack Ross and Jan Kemp

Reviews

Now you can stay home, with your cognac and your fire roaring (heat pump doesn’t seem to have the same poetic cadence, does it?), and listen to Allen Curnow reading “The Skeleton of the Great Moa”, or Denis Glover reading his quintessential “Magpies”. There’s Baxter and Hunt in this series, C. K. Stead and O’Sullivan, to name a few good poets. In this latest collection, you can hear Glenn Colquhoun and Jenny Bornholdt. What better place to start sampling New Zealand Poetry? – Jessica Le Bas, Nelson Mail