Ngā Kupu Waikato: an anthology of Waikato poetry and Scoria: Short Prose from the cinder cone, two anthologies featuring Northland writers, will be launched in Northland in the next two weeks. We hope you can join us at one (or both) of our launch celebrations.

Kerikeri launch of Scoria:
Featuring information about Pavlova Press, new calls for submission and readings by Kathy Derrick and Jac Jenkins.
When: TOMORROW Thursday 28th November at 5.30pm
Where: Cherry Park House, Landing Rd, Kerikeri

Whangārei combined launch of Ngā Kupu Waikato and Scoria:
Featuring readings by Vaughan Rapatahana, Piet Nieuwland, Olivia Macassey, Jac Jenkins, Alistar Tulett, Terry Moyle, Kathy Derrick and other talents
When: Saturday 7th December at 1.30pm
Where: The Book Inn, Kamo, Whangārei

About Ngā Kupu Waikato: an anthology of Waikato poetry

Ngā Kupu Waikato is an anthology of work from poets with a strong Waikato connection including Northland poets, Piet Nieuwland, Olivia Macassey, Alistair Tulett and Jac Jenkins. The collection, compiled by Vaughan Rapatahana, also contains poems from Vincent O’Sullivan (former New Zealand Poet Laureate), Stephen Oliver, and Bob Orr. Poem style and content is wide-ranging, and with titles such as ‘With Jean-Paul Sartre on the Banks of the Waikato’ and ‘Waikato-Taniwha-Rau’ the Waikato river is an overarching presence.

In its review of Ngā Kupu Waikato, Poetry Shelf says: Reading the collection is like sitting by the river through all seasons, feeling the way it runs through the blood of the poet writing, a lifelong current, carrying anecdote, beauty, history. It is both the spine and heart of the collection that draws me in closer again and again. A Waikato treasure.

About Scoria: Short prose from the cinder cone

Scoria: Short Prose from the cinder cone is Pavlova Press’s own collection of short prose by Kathy Derrick and Jac Jenkins. These pieces are shaped by examining the small bubbles and glassy fragments of the human condition, just as bubbles and fragments combine to form scoria rock. With sections titled Arrhythmia, Severance and Elasticity, the volume explores themes of connection, separation and regeneration. Scoria’s cover was designed by the award-winning Keely O’Shannessy and perfectly reflects the book’s content. Vaughan Rapatahana says of the authors and the anthology: Their joint imaginations run amok in this conjuring trick of a collection—at times wicked bitch brutal, at other times fairy modmother magical. But always superbly crafted nuggets of hypnogogia.

A sneak preview:

Stigmeology

My mother, a pug-breeder and amateur stigmeologist, showed me the space that can be held in punctuation—how we can exhale commas into chaos, settling a paragraph like a hound winding down around its tail to rest, nose propped on the basket’s edge; how the question mark with its raised brow opens the eyes to that tock between two thoughts; how the full stop holds the tongue of the panting sentence against the next rush of unleashed sound. 

My mother also said that flesh is a hyphen, holding soul to soil. My life with five pugs is a chaos of leashes.