Poetry Live Presents Amy Marguerite- 26 May

Poetry Live! Tues 26 May

Cafe 39, 39 Ponsonby Road, Auckland

Guest poet: Amy Marguerite

Guest musician: Crompy (James Crompton)

Emcee: Rhona

Amy Marguerite (she/her) is a poet and peer support worker living in Pukekohe. In 2022, she completed an MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Amy's debut collection over under fed was published by Auckland University Press in March 2025. Her essay on the new generation of Aotearoa poets features in Te Whāriki: Reading Ten New Poets from Aotearoa, published by Auckland University Press in October 2025.

Find her book here: https://aucklanduniversitypress.co.nz/over-under-fed/

Crompy has been a reasonably recent MC, a regular poet and sporadic muso for Poetry Live, under other monikers. Today he’s bringing his tunes. He has 5 albums out now and a number of other EPs and singles and music videos in the webosphere. His most recent offering, only available on Bandcamp, is about facing the darkness and comes in two parts: Shadowlands Part 1 and 2, the second of which he enlisted the help of robots to help be his band. He is NZ’s premiere indiepop psychedelic, prog punk folk quirk rock artist, well only because he thinks he is the only one who has attached this label to his music. This is not a signifier of any talent, as basically Crompy came from a “Do it yasself” kind of background, and never really had any lessons, though Per Gessle of Scandanavian duo Roxette, who also apparently had a similar approach, posted his music video “Amy” on the Roxette Facebook page, on their arrival in Auckland for their concert, and called it a “Nice song!”, probably because it mentions them in the lyrics; and they sold over 75 million units, so you just never know! Leaving it a bit late for his run though! Maybe you can help by sharing the Crompy goodness or at least rawness, which has drawn comparisons at time to artists like Syd Barret, Billy Bragg Leonard Cohen and Phoebe Buffet off the TV Show “Friends”, among many others. And apparently there’s a famous Japanese DJ who started in her 70s, so there is still hope.