LIGHTBOX POEMS
15 - 18 October 2024
Lightbox Poems is a council supported project where selected poems from Poetry Live! poets are displayed in the lightboxes on Bledisloe Lane (beside Aotea Square), Central Auckland between 15 - 18 October 2024.
Location address:
Bledisloe Lane, Auckland CBD
Serie Barford
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Serie was born to a German-Samoan mother (Lotofaga) and a Pālagi father. She performed at the 2019
Arsenal Book Festival (Kyiv), participated in the 2021 Going West Different Out Loud Poetry Project,
and collaborated with Dorine Van Meel whose 2022 video and performance piece, Silent Echoes, was
exhibited in Europe to address colonial practices and climate crisis through poiesis. Serie’s poetry
collection, Sleeping With Stones, was shortlisted for the 2022 Ockham NZ Book Awards.
Shane Hollands
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Shane Hollands is a veteran of the New Zealand performance poetry scene. He is well-known for his innovative work with music of differing genres from electronica to metal, and his efforts to give other poets a platform to perform; he established performance poetry collective The Literatti, and the NZ national celebration of beat poetry, The Kerouac Effect. He was one half of the art-music duo The Beautiful Losers, and now regularly tours the country as the front-man for jazz-beat poetry band, Freaky Meat.
Kiri Piahana-Wong
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Kiri Piahana-Wong (Ngāti Ranginui, Chinese, English) is a poet, editor and the publisher at Anahera Press. She is the author of two poetry collections, Night Swimming (2013) and Tidelines (2024), and the co-editor of Te Awa o Kupu (Penguin NZ), an anthology of contemporary Māori literature, as well as Short! The big book of little stories (forthcoming from MUP in 2025). Kiri was a former MC at Poetry Live for six years. She lives in Whanganui.
Miriam Barr
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Miriam Barr is an Auckland-based poet who performs her work and has a long history of collaboration with musicians, visual artists, and other poets. Her work has featured in academic texts, anthologies, literary journals, art galleries, and on stage in NZ and abroad. Her collection Bullet Hole Riddle was published by Steele Roberts in 2014.
Maxie Rodil
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Maxie Rodil (he/they) is a queer Filipino spoken word poet and artist based in Auckland. They have been regularly performing spoken word and slam poems since 2022, representing Auckland in the 2024 National Poetry Slam. He is one of the founders of the “Oh No! Poetry Collective” a poetry group hosting poetry events in Auckland, including a monthly open mic night. They love bright and shiny things, late night showers, and attending every single event their social battery will allow them to.
Christian Jensen
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Christian Jensen is an installation and performance poet, originally from Norway and now based on Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa. He believes that art, music and poetry can connect us to spiritual experiences and insights through ritual performance and participation. He is focused on working with immersive experiences and digital storytelling.
He has been the creative director of poetry performance troupe the Literatti, co-creator of artist and poet exhibition Metonymy, founder of the NZ Guerilla poets and currently on the advisory panel for Poetry Live. His latest project is the immersive exhibition and storytelling inter-arts project Wayfinders.
Renee Liang
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Renee Liang 梁文蔚 MNZM is a poet, paediatrician, playwright and essayist. After exploring open mics in Broken Hill Australia Renee joined the MC team at Poetry Live, becoming known for running slams. Since then Renee has become a jack of literary trades: she wrote, produced and nationally toured eight plays; makes operas, musicals and community arts programmes; her poems, essays and short stories are anthologised. The Bone Feeder, a play adapted into opera (Auckland Arts Festival 2017), was one of the first Asian mainstage works in NZ and one of the opening works at the Waterfront Theatre in Auckland.
Penny Somervaille
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Penny Somervaille grew up and was educated in England, coming to NZ in 1957 where she met and married a New Zealander. She had three adult children and two adult grandchildren. Penny wrote what she called ‘stuff’ for a long time, but only took it more seriously in 2000 when she enrolled at the University of Auckland and completed a BA some years later. She mostly read her work as opposed to publishing it: ‘I write to find out what I think, or to comment on what I read or hear.’ She had a longstanding association with Poetry Live in Auckland, and in 2014 Pennyroyal Press published her collection Small Decisions.
Peter Le Baige
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Peter Le Baige grew up on the east side of Te Wai o Taiki (the Tamaki Estuary), and now lives on the west side. Writing mostly about places and people in his life that have affected him, those he came across in his 25 years out of Aotearoa also figure in his poems. His published collections include: Breakers (1979), ‘Street hung with daylit moon’ (1983) and 'Blackbird in paradise' (March 2024). He used to regard his two cats as his left and right hands, and the estuary as his heart; now he finds himself only left-handed.
Rachael Naomi
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Rachael Naomi is an artist, poet and curator based in Tāmaki Makaurau.
Rachael’s practice explores the dual art of both seeing and reading through her visual poetry, fusing gouache, ink, acrylic or cross-stitch with the artistic nature of letters, words and symbols, characterised by a cursive script.
Rachael feels connected to genetic memories of her ancestor scribes and has a deep connection to the land, the trees, the hills, and the sea before her eyes.
Rachael is a former Emcee of Poetry Live! and is on their advisory committee.
Judith McNeil
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Judith McNeil lives in the Kaipara Hills and writes poetry almost daily.
Wero Te Kino
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Wero Te Kino is a multidisciplinary creative: a rap poet, actor, independent guerrilla filmmaker and author. As a poet, he won best Rap Poet in the Montana Poetry Awards 2006. He has created three feature films, five feature documentaries, plus many short films and music videos. He has written and published five books, and written, performed and toured a one man play about being the protestor who smashed the America’s Cup.
Michelle Durey
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Michelle Durey was an MC at Poetry Live! for six years. She graduated from MIT with a Masters in Creative Writing. Michelle's impact on the world of poetry and writing was huge, as she co-founded the NZ National Poetry Slam, was an active performance poet, worked with many groups across Aotearoa's literary scene and was known for her advocacy in mental health and artistic healing.
Genevieve McClean
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Genevieve McClean has been performing poetry since the early nineties in Auckland and went on to incorporate poetic performance forms into music, theatre, film and interdisciplinary projects around New Zealand and Internationally. She delivers her poetry in different forms from print to song and noise poetry performance.
Rosina
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Rosina is a poet and songwriter, who found her performance feet on the Poetry Live stage.
Her poetic song writing is predominantly influenced by literature and folk music traditions, but she revels in working with The Weavers who allow for full noise versions of the songs to come to life. Rosina & The Weavers released an album entitled “Hitching The Starlight Highway” in January of this year and toured the South Island in celebration. You can find them wherever you listen to music, or follow them on social media: @rosinaandtheweavers
Doug Poole
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Doug Poole is of Samoan (Ulberg Aiga of Tulaele) and of European descent. He resides in Waitakere City, Auckland. He is the publisher and editor of the poetry e-zine Blackmail Press. (www.blackmailpress.com/index.html)
Doug has been e-published in Trout; Soft Blow; Snorkel; New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre’s OBAN 06; Fugacity; All Together Now: A Digital Bridge for Auckland and Sydney; and many other e-publications.
Doug’s poetry has been included in Niu Voices: Contemporary Pacific Fiction 1 (Huia Publishers, 2006); Landfall 218: Islands (2009); Side Stream 24 (2010); The Contemporary Pacific (22:2, 2010); Mauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poetry in English (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2010); Flying Fox Excursions: Albert Wendt’s Critical and Creative Legacy in Oceania, A Special Issue of The Contemporary Pacific, Honolulu: (University of Hawai’i Press, 2010); IKA Journal of Creative Writing: One (Manukau Institute of Technology,2013); Hawai’i Review - Issue 79 “Call and Response” (University of Hawai’i at Manoa, 2014); & Story Board 14 (University of Guam,2014)