A writer must be hard to live with: when not working he is miserable, and when he is working he is obsessed. Or so it is with me. .... I hate commitments, obligations and working under pressure. But I like getting paid in advance and I only work under pressure.
- Edward Abbey 🥹
Attention-Starved Waif I have always been needy, wailing for water and laughs as far back as the days when I wore soft yellow and only had two star-coloured teeth. I read an article about turning need into rugged self-sufficiency by drying it out overnight in a low oven, switching it to convection just before bed. No, my mistake, that’s how you make fruit leather. The process I’m thinking of is longer and involves self-denial and stern language and whips, and it can’t really be done in the home, it has to be done everywhere you are alive, all the time, it takes place in the car and in court and when you’re having blood taken, and for it to work it will have to take over your sleep. In fact, it takes so long that it’s not practical to recommend it to anyone except the most patient self-improver, and the thing about patience is that it’s always a virtue that other people have.
I have four (!) poems in the new 'PN Review'. I think it's fair to share this one and say buy the mag if you're in the UK. =)
'Attention-Starved Waif' is a very me poem, obvs.
www.pnreview.co.uk/magazines/pn...
volume.nz/talkingbooks You can talk about Terrier, Worrier with a whole book club of readers, thanks to the very wonderful Volume Books! On Tuesday, March 10.
I remember this book! It was really spooky, my childhood was haunted by it, it cast a long shadow.
Given it's Long Covid Awareness month, it would be great to add that each infection and reinfection increases your risk of long term effects.
Oh to be in Kingston!
I LOVE these translations and I love the idea of a whole book of your 85 variants! I translate 85 quite often myself www.annajackson.nz/catullus.html, I mean, who doesn't, one way or another? It's kind of what life IS.
Daylight is brilliant!
I mean, it’s pretty fucking obvious to me…👀🤷♀️ #nzpol #OneTermGovernment
She’ll step into this room like a feisty
maunga dismantling into an outgoing tide...
I love the poem, and Paula's review of the collection ("There are the slippery currents of losing and finding one’s way in both past and present, the porous areas between here and there.")
Brevity (‘a journal of concise creative nonfiction’) is soliciting blog posts brevity.wordpress.com/2026/02/23/o...
Just your daily reminder that Chris Bishop is both the chief fundraiser for the National Party election campaign and needs major donations, and the decision maker giving businesses access to the fast track process. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
"If I wanted to achieve anything in particular with this poem, it was probably to at least gesture at that weird cavernous space between longing and horror."
72 Covid deaths in the last month
WTAF
"The objective of this Bill is to disestablish the Ministry for the Environment so that the Government’s desired machinery of government change can be implemented"
Penny Simmonds has got to go
#Election26 #nzpol
Submit now
bills.parliament.nz/v/6/27caed65...
I don’t know if this is really poetry or just how the mind works...
!["We have a big overstayer problem, tens of thousands more than we suspected, and we have to arm [immigration officers] with the tools to be able to request information from people when they have a reasonable suspicion that they are in breach of their visa conditions."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:uftfptmc5ugvwqldt6lbbf2h/bafkreihcjdyuxlum6dnlho4ecydwxhbvm4fshjlsoabo5ric72ewoxxxre)
"We have a big overstayer problem, tens of thousands more than we suspected, and we have to arm [immigration officers] with the tools to be able to request information from people when they have a reasonable suspicion that they are in breach of their visa conditions."
The official advice from Immigration NZ is as of 1 July 2025, there were around 20,980 overstayers. They advise this is a “very small proportion of temporary migrants” given we see 3.6 million arrivals from non-NZ citizens each year - so 0.58%.
This quote (and Trump policy🫠) should be challenged.
"But a reasonable person would expect, where there is [reasonable] suspicion when they're executing their normal duties, that they'd be able to [do so in] people's houses." No! No, this is not reasonable!
"A lead always connects two animals, and the hierarchical relationship between them may not be what you would expect. I think there is some joy in the serendipitous meanderings of creatures without meaningful plans. Quite a lot of joy, in fact."
"The owner of the ferret, dragged about according to her mad mustelid’s whims, is in my view also an animal on a lead. I mean, we all are, in one way or another." Some of us (poets) more than others! I love both the poem and Erik's take on it:
This has to be stopped in its tracks! An immediate letter writing campaign to start with. Ugh, though I cannot, will not read another reply from Erica Stanford's office - essence of evil banality, probably written by AI.
ICE NZ????? I don't know if everyone has noticed quite how awful Erica Stanford is.
"Often they're in a situation where they are looking for a particular person, they find that particular person, and...there are other people who are either fleeing or acting suspiciously," Erica Stanford told RNZ.
We know, and don’t forget this when you rock up to vote at election 2026
#nzpol #OneTermGovernment
So National propose $250 billion of road projects, but KiwiRail has a budget cut of $200 million and will most likely have to close lines, shifting more freight onto the roads.
Seems Winston hasn’t been a very effective champion of railways.
www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
Your cold / cough is likely to be Covid
