woa poetry
We have some amazing poets in New Zealand and nothing is more powerful that the written word. Here we offer a chance to read the poems you have heard on woa.
Local poet, Helen Lowe, will be talking to Canterbury poets, on the first Sat in the month.

The Kathleen Grattan Award, administered by Otago University Press's Landfall literary journal, is New Zealand's newest and richest poetry prize--and in 2008 the inaugural award was made to Christchurch poet, Joanna Preston, for her manuscript The Summer King. Although she already had a solid list of poetic achievements to her credit, winning the Kathleen Grattan award has catapulted Joanna into the top rank of New Zealand poets and The Summer King --her first collection-- will be published by Otago University Press later this year. In her first interview for 2009, Helen Lowe will talk with Joanna about winning the award and where to from here with her poetry career.

The Summer King

Before the boar stops twitching
Dad and Jeff slash his throat.
Blood on autumn grass –
a torrent of curses
gush from his new-made mouth.

The iron bathtub broods in the flames,
its belly of water ripening.
We slide the boar in,
glide the razor’s bright tongue
across his skin.

He hangs by his heels
from the gambrel, like a pale flag.
Dad slits him open, balls to neck
and omens spill out
in dark coils of gut.

The hand that feeds,
the bullet, the knife –
I am learning their language.

(c) Joanna Preston

The Summer King is the title poem in Jaonna Preston's forthcoming collection from Otago University Press--the same collection that won the inaugural Kathleen Grattan Award in 2008. The Summer King was also commended in the UK's prestigious Arvon poetry competition in 2004