Erik Kennedy
Ngā Kupu Waikato: An anthology of Waikato poetry, edited by Vaughan Rapatahana (Waikato Press, 2019), 96pp, $25; Take Flight, edited by Vaughan Gunson (Vaughan Gunson, 2020), 150pp, no RRP; Eight Poems by New Zealand Poets 2020, designed and set by Tara McLeod (Pear Tree Press, 2020), 24pp, $85
Anthologies of poetry organised around geography have a tough job to do. If the poets are from the place but the poems don’t take that place as their subject, readers may be justified in saying to themselves, ‘Okay, you’re publishing some poets who live near each other. So what?’ But if the poems are all about the place, the book may become tendentious, and finding enough good poems on a narrow subject may be difficult. Editor Vaughan Rapatahana’s Ngā Kupu Waikato: An anthology of Waikato poetry is very much about the Waikato, and it offers an engaging portrait of the region. [Read more…]