Tēnā koutou katoa,

This isn't a competition. The wide range of poems that I've considered in 2025 seems less a playing field than a landscape, its distinctive topography as various in all its parts and salient points as our familiar landscape of Aotearoa. Poets aren't team players or tourists; they produce work that is unique, the yield of individual, intelligent minds using the resources of poetry and language to the best of their ability.

In my selection of the 'best' New Zealand poems of 2025 I’m putting forward my personal view, from way up here in the south of Te Waipounamu, of the landscape I've seen and the parts of it that I can personally recommend. These are poems which I consider durable. They are exceptionally well written, vivid and insightful in their imagery. They have stood up to multiple readings and continue to fascinate me in their variety, depth and beauty.

Read the full introduction >