Jan Kemp

Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance collects the work of 27 poets who came of age during the 1960s and 1970s, stamping their mark irrevocably on the New Zealand poetic scene and introducing new forms, new language and new freedoms. We hear the instantly recognisable, laconic but swaggering voice of Sam Hunt as he performs one of his 'road songs'; the understated reading of Bill Manhire; the plain-spoken storytelling of Keri Hulme; and the quiet humour of Cilla McQueen - lively, entertaining and moving work from some of New Zealand's best-loved poets. Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance is a follow-up and companion to last year's bestselling Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance. Once again, Jack Ross and Jan Kemp have selected and presented on two CDs material from the Waiata Recordings Archive, collected in 1974 and the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive, completed in 2004. There are more than two hours of poets reading their own work and the accompanying book prints the texts of the poems as they have been read. Selected bibliographies and short biographies for each poet are also included, as well as an appendix of variant readings. As Kemp and Ross write in their introduction, 'these recordings serve to remind us that we are not always a silent people'. Their diverse voices are a treasure.

Poems read aloud bring a new resonance to bare words and familiar texts; poems performed by their authors expand meaning further, enhancing the rightness of cadences and the exactness of language. In Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance some of New Zealand’s favourite poems, by our most celebrated poets, come vividly to life. It is exciting to hear R. A. K. Mason reading lines from ‘Be Swift O Sun’; fascinating to hear James K. Baxter declaiming ‘Poem in the Matukituki Valley’; and moving to hear Janet Frame reading new poems just months before her death. Editors Jack Ross and Jan Kemp have selected and presented on two CDs material from the Waiata Recordings Archive, collected in 1974, and the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive, completed in 2004. There are two hours of poets reading their own work and the accompanying book prints the texts of the poems as they have been read. Selected bibliographies and short biographies for each poet are also included, as well as an appendix of variant readings. The readings in Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance are some of the highlights of New Zealand’s poetic history, and these performances will refresh the interest of those to whom the poems are familiar and inspire those who are encountering these classic poems for the first time.

A collection of the work of 28 young and mid-career poets - who came to prominence in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s - notable for their variety, their fresh approaches to poetic form and subject - and their distinctive but complementary voices. This book is a companion to the bestselling Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance and Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance. It presents material from the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive, completed in 2004 - more than two hours of poets reading their own work. The accompanying book contains the texts of the poems as they have been read. Selected bibliographies and short biographies for each poet are also included, as well as an appendix of variant readings.