SMALL BOOKS
GOING
BIG PLACES
IN CHILE THERE'S A SAYING – UNDER EVERY STONE THERE'S A POET
LANDING PRESS WANTS TO TURN OVER THE STONES AND FIND POETS EVERYWHERE

Rebekah Burgess reads 'The fallout of transience' from More than a roof. Filmmaker: Emma Duncan.
The fallout of transience
Home tasted like soft
ferns in a courtyard
and smelt like solace
at the bottom of a gully.
Safety, where safe looks like
unlocked doors
and freedom to be.
Until a river came and took it.
Now home looks like exposed
timber and ripped
out kitchens
and huge piles of memories
taken to the dump.
Now home tastes like suitcases
and boxes and my girl's first steps
taken on someone else's carpet
and eating at someone else's table.
It's losing identity
and security
and moving every week.
Homelessness is not restricted
to the poor.
We were safe
until we weren't
uprooted,
stripped.
This poem was written to quantify the life-altering disruption of being left homeless by a natural disaster. To capture poignancy in very human moments is to give life meaning. I have published two books of poetry and my work has been published by Blackmail Press and Manawatu Standard.
- Rebekah Burgess
This poem is from our new book More than a roof.
Cannons creek 1963
Six months after Niue the wind
blows day and night between the
state house rows so we fight over
coins down the back of the sofa
here, in the land of clover and
honey where bulldozers growl
between back and forth clouds of
Waitangirua dust wet washing
spins round and round cigarette
clamped in our mother's frown
Dad's flowers and veggies blown all
over.
Left behind in the earthmovers'
scrape a brown undulating
government mistake.
Memories of a nine-year-old boy who found the weather and daily life so alien after six idyllic years on Niue Island.
- Rob Hack
This poem is from our new book More than a roof.
Generation renters
Up the price
Up the debt
Up the risk
Up the cost
Up the number
Up the demand
Up the expectation
Up the ladder
Up yours.
Up the public transport
Up the social housing
Up the community
Up the comfort
Up the culture
Up the homes
Up the parks
Up the ante
Up the art.
Sincerely yours.
– Kate Orgias
lingua franca
molten medals copper and coins
pour golden into the cast
a world peace bell
the world is one
the bell tolls a call to prayer
linked paper chains and paper cranes
take flight along metal rails
rainbow whirligigs cardboard hearts
clusters of candles with black wicks
lie among flowers rotting brown
3-D love signs peace signs flags and ferns
the gifts of supplication
messages run like tears into earth
autumn leaves bury outpourings
veiled now easily forgotten
call out our changeling souls
pour us golden in a new cast
the woman in flowing black
edges at her eyes
falls to her feet
kicks out in tiny puffs
as she walks into the hospital
lost for language I smile
dark irises answer
– Julianne Munro
Find more of Julianne's work in Somewhere a cleaner.
This poem is from one of the writers of our recently released book of poems by cleaners.
Haiku
Jerusalem birds
flying from mosques to churches
to synagogues
– Edna Heled
Find more of Edna's work in Somewhere a cleaner.
Here is another poem about cleaners from our book my wide white bed.
Today
the surgeon
did three knees
two hips
and a shoulder.
Today
the cleaner did
A & E at its slow time
5am, the gap between
last night’s accidents
and today’s emergencies.
She cleaned the admin offices
before they started work
and Coronary Care
and then Orthopaedics.
Now she says she’d do anything
to hop in the spare bed in our cubicle
for a few hours’ sleep.
Anything.
– Trish Harris
Find more of Trish's work in My wide white bed.
This poem is from our new book More than a roof and has been picked as The Friday Poem for The Spinoff
open plan living
The architect
David Chipperfield
said
a house is a private place
the frontier
between our
private comfort
and the first step
of where we meet people
I moved away last year
it was not comfortable
I met a French girl who said
home is where she breaks apart
so when she goes outside
she can keep herself together
maybe the four walls
contain her
maybe a body
is a container
We lived in a huge wooden house
when my family split
a parent left home, the house
looked the same
from the outside, I looked in
the structure still
standing, the wood split
and splintered
through the gaps
between slats
in my memory
I think it was already like that
Isn’t there a term in psychology
for when inside–outside doesn’t match?
some kind of
splitting
In the documentary about
the architects
they walk around, looking in
other people’s houses. It seems
to me that architects
live comfortably
and that the best homes have
a balance
between indoor–outdoor flow
whether you install French doors,
or find a quiet space
in the garden.
I began writing poetry during lockdown in France, and wrote this poem after watching Where Architects Live.
Poetry about housing seems apt given how much time we’ve all spent at home recently, and how much we’ve thought
about the spaces we inhabit. I moved back to Wellington in 2021 to study publishing at Whitireia.
- Anna Jackson-Scott
This poem is from our new book More than a roof.
conversation
My sister said,
I heard a house in Stratford
sold for 1.2 million.
In Stratford!
That's ridiculous.
I remember,
she said,
When that white house in Eltham
by the bridge
sold for one hundred thousand,
and we all said
That's ridiculous.
I’ve always loved poetry – reading, writing and teaching it – but this is my first published piece. I’m an almost-retired primary school teacher. Officially retired in fact, but I still do quite a bit of relieving. I spent some years doing amateur theatre and barbershop singing, but I’m now thinking that a new hobby awaits – writing poetry!
- Alison Kroon
Struck destitute for words
Words known to me trapped in my heart
I remember my mother who
Used words from a chat
and began a song!
A word would evoke a tune
in my mother tongue.
– Sevgi Ikinci
Find more of Sevgi's work in More of Us and Somewhere a cleaner.
No Standard
I have an extremely small shoe size.
‘You will not find your size anywhere in New Zealand.'
Nowhere to find my shoes in all
the shops around,
in the capital of New Zealand!
Luckily I found them online
just before my tramping
and walked the Milford Track
without blisters.
I am not the standard here
but I’m proud of my small size
and being accepted
in this beautiful tramping country.
– Kumiko
Find more of Kumiko's work in More of Us.
This poem is from our recently released book of poems by cleaners.
A fortune cookie
Somewhere a poet
is cleaning a bathroom.
Somewhere a cleaner
is writing a poem.
– Rachel McAlpine