The Ultimate Reader of Love for the Book

The Anthology of 52 poets will be free from posters after August 14th until the end of the month. If you can read the QR code download a copy. If not, you can pick up a hard copy in hundreds of cafés throughout New Zealand during National Poetry week.

The poets are concerned about the savaging of our national books collections. That is what is happening at our own National Library in Wellington. The Anthology of Love for the Printed Book contains honoured laureates, winners of Prime Ministers Awards, Robert Burns Fellows, researchers, journalists and young budding poets.

Dame Fiona Kidman, C.K. Stead, David Eggleton (poet laureate), Mike Johnson, Peter Olds of the south, Murray Edmond, Michael O'Leary, John Allison, Mark Pirie, David Howard, Roger Hickin, Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, Karl Wolfskehl (a special translation by world authority Friedrich Voit), Olivia Macassey, Richard Reeve, Brian Turner, Landfall editor Lynley Edmeades; Associate Professor Peter Simpson.

David Karena-Holmes author of Te Reo Mâori―the Basics Explained (2020), Octagon Poetry Collective's Carolyn McCurdie, Richard Reeve of Warrington finds Bill Pearson "sleeping rough between copies of 70s romance novels". Cilla McQueen remembers the fight to save Aramoana from a proposed smelter some years ago.

Editor Bill Direen tells a fairy tale satire. Kiwi David Herkt, winner of Australia's Wesley Wright Poetry Prize, sees the library as an ark, saving, not destroying, printed books. Dunedin's conceptual artist Scott Flanagan ventures into print.

Graham Reid writes about his childhood reading delights. Fellow Aucklander Anne Kennedy gives us a poem of outrage. Auckland Professor Lisa Samuels offers a skipping poem 'The Archive Bird', specifically for this collection. Other Aucklanders: Michael Morrissey (editor of The New Fiction), the creative writing teacher Dr. Jack Ross (Massey University), Richard von Sturmer, author of 'There is No Depression in New Zealand'.

Christchurch's Christine Dann makes a plea for good sense. Jeffrey Paparoa Holman tells of a writing class for inmates at Paparua Prison. All the cities and regions are represented. A staggering array of local and national talent, a work of love for the printed book can be picked up from hundreds of cafés around New Zealand, thanks to Phantom Billstickers, NZ's #1 conveyor of events information to the public.

Zap a QR code and you will have a version on your phone to read on Phantom Poetry Day, August 27th. Or get down to your local café for a free copy at the end of August.

Grab a sneak preview of the Anthology on the No Disposals' website.