National Poetry Day (NZ)

Red Room Poetry news

"Poetry is a form of self expression for me. There are not many other art forms you can use to express so much of yourself on such a small canvas. whether its your phone, a piece of torn paper, the back of your hand, it's so accessible and so easy to create." Khadro Mohamed

Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day (New Zealand) is returning Friday 25 August!

First established in 1997, New Zealand's Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day sets the nation alight with poetic performances appearing in churches, bookshops, libraries and out on the streets.

To celebrate poetry in our region as part of Poetry Month we spoke with two Ockham award-winning Aotearoa poets Khadro Mohamed and Alice Te Punga Somerville about poetry - what it means to them, and who their favourite poets are.

"Poetry to me is a way of expressing things without having to fill in all the gaps or hammer down all the edges. The best bits in poetry are the bits that happen off the page: the metaphors, the points of connection, the things left unsaid or unspeakable." says Alice.

For Khadro, poetry is a world of things, "I use it to release stress, to immerse myself in the world around me, to have a good laugh, to research...but most importantly, poetry is a form of self expression."

Why not get in the spirit of Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day and take a look at Khadro and Alice's full poetic reflections and video poems or read a poem from Aotearoa NZ Poet Laureate Chris Tse, comissioned as part of 30in30.