Fast Fibres Poetry 11 available from fastfibres@live.com
$15 one copy $20 two copies
Poetry by Vaughan Rapatahana, Bob Orr, Olivia Macassey, John Geraets, Tracie Lark, Alice Fairley, June Pitman-Hayes, Shelley Arlidge, Martin Porter, Vivian Thonger and many more talented Northlanders
Entering the time of orange we must invite
the albatross with wings of oceanic silver
scrawling clematis vines from Tutukaka headlands
nikau palms bursting hot with creamy ignitions
wahine of kakariki articulations and friends all violet
and friends all blue, childhood tastes of grapefruit, and plum,
our descendants carved from the obsidian night sky, harriers
that sweep past the open window,
We must invite our birthdays, each one and the months
with skeletal hands, faces in photographs, youngsters
with velvet wings and the ones with scarlet shoes, the cry
of grey herons, perfumes of trees happy in the stillness at sunrise,
and musicians of the macrocosm, luminous brides of Algeria
and curiosity like the morning, resurgent tree seeds that take
root in the rivers alluvium, uncles with soft hands of steel and
aunties overflowing with knitted woolen cardigans, the strange
yet familiar person waiting at the bus stop, the savage calls
of roosters, absence of the automobile, grandmothers
in swirling skirts baking scones, grandfathers growing
apocalypses of beans and whose potatoes spill as egg
like jewels from the black soil,
We must invite pohutukawa shade, the sweet smell of panforte
And we must invite Tangaroa
Live Encounters New Zealand edition April 2023
https://liveencounters.net/2023/04/09/live-encounters-aotearoa-new-zealand-poets-writers-april-2023/
Sorrow to stand and braid her hair
On nights of weeping children
When the map of stars shatters / ending all distances
A cascade of blue syllables fall from the fountain
I am alive between two commas
a ridge defining catchments
in summers blush of leaves on a kauri ricker
tui in a blossom burst pohutukawa
warming soil
tomato roots extruding through
like old friends meeting in a café
Live Encounters 'Love' February 2024
Like wide water
In the insinuations of limbs and colors of desire, ephemeral blues and braided beauties in the laughing sky, the soft call of spotted doves in the café beside the bluish purple lazy sea, a red and yellow flag
The day like wide water, processions of green fields and nonchalant clouds, dusty emotions on dry gravel roads, the succulent satisfaction of ripening plums, aromas of rapidly rising yeasty dough, eggs laid on the slow dusk of solstice, flies,the overnight sensation of courgettes and beans, the silken weaving of our afternoon siesta
Everything on the same level surface, without hierarchies, all priorities equal, spectra creating the music, light skidding across a crumpled cloth covering the heavy wooden table, the kaleidoscopic eyes of the landscape, the fractals of your mask spill unspoken glances through the summer shimmer, for an instants fraction, an invisible link unites us like the silence of glass, the lick of an ice-cream
Live Encounters 14th anniversary edition Nov/December 2023
https://liveencounters.net.2023-le-pw/nov-dec-le-pw-vol-3-2023/piet-nieuwland-like-wide-water/
We enter the by Piet Nieuwland
Copyright 2022, Cyberwit
Reviewed by LB Sedlacek
Thoughtful poems and ones of intense introspection permeate throughout this new collection from Nieuwland. The poems are prepared well, but often take the reader into an unexpected direction from the one expected making them a fascinating read.
Nieuwland writes in a gifted and lilting almost prose type of free verse with scattered bits of form included here and there. It is reminiscent of some of the classic poems by often revered poets. The poems are complete and balanced with a touch of guided originality which means they can stand on their own or within the confines of the book and work well either way.
The author almost melts images together. You will feel them dripping off the page as you read. These are definitely poems to be savored and embraced.
Nieuwland cleverly illustrates the human experience with these mostly free verse poems. The verses seem to operate within their own frequency, adapting to the subject at hand. Nieuwland’s voice is fresh, his images pour forth on the page loud and clear.
The book is divided into four different sections of poems. The author makes good use of spacing and lines.
These are poems of explanations and possibilities as well as vulnerabilities and ambitions. Themes seem to boil underneath the surface and come to light with the exact right timing. Nieuwland’s lines are subtle, but intricately composed.
This book is a calling card for nature, people, the soul and so much more. You will recognize the geography of the poem, you will recognize yourself, and you will embrace spirit, questions, and communion.
These are responsive poems, ones that will linger in your mind for some time. These are the types of poems readers can immerse themselves inside to really feel that connection and to explore all the possibilities each poem brings.
With Veronica Channel
The Spiral Lattice
Matariki is
It is not what Papatuanuku can do for you
But what you can do to help Papatuanuku
The pressure of our hands upon the earth
laying a predatory cat to rest under a thankful kohekohe seedling
chickens nesting a clutch of fertile eggs
your eyes full of the long summer
amongst the warrior trees flexing in the changing wind
when we walk down the road
as a different shade of sky folds over
and the blue distance draws near shadows
of clouds over the oceans heart beating
with the velocity of our dreams
and certain rivers swollen by misfortune
accelerating towards tipping points
with the scent of history lingering
like the fires of discontent
when we know everything is global, everything
in the turbid flux of slow falling fine humid rain
Includes my drawing WAIMA
NZ Poetry Society Journal Summer 2022
From author pietn@outlook.com
Poetry is not a luxury, it is a necessary part of the creativity of every day.
Piet Nieuwland has poems and flash fiction appear in numerous print and online journals published in New Zealand, Australia, United States of America, Canada, India and Germany.
He is a performance poet, edits Fast Fibres Poetry and lives near Whangarei.
In a previous life he worked as a conservation strategist for Te Papa Atawhai in Aotearoa/New Zealand
He welcomes email contact at pietn@outlook.com