Poet Lucy Dougan describes my poems as ‘conversations’...And it is true, the mysteries, emotional atmosphere and memorable lines of others do inspire me and I often address others in my poems. The poet in me also keeps up a conversation with the filmmaker. Sometimes I think of the films as poems and visa versa. Loosely conceived as a series of scenes, an early poem of mine, 'Urn', became my first film. You can watch it here, Urn (1995). 

I have been publishing since 1989 when Victoria University Press's Sport accepted three of my prose-poems for its launch issue.  More recent publications include Te Pūrere / The Exodus: The Anthology of Expatriate New Zealand Poets, 2026, A Game of Two Halves: The Best of Sport 2005-2019 (2025), Landfall 233 (70th Anniversary Issue), Contemporary Feminist Australian Poetry 2016, Australian Poetry Anthology, Vol. 5, 2016, Red Room's The Disappearing 2.0, Sport 41, Cordite, Otoliths and Best New Zealand Poems 2010. You can read a selection of my recent poems online or to purchase my chapbook Small-time Spectre, for $75 incl postage, contact me here.
 

poetry book

My first poetry collection, Small-time Spectre is a fine print, hardback edition of 75 from Kilmog Press, Dunedin (2010). Peter Boyle (Ghostspeaking) has written of Small-time Spectre, ‘These really are wonderful poems—lively, inventive, full of energy, pointing towards stories, lives, people without ever being over-obvious or generating the sense that I've heard this before.’  I recently discovered I have three left of my unsold writer’s stock—last of imprint remaining! (See contact above to purchase). You can read the title poem at  Best New Zealand Poems 2010,  (International Institute of Modern Letters), and ‘Red Fields, Paris’, ‘Dark Side, Katoomba’, and ‘White Tiger’ at  All Together Now: A Digital Bridge for Auckland and Sydney 2010, (New Zealand Electric Poetry Centre).

SELECT poems & a SONG

Click on the links in bold to read:
’Man Flicking Free of Feet, Traffic’, Heat 19 Series 3, May 2025
’Imaginary Cinema’, ‘Forest Lawn’, Rocheford Street Review, December 2025
’things I left out', Cordite 87: Difficult, 1 August 2018
‘Umbrella’, The Disappearing 2.0 , Red Room 2016
'Animal Caution', Contemporary Australian Feminist Poetry, Hunter Publishers 2016
Imaginary Cinema, Cordite 50.0: No Theme, 1 May 2015
‘Tea Dances of this World’, Cordite 43.0: Masque, 1 September 2013
‘Birthday’, Sport, vol. 41, 2013
‘Easter’, ‘Genealogy’, ‘Ditty’, Otoliths, Southern Autumn 2013
‘Door-snake’, NZ Books: A Quarterly Review, 1 September 2009
‘Freedom Song’, originally written for my short feature film ‘Floodhouse’, rereleased by Amanda Brown, Eight Guitars album, May 2023

RECENT AWARDs + READINGS

Val Vallis Award for an Unpublished Poem 2016, Second Equal for the poem 'Spider Silk' Cordite, 20 September 2016
Te Purere/The Exodus launch, Poetry Sydney @ Stanley Street Gallery, December 2025
#Embrace Equity, Women Poets on International Women’s Day, Sheffer Gallery for Poetry Sydney, March 2023
Avant Gaga, Sappho Books,November 2018