'No rough verses' from I, Clodia, by Anna Jackson

'Poroporoaki to the Lord My God: weaving the Via Dolorosa' by Anahera Gildea

Ekphrasis in response to Walk (Series C) by Colin McCahon

I. Bro, I noticed the absence of korowai at your tangi

II. I have made you this kahu-kuri. A taonga

for the Nga Mokai peoples and their descendants.
I have just now taken it off the line and
folded it with the sun still fresh on its limbs.

III. The unsteady warps and welts of this cloak have

Symbols that make up the breaking girl by Helen Rickerby

First comes feet, on tippy tippy

toe � a stretching, a reaching
for approval, perfection, a cracking
a creaking, a split and a snap, but nothing
that a good length of tape and some newly brokenin shoes can�t fix, shoes with the insides torn
out like an inquisition, then beaten and slashedlittle dancers, little digits, they carry her away



The next, a cliche�, but an oldy and a goody,

From Bird Murder by Stefanie Lash

Tusk

Tusk was settled by rogue miners.
They went too far up-creek, there was no gold, they were lost.
They found instead the coloured stones.

The women are most industrious in tusk
and the children hop from house to house.
Perhaps because of the minerality of the River tusk

children�s hair will colour as they age.
Purple is the predominant hue; some boys turn green.
The huge prismatic

I hear you singing in the next room by Helen Rickerby

I hear you singing in the next room



It is more than not being alone



We cook together and eat

from blue bowls



Sometimes I am the wise one


sometimes you



The night we met, we both

kissed the same boy



You write �I love you� in the condensation

on the window



I lead you into luxury and indolence



We walk to the zoo and promise the animals

No time like the '80s/ No future by Airini Beautrais

from Dear Neil Roberts

In 1989, my dad gets knocked off his motorbike.
He gets a court summons, to testify against the driver.
Because she is brown, and my dad has decided
the justice system is racist, he rips up the summons.

(A few weeks earlier, a housebreaker (brown)
who happened to be a father of six,
was shot dead by a neighbour (white)
who was let off).

Dad rips up his summons on the

'Crayfish' by Fleur Adcock

Of course with all those legs they�re arthropods �
crayfish, lobsters and their armoured ilk.
At school one day a bunch of us nipped out
in our lunch-break and bought a prickly hulk
to have our way with, rip apart and crunch.

It was like eating a pterodactyl �
morally, I mean, in retrospect �
but the sea-drenched jelly when I snapped
a leg from the carapace, cracked it and sucked in
ecstasy� no,