Perch

Edited by Michelle Elvy

Ōtepoti Dunedin poets celebrate 10 years of our UNESCO City of Literature

Finally, a ta-da moment. The city.

It’s a wonderful moment: when you first see the great bowl of harbour and city from Pine Hill after a long drive south.

Perch is another ta-da moment. Sixty poets, often in brilliant collaboration, celebrate Ōtepoti Dunedin’s ten years as Aotearoa New Zealand’s UNESCO City of Literature. It’s rare to find a collection so infused with place: Dunedin’s moods, seasons, sounds, colours, present and past come alive with photographic clarity.
– James Norcliffe

ISBN: 978-1-0670089-3-2
Format: Paperback, A5, 100pp
RRP: NZ $25.00
Category: Poetry collection
Publication: 23 August 2024

About the book

This year, we celebrate ten years of Ōtepoti Dunedin as Aotearoa New Zealand’s UNESCO City of Literature, and 100 years of Janet Frame. Within these pages, readers will find original work from 60 writers: collaborative and individual poems, celebrated poets and new voices. The book also includes works by Janet Frame, Peter Olds, Elizabeth Brooke-Carr and Vincent O’Sullivan.

The book opens with a poem by Robert Sullivan and closes with Dunedin soundscapes. On every page between, there is something special about this place – our histories, our perspectives; the colours, rhythms and moods of our landscapes and our selves. Here in Ōtepoti, we have much to examine, and celebrate, from hills to harbour.

Cover art: Manu Berry

The city fits me like a balaclava… one collaborative piece observes, and while this slyly alludes to the weather, it also celebrates the warmth Dunedin’s writers feel for their southern city. Perch vindicates – if any vindication were needed – that Ōtepoti Dunedin has been justly dubbed a City of Literature.
– JAMES NORCLIFFE
2023 PRIME MINISTER’S AWARD FOR LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT IN POETRY

From the opening poem, with the book’s title, to the final poem’s nod to a night of celebration, Perch will capture your heart and imagination. This handsome volume, which gathers sixty extraordinary poets, is dedicated to Ōtepoti, and the city reverberates in each stanza. Whether you’re from Ōtepoti or just visiting, these astonishing poems will make you laugh and cry and everything in between. And if you don’t know the city yet, you soon will!
– NICKY PAGE
KAITOHU HE PUNA AUAHA | DIRECTOR CITY OF LITERATURE
ŌTEPOTI HE PUNA AUAHA | DUNEDIN UNESCO CITY OF LITERATURE

Contents

Poem for Ōtepoti

    Robert Sullivan

Dunedin Poem

    Janet Frame

A Water Cycle

    Susan Wardell & Kirstie McKinnon

Anzac Avenue

    Majella Cullinane

Double Vision

    Carolyn McCurdie & Emma Neale

Driving to lit city

    Linda Collins & Brenda Finlayson

Explore a breadth of Dunedin, long-stemmed and outstanding

    Kim Cope Tait & Liz Breslin

Blacks Road Grocer Cafe Poem for Two

    Tui Bevin & Lissa Moore    

Hereweka

    Samantha Montgomerie    

Shoes and Stars

    Jillian Sullivan & Brian Turner

Dream no. 4: Blooming

    Lola Elvy

From Hills to Harbour

    Eliana Gray & Iona Winter

Bananas at Broad Bay

    Anna Hoek-Sims                                                                                                                                                       

Ninox 

    Jasmine O M Taylor   

This city fits

    Mikaela Nyman & Pam Morrison

Chapters of Downpour

    Ocean Jade, Hugo Todd, Bram Casey, Tunmise Adebowale & Shima Jack

Middlemarch to Dunedin State Highway 87

    Bill Direen

Dunedin Sound

    David Howard & Victor Billot

The Steepest Street in the World

    David Eggleton

On the Peninsula

    Sandie Forsyth & Penelope Todd

Towards Whatever it is that Keeps Things Apart

    Lynley Edmeades

Sheepish Vigil

    Claire Lacey

Dunedin, Part one and two

    Kay McKenzie Cooke & Lynda Scott Araya

The Soldier and the Poet                                                             

    Claire Beynon, with Elizabeth Brooke-Carr

In which the Royal Albatross sings to the Spade-toothed Whale 

    Bethany G Rogers & Sara Litchfield

Kōkako

    Robyn Maree Pickens

4am

    Rushi Vyas

Fog and For the Orokonui Ecosanctuary

    Richard Reeve & David Kārena-Holmes

Ōwheo

    Sue Wootton

The Callers

    Annie Villiers & Fiona Farrell

Delight, too, after Delight

    Philip Temple, with Vincent O’Sullivan

Auscultating New Edinburgh

    Nicola Thorstensen & Sophia Wilson

Beach party at 55, after The blue horse

    Jenny Powell, with Peter Olds

On the cliff

    Megan Kitching

Way Up South

    Cilla McQueen

All these sounds, morn to moon

    Michelle Elvy & Diane Brown