Book Review: Manuali’i
September 12, 2025
The author weaves together ancestral Samoan knowledge and his own lived experience, strengthening the tether between the two.
The author weaves together ancestral Samoan knowledge and his own lived experience, strengthening the tether between the two.
Dedicated to showcasing the warm curiosity of love and the often clumsy devotion of desire, this collection is hilarious, erudite and HOT.
Chewing on anything juicy and sour and rich, these poems will roll on your tongue and get stuck in your teeth. DO IT!
Kersel invites the reader to inhale this collection in a way that allows the words to move through you and tether to an internal rhythm.
Neale’s writing is like those decadent liquor-filled chocolates that proliferate around the festival season.
Though long dead, Catullus is an accessible poet for the modern reader because he wrote candidly about love, jealousy, hate and politics.
These poems are agonising with a completely relatable feel. I can’t wait to see what Mason Gilbert brings next.
This collection is vulnerable and precise, travelling through and between the streets of Christchurch like a supercut of sweet memories.
John Allison has a gift for noticing the sweetness, finding gentleness everywhere and holding dear to a contemplative sentimentality.
These poems lead with an open heart, pleading with surrender and screaming for justice and anyone who is watching can feel Avia’s frustration.
If you haven’t read a poem since high school, or tried to but felt you were missing something – this is a brilliant place to start.
This collection, while painfully truthful and heartbreaking, is buoyed with a boundless and indomitable sense of celebration.
These poems deal in making small, ordinary moments beautiful; they deal in romance; they deal in friendship and delight.
These poems invite us to party with the Ātua to share wisdoms, laughter and deep connection that transcends time.