CONTRIBUTORS

David Eggleton

David Eggleton lives in Dunedin, New Zealand and was the Aotearoa New Zealand Poet Laureate between August 2019 and August 2022. The Wilder Years: Selected Poems, was published by Otago University Press in 2021, and Respirator: A Laureate Collection 2019-2022 was published by Otago University Press in 2023. He is a co-editor of Katūīvei: Contemporary Pasifika Poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand, published by Massey University Press in 2024. His poetry chapbooks include Mundungus Samizdat (2024), and his most recent poetry collection Lifting the Island was published by Red Hen Press in Pasadena, California in 2025.

The Troll Kingdom

I’m shunned by the sun and hated by the wind. I’m gifted a cyclone and hurled through a twister. I’m auty. I’m a spy. I smell musky. I lack empathy. I’m feeling self-righteous. I dance like Saint Vitus. I’m vituperation. …

Posted in 118: PRECARIOUS | Tagged

Flying In, Southside

At Mangere the airport welcomes you to Middle Earth, coasting on a jet’s wing and a karakia, but the industrial parkland unfolds as generic, though ’nesian mystics harmonise snatches of melody on Bader Drive by the fale-style churches of Little …

Posted in 71: TOIL | Tagged

Spidermoon

The spidermoon burns reddish-yellow yolky, sleepwalking through nightfields, a spinner’s tranced orb. Trapezes drift on silk bolas. Strands carry them a long way to spokes, sticky spirals, guyed trapdoors. Wakefulness in shadows at dawn; soft, quivering snuffle of a muzzle …

Posted in AOTEAROA | Tagged