In journals and pubs, on TikTok and the bestseller lists, the current generation of New Zealand poets is finding new voices, new platforms and new readers. It is a poetry of now: of emojis and hashtags, of bodies and flesh, of identity and aspiration.

How to take the measure of this new rush of poetic energy, invention and disruption? What new aesthetics emerge alongside these new voices? How might old forms and old questions take the pulse of the new? Te Whariki provides a first reading of this exciting moment by weaving together the work of ten contemporary poets from Aotearoa with new critical writing that makes sense of these poets and their poems.

Pulling these strands together in one volume, Te Whariki is as dynamic, various and engaging as New Zealand poetry is today.

Featuring poets Sam Duckor-Jones, Tayi Tibble, Claudia Jardine, essa may ranapiri, Rebecca Hawkes, Chris Tse, Oscar Upperton, Joanna Cho, Ruby Solly and Nafanua Purcell Kersel, with new critical writing by Amy Marguerite, Tru Paraha, Anna Jackson, Robert Sullivan, Mark Masterson, Stephanie Burt, Dani Yourukova, Dougal McNeill, Sophie van Waardenberg, Brigid Quirke, Robin Peters and David Eggleton.