Showcase
Verb: Anthologising in Action: A poetry showcase

A fleeting moment on the stage, a meeting point of poetry, a weaving together of words. In this showcase, eight poets craft an anthology of work to exist just this once. With host Nathan Joe, we welcome locals Jake Arthur, Hinemoana Baker (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Āti Awa, Ngāi Tahu), romesh dissanayake, Tessa Keenan (Te Ātiawa)and Stacey Teague (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāpuhi), as well as visiting international poets Elaine Feeney (Ireland), Hasib Hourani (Australia) and Jenni Fagan (Scotland) to take the spotlight and create this new collection together.

Presented as part of Verb Readers and Writers Festival 2024, for which Satellites is a supporting partner.

Nathan Joe 周润豪 is a Chinese-Kiwi playwright and performance poet based in Tāmaki Makaurau. He was the recipient of the 2021 Bruce Mason Playwriting Award and the 2020 National Poetry Slam Champion. His best known work Scenes from a Yellow Peril premiered at the ASB Waterfront Theatre in 2022 and recently had its Australian premiere at Queensland Theatre as part of DOOR 3. He is also the curator behind DIRTY PASSPORTS, a BIPOC spoken word lineup show. His latest work, A Short History of Asian New Zealand Theatre, blends cultural criticism, personal essay and spin class in live performance.

Jake Arthur is the author of Tarot (2024) and A Lack of Good Sons (2023), included in the NZ Listener’s Best Poetry of 2023. His poems have appeared in Best New Zealand Poems, Sport, Turbine and Sweet Mammalian, among others. He is a teacher working in Pōneke and holds a PhD in Renaissance literature and translation from Oxford University.

Poet and performer Hinemoana Baker traces her ancestry from Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Āti Awa and Ngāi Tahu, as well as from England and Germany. Her four poetry collections, several original music albums and other sonic and written work have seen her on stages and pages in many countries around world for the last 25 years, and she has lived in Berlin, Germany for the last nine years. Her most recent poetry collection, Funkhaus, was shortlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. She is 2024's Randell Cottage writer in residence at the historic homestead in Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara.

Tessa Keenan (Te Ātiawa) is from Taranaki and is now based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Her debut chapbook 'Pukapuka mapi / Atlas' was published earlier this year as part of AUP New Poets 10. You can also find her writing in various Aotearoa publications including Starling, Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook and The Spinoff.

romesh dissanayake is a Sri Lankan and Koryo Saram writer, poet and chef from Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. His work explores ideas of identity, migration, decolonisation and place. romesh's poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in various print and online publications. His first novel, When I open the shop, was the winner of the 2022 Modern Letters Fiction Prize and is published by Te Herenga Waka University Press. His chapbook poetry collection, ‘Favourite Flavour House’, is featured in AUP New Poets 10 published by Auckland University Press. He has cooked at Mabel's Burmese Eat and Drink Shop and Rita in Aro Valley.

Stacey Teague (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāpuhi) is a poet and teacher living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She is a publisher and editor at Tender Press. Her second poetry collection Plastic was published by Te Herenga Waka University Press in March 2024.

Elaine Feeney is a writer from the west of Ireland. Her 2020 debut novel, As You Were, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award, and won the Kate O'Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize, and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. Feeney has published three collections of poetry including The Radio Was Gospel and Rise, and her short story ‘Sojourn’ was included in The Art of The Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories, edited by Sinéad Gleeson. Feeney lectures at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Her novel, How to Build a Boat, was longlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize.

Hasib Hourani is a Lebanese-Palestinian writer, editor, arts worker and educator living on unceded Wangal Country. His 2021 essay, ‘when we blink’ was shortlisted in the Liminal and Pantera Press Nonfiction Prize and appears in the anthology, Against Disappearance. His debut book, rock flight, was released in 2024 with Giramondo (AU) and Prototype (UK), and will be released with New Directions (US) in April 2025.

Jenni Fagan is a poet, novelist and screenwriter, who has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She was selected as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists after the publication of her debut novel, The Panopticon (2012), which was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the James Tait Black Prize. The Sunlight Pilgrims (2016), her second novel, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award and the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award and saw her win Scottish Author of the Year at the Herald Culture Awards. In 2022, Polygon published her most recent novel, Hex, and The Bone Library, a new poetry collection written during her time as a Writer in Residence at the Dick Vet Bone Library.