COMP CLOSED | Book Giveaway | No Other Place to Stand: An Anthology of Climate Change Poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand

Ninety-one writers with connections to these islands grapple with the biggest issue facing people and the planet.

What, then, for the work of poetry? It’s at the very periphery of popular speech, niche even among the arts, yet it’s also rooted in the most ancient traditions of oral storytelling, no matter where your ancestors originate from. And, as we were reminded by an audience member at the New Zealand Young Writers Festival in 2020, who are we to say poetry cannot change the world?

A poem may not be a binding policy or strategic investment, but poems can still raise movements, and be moving in their own right. And there is no movement in our behaviours and politics without a shift in hearts and minds. Whether the poems you read here are cloaked in ironic apathy or bare their hearts in rousing calls to action, they all arise from a deep sense of care for this living world and the people in it.

Our poets are eulogists and visionaries, warriors and worriers. Most of all, they’re ordinary people prepared to sit and stare at a blank page, trying to do something with the bloody big troubles looming over our past, present and future.

— from the introduction by the editors

ENDORSEMENTS

In the decades to come, when my grandchildren ask, ‘So what did you do when you knew?’ I want to be able to say, ‘As much as I could as soon as I could.’ Yes, I should have known sooner. Yes, I should have done more sooner. But the time for denial, delay, objection and obfuscation is past. No longer can we do as little as we can get away with. We need to aspire to do as much as we should. Poetry and these poems can inspire that action. Ināia tonu nei – the time is now.

— from the afterword by Dr Rod Carr, Chair, He Pou a Rangi / Climate Change Commission

Terms and conditions

1. 1. You must be a GrownUps member and receive our newsletter to be eligible to win.
   2. Competition closes on the 19th July 2022, winners will be notified via email by 21st July 2022.
   3. As a competition winner, you must confirm you have received our email notifying you of the win within three days. If we have not heard from you in three days the prize will be redrawn, and your prize will be forfeit.
   4. Winners are drawn at random by the GrownUps administration team.
   5. GrownUps employees and family are not eligible to enter.
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   8. Prize is non transferrable.
   9. You must reside in New Zealand – the prize will only be posted within New Zealand.
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