Katikati local features in poetry reading on arts festival website

Katikati resident and businesswoman Fiona Boylan features in this week’s Home-made Poetry web post by the Tauranga Arts Festival.

The festival, which has cancelled this year’s Escape! Event at Queen’s Birthday weekend, has used the Covid-19 lockdown to offer a webbased ‘arts at home’ line-up, including locals reading work by New Zealand poets.

Two Home-made Poetry videos are posted each Monday and this week Fiona, co-owner of incredible edibles, read by Nelson poet Louise

Wallace, and Mt Maunganui landscape architect Richard Hart read by Jan Hutchison of Auckland.

They join readers, including

Pa¯ pa¯ moa chess player Bob Smith, Tauranga garage owner Sandra Phillips, former Tauranga Girls’ College drama teacher Debby Meldrum and former Ma¯ ori All Black captain Errol Brain.

Poets include Glenn Colquhoun, Alison Wong (based in Australia), Tauranga-raised Leonard Lambert and Bob Orr of the Thames Coast, as well as previous Poet Laureates Brian Turner and Elizabeth Smither.

“You deserve a round of applause for doing this,” said Brian from his home in Central Otago.

Poems have been chosen and matched with readers by the festival’s literary programmer Sandra Simpson.

All lockdown rules have been observed while making the recordings — some have been DIY, while others have been filmed by people isolating in the same bubble.

■ To see Home-made Poetry go to taurangafestival.co.nz. Audio recordings from the Escape! 2018 speaker sessions are also available.