Tuesday poem over on the Tuesday Poem, and Hawke's Bay poetry conference

I'm the editor of the Tuesday Poem blog this week. I always enjoy having the opportunity to share a poem I love, and this time I've chosen a poem, 'No time like the ‘80s/ No future' by Airini Beautrais, from the latest issue of JAAM, which has just come back from the printers and is filling up a large area of my dining room. It's a great issue, guest edited by Harvey Molloy (poetry) and Clare Needham (prose), and I hope you will get yourself a copy. You could even subscribe and we will send it to your letterbox!

In other news, I'm just back from a poetry conference in the Hawke's Bay. It was organised to celebrate the 20th (or maybe 21st) anniversary of their Live Poets Society group. It was such a lovely conference with a really good, open, sharing feeling. There was such a variety of poets - different ages and levels of experience, and totally different styles of poetry. And very democratic. The only poet who got longer than anyone else to read was Vincent O'Sullivan as the poet laureate. All the rest of us invited readers only got 10 minutes - strictly enforced!

I got to read my poetry on Saturday night, and I was also involved in a panel discussion about what editors want (what don't we want!) yesterday morning. Due to poor time management and having too much to say, I think I only said about half of what I wanted to say. So I have an idea I might write it up as a blog post.